Re-energise your leadership
28th August 2014
Being 'in the Zone' |
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What does this mean for leaders in organisations?
When being interviewed after top performances many sports people talk about having been “in the zone”.
Is it relevant to you and your organisation?
From time to time when you are doing what you really enjoy, you may be aware that time has passed and you have been so focused on what you are doing that it is as if you have not been aware of anything else. You may have experienced a sense of your mind, body and emotions being jointly and simultaneously engaged.
In common with athletes, people in organisations also experience optimal levels of performance but without any sense of trying or making something happen. It is as if whatever we are doing comes naturally and effortlessly. It is that state that Steve Bull describes in “The Game Plan”, his excellent book on mental toughness, as
“totally comfortable with who you are and what you are really good at.”
Top sports people spend hours preparing and receiving help with techniques like visualising and focusing. They also practise a lot, as well as take down time to switch off and allow the batteries to re-charge.
In organisations, your time is so much in demand that visualising and focusing sound like luxuries reserved for the occasional off-site! People move from one meeting to another for the entire day with a brief moment to prepare and hardly any time after to take stock. Schedules become so full, calls are booked in the few windows available between meetings.
This organisational whirlpool that can suck us all in to hyper-activity does prompt some important questions.
- How prepared are we?
- How focused are we?
- How well are we performing?
Marcus Buckingham in his book “First Break All the Rules – What Great Managers Do Differently”, talks about the importance of playing to one’s strengths,“making sure we do a little of what we love doing every day.”
I would like to suggest that before many of us can do this we need to get back to understanding what it is we really love doing in the first place.
Ask yourself -
"Is the way in which you are spending your time and using your energy really helping you “get in the zone?"
In our work with leaders, whether on development programmes or in individual coaching, individuals are encouraged to reflect on how much of the time they spend working is actually spent “in the zone”. This question often gets to the root of the challenge for many people.
Hopefully, they will be in a job that has the potential to get them “in the zone” but the way they end up doing it reduces the likelihood of that ever happening. The symptoms are easy to spot. Their impact on the organisation diminishes, their edge is lost, performance drops and results begin to suffer. Helping them take stock and reflect on what they love doing and why they were drawn to the role in the first place is a great way to stimulate change and re-energise tired leaders.
The solutions often lie in some small but important adjustments like working at the right level, focusing on priorities, empowering team members and taking time to think and plan.
Graham Stickland - please get in touch for more details - I look forward to hearing from you.