You don’t have to be sick to get better
The MyDrives MyHabits MyMatch total methodology focuses on people’s most important drivers, the resulting behaviours and the environment people find themselves in. This creates a complete picture that provides an answer to the question: why do people do the things they do?
Flow, stress and looking out for others
When your behaviour is in tune with your drives, you achieve flow. If not, stress is a logical consequence. It’s also important to look out for others. If you only look at situations through your own tinted lenses, you get a subjective perception of the people around you.
When your behaviour is in tune with your drives, you achieve flow. If not, stress is a logical consequence.
Progress with flexible behaviour
A person’s environment and drives are fairly fixed factors. This means being flexible with your behaviour is the fastest and most effective way to progress and move forward. Practically, this is occasionally a little less easy than you might expect. As such, we often work with high performance expert Paul Rulkens in our workshops to help boost the development of flexible behaviour. Paul regularly starts workshops by saying: ‘You don’t have to be sick to get better.’ What he means: we’re usually already good at what we do, partly thanks to years of experience. However, we can get even better by interacting with each other in a refreshing way. Clarity, focus and execution are central to Paul’s approach. After all, they form the basis for high performance behaviour and accompanying performance.
Clarity: where do I want to go?
In terms of clarity, Paul talks about the importance of vision and connection. Organizations that don’t have both are stuck. And organizations may have vision but lack connection rule from an ivory tower. Conversely, organizations with sufficient connection but lack vision get stuck with that ‘kumbaya feeling’. Organizations can only truly create a high performance culture if vision and connection are in tune.
We often work with high performance expert Paul Rulkens during our workshops to give flexible behaviour an extra push.
Focus: strategic stopping
In terms of focus, Paul points to the importance of strategic stopping, among other things. He uses the image of a child hanging from a rope ladder to illustrate his point. If they continue to desperately cling with both hands, nothing will happen. Like the child, organization need to ‘let go’ of things before they can make progress. In other words, which activities don’t contribute to achieving organizational goals and the desired high performance culture? Another comparison. Say you’ve produced a report that’s taken hours of work. You send off the document with a secure password. Has no one asked you for the password? Then that’s an activity that you could stop doing, strategically speaking.
Execution: what makes the boat go faster?
In terms of execution, Paul talks about a range of topics, including the 1998 British rowing team appointing a new coach after a series of dramatic results. This coach introduced just one new rule: from then on, in every situation, we ask ourselves if what we’re doing makes the boat faster. An all out party the night before a training session doesn’t help: an extra Sunday morning training session on the Thames does. Paul thus links stopping activities that contribute nothing to primary goals to high performance behaviour within organizations. How did the story end? The eight British rowers went on to win gold in Sydney two years later. It was Britain’s first win at the Summer Olympics since 1912.
On the left-hand side, you can see these are the three individually focused drives. On the right-hand side are the four group-oriented drives. These are important too. Since, on your own, you might be able to set a decent pace, but only together can you get anywhere.
Coloured nunchucks
The great thing about Paul’s thinking is that the three pillars of clarity, focus and execution align perfectly with the seven colour theory used by the total MyDrives MyHabits MyMatch methodology. The clarity pillar aligns seamlessly with the yellow drive that focuses naturally on knowledge and analysis. Being goal-oriented fits perfectly with the competitive and results-driven orange drive, and the execution pillar is abundantly clear in the decisive and action-oriented red drive. In the visual on the left, you can see these are the three individually focused drives. On the right-hand side are the four group-oriented drives. These are important too. Because on your own, you may be able to set a decent pace, but only together can you get anywhere.
Want to know more about high performance expert Paul Rulkens? Take a look at his website: www.paulrulkens.com.