Coaching the business world to think, prepare and perform like elite athletes

so, to save you from reading the Dan Pink article, the challenge he finishes off with is a useful one…

“So try an experiment. For the next seven days, go monolingual and speak only human at work. Don’t say anything to your boss, your staff, your teammate, your supplier or your customer that you wouldn’t say to your spouse or your friend.

It might startle people at first. But I suspect that they’ll reply in the same vernacular – and you might start actually understanding each other and getting something done.”

What a refreshing place that would be to work if everyone spoke to each other like that… go on… take on the challenge, we dare you.

Well… speaking human actually. A great article from Dan Pink in the Telegraph, where he speaks about something pretty important to us at K2… being human (it’s one of our core values and one that you’d think was pretty easy to deliver on…). How good are you at speaking human? Funny how the article is inspired by Jason Fried of 37Signals, who we blogged about below… having blogged a lot about Dan Pink too, it seems that like minded folks read each other’s stuff… Jason, Dan, are you reading this?

We’re going to be working on speaking human… as we always do, but we’ll make sure that we’re also speaking our other values too in the work we do with each other and for customers… speaking brave, speaking true, speaking simple, speaking curious and speaking passionately…

What language do you speak at work… or should you be speaking?

Have a read of this BBC piece relating to Tony Blair’s views of Gordon Brown.

A particularly useful extract is: Blair says Mr Brown lacked political instinct “at the human gut level” adding: “Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero.”

Some interesting observations and helps to clearly understand why Mr Brown was ideal in the post of Chancellor (Analytical Intelligence High along with Political Calculation), but his lack of self-awareness around the lack of Political Feelings and Emotional Intelligence meant he would always struggle to be an effective PM.

If you’re Performance Intelligent, you clearly understand the world you have to perform in, you clearly understand your own personal talents and characteristics and you use this awareness to bring strategy to life by making sure all of your talents are deployed in the most effective way possible. Great leaders realise where they are lacking in certain areas that limit their potential and then connect with great people around them who cover those absent qualities. If you don’t understand and accept your own capabilities and capacity in the first place, you have very little chance of connecting with the right people who add to your own resources.

Had Mr Brown been highly emotionally intelligent, but lacking in Political Calculation, then he would have been equally ineffective as PM. So, when preparing for a change of role, you really need to run a full check on your Performance Intelligence and decide how you’ll step into the role from that point - simply carrying on as you have done in a previous role, hoping that your skills and experience will translate, may not be sufficient, especially if the cost of failure is so high.

Check out this very simple piece of research reported at Mindhacks.com. The simple conclusion is that people who feel that they are free to choose their own actions perform better at work. Wonderful… fits in very simply with the concept of Autonomy that is so prominent in the theory of motivation we use in all of our work at K2.

So, can you enhance your belief in free will? Well, only you can really know the answer to that!

If you want to perform better at work, it really does seem that its all down to you - although feel free not to believe that.

At a recent all day meeting we had a play around with a new way of managing the agenda. Instead of running through in a predefined order, we simply created a meeting lucky dip. All of the sections of the agenda went into a hat, we then picked out one of these at a time to find out which thing we’d be focusing on next. This really helped us just focus on the bit of the meeting we were on, we couldn’t skip ahead and look at what was coming next (until there was just one thing left in the hat!) and we were able to keep much fresher through the course of the day.

For each item, we still made sure we made it clear why this element of the day was on the agenda in the first place, what success looked like for each section and gave ourselves an appropriate amount of time to get the work done. Each time we got to pick the next section there was a definite switch off from the previous section and a refocusing to make sure we all understood what the next section was all about when it was drawn. Someone led each element, so we had a shifting chair person too… all in all, the slightly randomised order made a positive difference.

It was a simple break from the normal meeting protocol, but it certainly helped to create a positive, efficient and lighthearted approach to the day.

