Watch the ball…

Watch Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan when they’re batting and you’ll probably be able to lip read these two world class cricketers saying to themselves, “watch the ball”. Now, to the uninitiated it might seem a little beneath these top class performers to have to remind themselves of something so obvious, given that they have established that they can bat at the highest level of the sport. However, the very reason that they are so good is that they never forget to stay focused on the fundamentals of their art to allow the rest of their talents to flourish – forget to watch the ball with 100% attention and everything else is now struggling to be as useful. It’s a little like trying to drive your car when you haven’t turned the ignition on – everything else is quite ready to go, but the performance critical element has been forgotten.

So, given that you’re probably pretty good, if not world class at what you do, do you know what your equivalent of “watch the ball” is in your role?

Identifying the performance criticals that you have to remain world class at staying focused on can be the difference between having potential and fulfilling it, consistently.