Archive for the 'High performance' Category

Treat it as a performance

Published on 17 February, 2010 in Design and High performance. 0 Comments Tags: communication skills, deliberate practice.

Delivering a presentation that is smooth, insightful and ends right on time can be a big ask. Lots of intelligent people mess it up. One of the speakers who really seems to get it right is Malcolm Gladwell. If you have ever watched him speak (like here on TED), you may notice how he speaks eloquently, even effortlessly, and ends with precise punctuality.

When asked about it once, Gladwell replied, “I know it may not look like this. But it’s all scripted. I write down every word and then I learn it off by heart. I do that with all my talks and I’ve got lots of them.”

It’s great to connect with your audience as if you were just having a casual chat with them. And sometimes that’s precisely what you will want to do. Other times, like maybe when you want to really nail it, you might be interested to discover what happens when you go beyond the bullet points and rehearse, refine and distill the most important information that you are there to share. Focus on the most important stuff; skip the rest. Polish, polish, polish. And you might just find yourself on a level where you have that polish that casual speaking just doesn’t allow.

While memorizing isn’t “the answer”, if you want to deliver a professional-standard speech, you might consider treating your next presentation as a performance.

Bringing deliberate practice into speaking is challenging – hence so many speakers stagnate – though by refining your work, looking for ways to raise your standards, you give yourself a chance of lifting your bar.

That what seems to work for the guy who wrote The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and, more recently, What the Dog Saw.

Keep practising – especially as you get older!

Published on 2 January, 2010 in Creativity and genius, High performance and Karate. 2 Comments Tags: aging, deliberate practice, excellence, expert versus novice, expertise, martial arts.

A few months back I did a martial arts session with my original instructor. It had been a long time and I was far from my best, so I paired up with a relatively junior student for some padwork.

He was young and strong and had been training hard for a few months.

Little did he know that I had trained since before he was walking. It began when I was 15, and I loved spending hours in the hall, relentlessly asking questions of my instructor long after the class had finished. So when I hit him, he was pretty surprised

When I step back into one of those same classes today, I remember most of the techniques but my skill level has suffered – perhaps more than I would like to admit. But I’m still not your average beginner.

In my first session back, it’s best if I just watch, or pair up with a beginning student. In my second session back, I can pair up with someone who has been training for a few months. And after a few weeks, I’ll expect to match it with the guys who have been training for a year or more.

But why? Why can we get so much better so quickly?

Continue reading ‘Keep practising – especially as you get older!’

Being the best is a way of life, not just a job.

Published on 13 October, 2009 in High performance. 0 Comments Tags: deliberate practice, expert versus novice, expertise, K. Anders Ericsson.

To be the best at what you do takes an extraordinary commitment. You’ll need to practise – spend hours and hours focused on getting better. You will change the way your brain works by altering the very connections of the neurons, and indeed every cell in your body.

It’s a big deal.

And you’ll want to do it every day.

Not just 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday. Not even Monday to Saturday. But every day of the week.

Our good friends Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer found back in 1993 found that experts practised the same amount every day, including weekends.

So pick your area and start practising. Every day.

(first published on TheGeniusProject.com)

Isn’t it just about experience?

Published on 6 October, 2009 in High performance. 0 Comments Tags: deliberate practice, excellence, expertise.

Some people say that you just have to work harder to get better. It seems to make sense, and appeals to the virtue of ‘hard work’.

But the truth is that it’s not that simple, is it?

There are some people who work really hard – who spend hours practising or playing – but who don’t get better. Maybe you were one of them.

Sometimes we can do things a lot and not get better at all. In fact, sometimes we get worse!

When I was playing tennis as a child, I would hit the ball and play tournaments and show up to expensive coaching sessions. And at my best I consistently got mediocre results.

The trouble was that I didn’t get feedback. I was practising but I wasn’t doing it the way I needed to if I wanted to actually get better. Instead, I rehearsed the skills I had over and over until I could play ‘well enough’. But I didn’t get better than that.

Nobody told me what I needed to do and I didn’t figure it out for myself. Maybe I could have but I didn’t.

As you read this, you have been walking for a long time. Yet how much better at walking are you today from last year?

Deliberate practice goes beyond just doing the same things over and over again, and instead is focused on actually getting better. It’s about finding ways to push yourself – to make your best even better – and it’s not always easy.

Sometimes you might need to invent ways to challenge yourself.

Because that is what the best of the best will do.

The Expert on Expertise, K. Anders Ericsson, on “What it takes”

Published on 19 September, 2009 in High performance. 0 Comments Tags: deliberate practice, excellence, expertise, K. Anders Ericsson.

