Posts from — December 2007

Welcome back to the 10 steps to success – overcoming roadblocks and applying lessons learned from performance management. Today’s step talks about roadblock #:

6. Low Energy, health or fitness

Vince Lombardi proclaimed: “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

Michael Angier says about this roadblock: “In order to have the energy and stamina to win, we need to take care of our bodies. Get adequate rest, eat the right foods and refrain from careless and unsafe behavior. Our achievement is our production. Our bodies, our minds, and our intuition make up our production capacity. If we don’t properly care for ourselves, we’ll be unable to produce.”

We all know that this is true. Production on the other hand is not just a physical thing; it is also a mental thing. Our thoughts are products of our work. Our ideas are products of our thoughts. We have thousands and thousands of them every day and only a few get actually used and applied. On the other hand we use experience and what we stored in our memory to make judgments, determine how to react, or how much focus we need to put on something.

In some cases we develop habits that allow us to multi-task. We use the formed habit and let our sub-conscious mind execute it while we use our conscious mind to monitor and focus on other things. For our coaching and performance management systems at AMC LLC, we have developed a language and terminology revolving around vehicles. We are talking about throttle drivers that get you ahead, brake drivers that hold you back, and a drive scale that serves as the tachometer.

Staying within this language and attempting to explain the use of habits while doing other things, think of yourself driving down an interstate or major highway you use frequently. Over time you have learned how your vehicle sounds at certain speeds, how it feels going down that road at that speed, how much or little steering it takes to be safe, and many other details involving driving. The first time you ever came down that part of the road in this particular vehicle, you probably paid attention to your speed, the surroundings, the sounds, the signs, everything that would help you find your way. Now, after driving that same stretch many times over, you know it, have memorized it, and your sub-conscious is taking over. That allows you to think about issues at work, in your family, ideas you had, a story you read in a book or on this blog. Only when the situation drastically deviates from what you are used to form the time you formed the habit, will you focus back on the driving itself. I am pretty sure most of you can relate, either with this example or similar ones. Feel free to send me comments and let me know which example of habit forming leading to shifted focus works best for you.

In case you are wondering, this phenomenon is also the cause of many accidents when it rains on a stretch of road for the first time in a long time, or snows, or ice forms. Those using the same road all the time fail to recognize the difference because their focus in not really on driving. We might think they should be the most experienced ones on the road, but in reality they pay less attention to the conditions then anybody on that road for the first time.

Now that we have established how health and fitness applies not only to physical health, but also to mental health and fitness, meaning that you need to build and maintain the capacity to multi-task, we can look at one of the performance drivers that fits well here. We call it the Skeptical Performance Driver.

“People high in the Skeptical Driver may take opposite sides in discussion–disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Their real intention is to try to get people to think or prove what they are expressing - however their motives are often misunderstood. They tend to be resistant to change, display negative thinking and feel resentment when they think they are being told what to do. People high in the Skeptical Driver often alienate people due to their insensitive and challenging comments. It can erode self-esteem and hinder their ability to connect with others. The Skeptical Driver is based out of insecurity and creates a false independence, which is often confused with Ambition. Moderate levels of the Skeptical Driver however have good results in task performance since it serves as a tool for self-screening one‘s own work. People who possess moderate levels of the Skeptical Driver also add levity and humor to most situations.”

Please don’t make the mistake to think that people with a high skeptical driver are bad or inattentive. Their focus is different, that’s all. If they work on their health and fitness and get some coaching to turn the skepticism into ambition and confidence, they can be most successful.

Bottom line, keep yourself fit and healthy, both physically and mentally and you have a better chance to become successful.

Axel Meierhoefer, President AMC LLC

Dear frequent readers and visitors to my blog. We have reached the first Christmas together. What an amzing ride. I can’t believe how fast the time went by.

Today, on Christmas Eve, I decided not to write about success, leadership, personal development, self-improvement, or the raodblocks. Today I like to focus on you and thank you for your visits, your reading, and your patience with this blog.

 I am trying to make it better and better over time. I hope you bear with me as AMC is growing and we will attempt to include more ways to offer deep, impactful, and useful content.

My team and I at AMC try to give the best we have to you all the time. In my sign off for my academic community, I always use this identification: