What's Wrong with Work?

GOAL!

Professional sportspeople have it simple. Not easy, but simple. 

There are any number of goals out there to aim for and any number of milestones along the way. 

If you have the talent and the will it's just a matter of focusing on the straight line ahead of you and off you go. 

I realise it isn't quite as obvious as I make it sound. And I certainly don't envy them. 

At school my PE teacher wrote in my report "Blaire keeps a positive attitude despite her obvious disabilities in this subject". Ah well. An international sporting career was never on the agenda really. 

But when it comes to business, I love to have a goal. It's just not as simple because, although there are competitions to win and awards to collect, that's not really the point of business. Most business people have to set their own goal and their own milestones. 

It's not easy to do, which is why we end up with so many goals which mean nothing and could be transferred to any business you care to mention and fit, kinda, with what that business wants to achieve. "Be the number one in our market" is the fall back position of most organisations and "Be the best team in our field" is the fall back for most teams. What's your team or organisational goal? Could it apply to any function like yours in any business or any organisation in any field, pretty much? Probably. 

We've been doing a lot of work with teams recently on just this - setting the Goal and defining the roadmap to get there. And there were no "Be Number One in Our Market" type goals. Instead we heard words like "Simple", "Brave", "Shape", "Brilliant", even the odd expletive to express what these teams really wanted to achieve, what would really get them out of bed on a bad day. I'm afraid I can't share them here as they are so exciting and ground-breaking that you would steal them. 

Anyway, they only mean so much because of the work that went in to creating them. The whole point is they can't be transferred to another team or another business and mean something. They had to come from the people in the room. 

There is nothing stopping you creating a team goal which really inspires your people, except perhaps the belief that it is possible. Well, I can tell you it is possible. Now, what's it going to be?

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Talent or Practice?

What does it take to achieve an exceptional goal? What does it take to succeed?

A lot of people will cite talent as the big decider. And this is very convenient. Because talent is innate, right? So either you are born with it or you aren't. Nothing you can do to change it.

But I don't believe talent is the be all and end all. What we often think of as talent is actually practice.

And not any kind of practice - deliberate practice. This means focusing your time and energy on improving the parts of your game which need work rather than just repeating what you do well.

It is much easier to practice what you do well, isn't it? Much more fun! But that isn't how you improve. You have to do the hard bit - working on what is difficult, uncomfortable, painful. And that's why so many people give up. They aren't willing to do the hard bit.

So that's good news if you are determined enough not to give up. As you watch your competitors drop out of the race you start to feel even stronger, even more determined to reach your goal.

The CEO of my company, Jim Lawless, has just won the UK record for No Limits Freediving, diving to a depth of 101 metres on one breath of air. Incredible. But does he just have a talent for holding his breath? No. In fact, he only started truly training for the record attempt 8 months ago. You can read about his journey on the Taming Tigers blog at http://www.tamingtigers.com/blog/ 

There are many aspects of life which are out of our control. Raw talent is one of them. But the real differentiating quality of successful people is that they practice.

A budding professional violinist asked his tutor how much practice was enough because his friends were practicing more hours than he was. His wise tutor told him - "If you practice with your fingers, no amount of practice will be enough. If you practice with your mind, two hours a day should be sufficient".