Have you ever listened to a football crowd in this country? The venom with which some comments are made to players is disturbing. Even at school games the ‘helpful’ feedback from coaches and parents is enough to put some kids off for life. Why can’t we be more supportive?
At a recent rugby game in Australia I didn’t hear one single negative comment directed at the home team. (Plenty at the opposition mind you). When someone made a mistake, and there were plenty, all they got was support and encouragement from the supporters – the clue is in the name.
I remember my kids learning to walk. Plenty of mistakes there. When they fell over though I don’t remember once ridiculing them or shouting abuse. Of course not, it would be ridiculous. So when does it change? When does it become alright to stop being supportive and encouraging and start pointing out mistakes and being critical?
By now you are probably thinking, with kids – especially our own - we should always support and encourage them. Absolutely.
Why? Because we know it makes sense. So, this being the case, why doesn’t a similar logic apply in every walk of life?
If we focus on mistakes what does this do for us? If we focus only on improving our weaknesses what can we expect? In short, we can expect to be average. However, if we focus on our successes and what we’re good at, we might just become world class. Focusing on success gives us the confidence to deal with our weaknesses. I’m not suggested we ignore our weaknesses, just don’t focus on them.
Even if we concentrate on not making mistakes what will this do? It may just take our focus off where it should be. Fear of failure is a terrible thing and if we’re afraid to make mistakes then we will not try things, we will not take risk.
Michael Jordan is generally regarded as the greatest basketball player ever. However, do you know what he was number one at? Not most baskets scored. Not most assists. Not most rebounds or blocks. No, he was only number one at one thing - most baskets missed! That is what made him the best player in the world.
When Scotland played France at rugby a few years ago, France were all over Scotland and winning comfortably. At half time in the stud
io the conclusion was that Scotland had to make fewer mistakes. Just then the statistics came on the screen. Scotland errors: 4, France errors: 8. France was trying things, taking risks and scoring tries – and yes, making mistakes.
So, what has all this to do with business?
Well, the principles are the same, whether it is at an individual, team or organisation level. Look at the graph below. This is the simplified performance chart of a car manufacturing plant in the USA taken over several years.
You can see that some years were good and some disappointing. Consultants were called in and they looked at what happened when performance was poor and then put it right. What this did was lift average performance… but only a bit, and it was still average.
Coverdale’s focus however was on what was happening when performance was at its peak with a view to repeating it. This lifted ‘average’ performance to such a level that the plant became world class and a model for the rest of the organisation.
And it is the same with individuals – focus on success, build on success and build confidence.
By looking at success it gives us detailed practices to carry forward. If a task or activity is likely to happen again, we can store information about successful practices and bring it out when required.
Success analysis also positively affects the people involved - getting into the habit of analysing successes makes them feel recognised, valued and motivated for the future.
Careful and consistent success analysis usually produces a climate of confidence, openness and willingness to deal with difficulties openly. Endlessly focusing on failures and mistakes produces low morale and a 'keep your head down' culture.
Having legitimate confidence is not the same as being complacent. The way to avoid complacency is to analyse successes carefully so as to pull out detailed factual information and then build, build, build, aiming for higher and better performance from a position of strength and with legitimate confidence.
As ever, we’d be interested in hearing your views.
No comments:
Post a Comment