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Lean In

Lean In is a necessary read for anybody interested in performance and how to make our society more successful. Written by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, the book contains a great deal of wisdom and interesting anecdotes about women and the workforce. For example, she is the “female” COO of Facebook, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg is just CEO. There is no such thing as “male” CEO because this is viewed as the norm – and statistically it is.

Indeed, the statistics are frightening: women account for 21 of the Fortune 500 CEOs, 14% of executive officer positions, 17% of board seats, and 18% of elected congresspeople. Perhaps the most famous, and alarming, statistic is that women make less than men in equivalent positions. The numbers are worth repeating: in 1970 women in America made 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. As of 2010, through all of our society’s reform and enlightenment, women make 77 cents for each dollar men make.

40 years and 18 cents.

How much better could our society perform if all contributions were valued equally?

Sandberg graciously focuses the book less on what men have done wrong and more on how we all can make steps to correct this injustice and ineffectiveness. It is an essential read for all of us interested in a higher performing society – women and especially men.

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Curious? II

Another interesting quote from Todd Kashdan’s book:

“Many prodigies in a wide variety of disciplines start off by playing music, writing poetry, or shooting hoops because it feels good, but this pleasure is often obliterated by the pressure to succeed. Basically, when curiosity and interest disappear, the benefits go with them.” (p. 37)

Although few of us are prodigies, most of us can probably relate to the inherent pleasure of an activity at times (or often) being undermined (or overwhelmed) by a focus on results. (I believe it is the focus on results, not this kind of success, that Kashdan is talking about)

Do you think the golfer that is cursing at his clubs starting golfing as a way to increase his anger or because he enjoyed figuring out why it is so hard to hit the ball straight?

Did the doctor that is now rolling her eyes at her patient choose the profession hoping to be jaded by people or because she was interested in helping others and solving mysterious ailments?

Reconnecting with the curiosity that led to our professions and performance domains can help us reclaim what we found to be so interesting about them in the first place. And then you’ll perform better, just as when you first became curious. And then you’ll be more likely to get caught up in results….only this time maybe you’ll remember that curiosity is what allowed the results to happen in the first place. Isn’t that curious?

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Trust: Mastery

What do you expect your performance to look like over time? Many of us hope for something like this:

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Unfortunately, that is not reality. In his excellent book Mastery, George Leonard suggests that the path to mastery looks like this:

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Not exactly what most of us hope for. Certainly not what most of us are patient and trusting enough to stick with when we are stuck on another plateau.

Yet this is the only path to mastery of any skill: gradual improvements followed by periods of seeming stagnation (sometimes even declines as we learn new skills/techniques necessary for improvement) prior to an outward expression of learning. The outward expression is the key phrase there. Certainly learning and improvement are happening the entire time we are on the plateau. But because we do not get the rewards (both internal and external) of improvements in performance, we tend to despise the plateau and get frustrated.

Trust involves learning to love the plateau. Knowing that this is the time you are preparing yourself for another little breakthrough in performance. Even more that that, it is your time with your performance. No distractions from the joys (and sometimes burdens) and attention that come with increased performance. Reconnect with your passion and inspiration for your performance. Know that another improvement is inevitably coming if you stick with it. Know that others will drop out while they are on the plateau.

Trust the mastery process. Trust yourself. Love the plateau.

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Focus: Confidence

Confidence, or lack thereof, is one of the most common challenges that sport & performance psychology consultants are asked to assist with. In order to address confidence, it is first necessary to understand it. Simply put, confidence is pre-knowing that you are capable of meeting the demands of the task/challenge you are facing. Confidence is different from arrogance or cockiness, which are both more often an overreaction to uncertainty: not knowing that you are capable of meeting demands and attempting to cover this up with (over) assurance. Another key difference is that confidence is internally focused, about knowing what you can do. Arrogance and cockiness are externally focused, falsely thinking that you are better than some external opponent or criterion. This is an important distinction because I have seen many people sabotage their confidence because they did not want to be perceived as cocky or arrogant. Because confidence is internally focused (self confidence), there is no risk of true confidence being misperceived as arrogance or cockiness.

Perhaps surprisingly, confidence can effectively be built through two points of focus. Of course, this does not mean it is easy to be consistently confident, but these are the tools to begin building your skill of confidence. These points are once again thanks to Dr. Rick McGuire.

1) Competence Builds Confidence

If you want to feel confident, the first step is to actually develop your skill so you have something to be confident in. While this may seem self-evident, we have all seen people attempting something where they clearly are not highly skilled still become frustrated that they are not performing as well as they “should.” The person on the basketball court that screams and curses every time the shot is missed…on the golf course cursing out their clubs for every shanked shot…the tennis court…the boardroom…the performance stage. Unfortunately for these folks, they are performing exactly as they “should” because they have not put in the time to build competence. Develop your skill, realistically appraise your skill level, adjust your expectations accordingly (you are not the person on TV for a reason), and watch your confidence blossom.

2) Focus Confidence on the Performance, Not the Outcome

In short, this means that even when we are capable of doing something it is not always going to turn out the way that we would like. This is the reason sports and performances are so captivating. We never know what is going to happen. It is also the reason so many people feel like their confidence is a mysterious force that comes and (more often) goes. If your confidence is wrapped up in outcomes, then just like outcomes sometimes it will be there and sometimes it will not. Do this long enough, and it is not there very often because we are constantly reminded of the unpredictable nature of performance, and this undermines our outcome-focused confidence. Focusing on the performance, on the other hand, puts confidence directly in our control. While we may not always get the outcome that we desire, we can always have a successful performance. Through our effort and will we can deliver all the capability that we have to deliver, and perform to the best of our capabilities on that particular day, at that particular event. Focusing on success will develop consistency in both our performances and our confidence.

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Decisive

While not intentional, the book I finished this past week went hand in hand with Intuition. We need to be able to trust our intuition when we do not have the luxury of time, but when we have at least 5 minutes to make a decision that is where Decisive comes in. Another excellent book following Made to Stick and Switch from the Heath Brothers, Decisive offers quick and sound advice on how we can make better decisions. Certainly making great choices and decisions is a vital part of performance excellence, and as usual the Heaths offer a pragmatic approach simplified to WRAP: Widen your options, Reality-test your assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, and Prepare to be wrong.

Amongst much useful advice, I found two ideas particularly salient to performance. The first has to do with widening your options and understanding how we normally make decisions. The Heaths demonstrate that our decisions usually come down to whether or not to do one thing. Some examples would be whether or not to…continue my relationship, start a new training plan, give up on my dream, etc. What they found is that when you can add one additional choice, you are 6 times more likely to make a good decision. This can be as simple as thinking “and” rather than “or.” What whether or not decisions are you considering? Can you add one more (realistic) option by thinking creatively?

The other idea that could immediately impact your performance is to reality test your assumptions. The great example here was in selecting members for a 4 X 100 relay team. Would you rather put the potential sprinters on the track and see how they perform together or sit them in a room and see if they answer your questions like a good relay runner would? Seems laughable, but which method is more similar to your process of making personnel decisions? There are many ways this idea can influence performance in addition to people choices. When you are considering particular strategies or tactics, can you find a way to reality test them? Can you find a way to invest a little into a decision before you have to invest a lot?

If you are interested in making better decisions during the Performance of Your Life, give Decisive a read.