Although we use Basecamp already here at K2 and love how the people at 37Signals work, we had’t really realised what high performance role models they were until we read, Rework, the superbly irreverent but always relevant business book, by the founders of 37Signals. It’s packed full of excellent examples of clinical, high performance thinking that cuts through the crap of “business wisdom” and just provides common sense, input driven-output passionate information. Thank you guys, a superbly refreshing read and lets hope we can sort out a way of sharing some of what we know with you.

The book has also prodded us again to start thinking about what the purpose of this blog is and has reminded us to focus on sharing what we know, giving more information away and presenting a glimpse backstage to maximise relevance and interest from the K2 blog readers. So, here’s to some refreshingly different posts on here, mixed in with some of the original style of information.

By the way, let other people know about 37Signals and about K2, if you like what you read on here or see on their superb blog. Also, let us know which things you’ve liked on here already and more importantly, what you think of the new flavour of posts when they emerge in the near future.

Thanks to the BBC for this extract from an interview with Roger Federer which shows how great he is at considering the different elements of the performance pie - there’s great stuff in here about the physical and mental elements of the performance pie, as well as the emotional component of family support.

“When you have disappointing losses or a tournament ends early for you, you move on with your life. You don’t think ’shouldn’t I be at Wimbledon in the finals?’, you kind of enjoy the mom

ent with your family, with your friends, just being away from it all,” he said.

“So, that was kind of nice [to be away]. Then again, I started to miss tennis as well so I was happy to get back on the practice courts, too.”"That’s what I do very well. I switch off very quickly, I don’t think of tennis that much when I’m away from the courts, even though

subconsciously I have to because I’m a professional and I want to do really well in the long run in tennis.

After his Wimbledon defeat by Berdych, Federer complained of back and leg “issues”.

But rejuvenated by a holiday and refreshed by two weeks working with new coach Paul Annacone, he said he felt “perfect” ahead of his return to action in Toronto this week, as he starts his build up to trying to win a sixth US Open title.

And he said with age comes a better understanding of how to get the best out of his body.

“Being a teenager is different to being 23, and being 23 is very different to say being 28. Today,

I know my body better than ever,” he stated.

“Some things take a little bit longer [to recover from] with age but I can prevent more problems

by doing a lot more stretching, physical work, practice, massages. I’m doing everything much more professionally today than I ever have before.

“That’s the advantage [of being older], but then of course there’s no denying that I’ve played almost a thousand matches in my life and that obviously has a big wear and tear on your body, too, so you have to be a little bit more careful.”

Do you manage and exploit all the elements of performance as well as Roger does?

Have a listen to San Francisco 49ers coach, Mike Singletary talking on the BBC Sport Website. There’s some very simple, high performance thinking in here that can relate to anyone who has to deliver at a consistently high level. Ask yourself some questions to see if you fit with Mr Singletary’s view of greatness:

Are you clear in letting people know what you won’t do, rather than what you can’t do?

Do you accept the challenge of striving to become the best version of yourself that you can and then behave consistently to deliver on those personal aspirations?

If someone was watching you deliver a performance, would you stand out as the obvious person that someone else would want on their team? Are your actions delivered with the confidence and control to set you apart from those around you?

Good food for thought. Thank you Mr Singletary.

Have a listen to a number of the athletes talking about having 2 years to go until the London Olympics. There’s some interesting thoughts about the importance of having a long term aim, but being focused on today. There’s also a lot of focus in the videos about having an absolute desire to win the gold medal, but also being fully focused simply on fulfilling personal potential with a view to finding out if that will be good enough to win when it matters most.

for the biggest difference.

Have a listen to our friend, Peter Keen, talking about the lead in to London 2012 for the British Olympic Sports. Peter suggests that this winter the Olympic sports can really focus in on one or two critical changes that will help their organisation maximise the chances of winning in London. What’s the equivalent for you? You have a compelling performance in 2011 and 2012 as the economy changes again - what critical focus do you need to maintain in order that you thrive while others just try so survive?

Perhaps testing your Performance Intelligence might help you on find that focus…