As I was rereading the Introduction of “The Handbook” this morning, it occurred to me how remarkable it is that there is actually a formal domain of expert performance at all.

Being an ‘expert’ is simultaneously honoured and stigmatized in much of the world. In some parts of the world excellence has even been systematically repressed. And yet, we still want to know “what it takes”.

Successful people spontaneously do things differently from those who stagnate. In particular, they have different practice histories. We consistently see that they engage in “deliberate practice” – they work to innovate the way they do what they do.

You can read more about what the lead editor of The Handbook has to say in an interview with Fast Company here.

Being excellent isn’t easy. But it is a lot more simple than you might believe.

Attend training? Why not just read the book?

Published on 28 July, 2009 in Education and High performance. 3 Comments Tags: NLP, training.

Training courses can be expensive. They can cost a lot more to attend than buying a book on the same subject. Earlier today, was asked, “What is the difference?”

And it’s a good question to ask. A book costs a lot less than a training course – and is far more convenient to read – so if you could get the same thing from a book, it would be a much more convenient way to learn. So why do we teach our children in schools and our corporations through training courses when we could just give them books to read? Anyway, I gave an answer like this:

When I was younger, I read books about martial arts. I looked at the pictures and ran through in my mind the exercises and explanations. And it looked really cool! It got me excited and interested so I kept reading.

One day, my parents allowed me to start martial arts training. It was the same – and yet totally different. While I already knew in theory much of what we were learning, training in a class with other people like me meant that I learnt much more than ever before. I realized that I didn’t really know as much as I thought that I did. And I had the experience of really learning. If I had kept reading books, I could become very knowledgeable, but I could never have become a Master.

If you want to learn about a topic, reading books is great. If you want to develop some serious skill, you will want to find the right context for your to explore, experience and expand yourself in ways that you might have never realized possible.

If you want to develop real skill, you’ll want to find the best training opportunities around.

Only you know if it’s the right time. But that you’re asking about this suggests that some part of you believes that you would benefit from some training. If so, we look forward to having you join us.

So are training courses worth the money?

Little things… there’s nothing bigger, is there?

Published on 19 May, 2009 in Creativity and genius, High performance and Self-awareness. 1 Comment Tags: China, China NLP, happiness, Lifestyle, transitions, Vanilla Sky.

Last night I was reading about George H. W. Bush. Here was a man who was the son of a Senator, who became President and whose son became President. Today, some perceive that he is part of a “major family” in the United States. And yet, what does that even mean?

George Bush was talented. He did a great job when it counted. He was ambitious. And he got lucky.

But how does that equate to being part of a ‘major family’?
How easy is it to forget that he has just done what was in front of him to do?

Greatness is built by little decisions. Continue reading ‘Little things… there’s nothing bigger, is there?’

Remembering the importance of state

Published on 30 April, 2009 in Cool friends and ideas, High performance and Self-awareness. 5 Comments Tags: core, Greg Layton, NLP, presence, resourceful, state.

This afternoon I grabbed a coffee with Greg Layton. Greg and I went to school near each other and even studied business at the same time, though it was NLP that finally led us to meet. He had spent a few months training with my good friends Chris and Jules Collingwood, taking out his Graduate Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and as he shared with me his inspiring experiences, I was reminded of the importance of state.

Sometimes we are happy; sometimes we are excited; sometimes we are not so resourceful – some of us might even be a bit grumpy from time to time. That state – our subjective emotional condition – opens and closes possibilities. It’s like a pair of sunglasses that tints the way we see the world.

And for colour blind people like me, those filters change what we can see at all.

Greg reminded me how important it is that we can get back into our core state of being.

It’s about alignment. We can be happier and more fulfilled when we deliberately design our experiences and our lives so that we can move towards that core state consistently.

A General Evaluation

Published on 1 April, 2009 in High performance. 2 Comments Tags: communication skills, Shanghai, Toastmasters.

Last Monday night, I gave an evaluation of the meeting of China’s oldest Toastmasters Club, Shanghai No. 1, at their 499th meeting. You can watch it above but some of the key points are below:

Utilization: Use whatever happens to get across your message.
Frame the message and prepare the audience.
Say less; communicate more.
Take your time. When you do, speak with a purpose.
Share the emotional component of the message, not just the content.
Everytime we stand up, we’re looking to expand our skills.
Set the frame – when you speak, identify the criteria for success or at least the guidelines that you are working towards.
There are no excuses – don’t make them for yourself or give them to other people. Give your best.
When things go wrong, strive to make the problem invisible. Make it look as though it was part of the plan.