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".    

Mental vs physical challenges

A colleague of mine is about to undertake a very difficult and dangerous physical challenge. I can't tell you much about it at the moment but as soon as he starts blogging about it I will let you in on it!

We all admire people who put themselves to the test physically, especially when they are attempting something we ourselves cannot imagine doing - for me that includes anything involving running, anything in the extreme cold or anything which involves doing without a nice cup of Starbucks coffee every day.

It is relatively easy for most of us to imagine what would be hard about a physical challenge. Let's say you were about to trek to the North Pole. You can imagine some of the things that would be tough about that -

• The cold
• The lack of home comforts
• The company of a small set of other people who are bound to annoy you at some time
• The relentlessness and potentially the boredom
• The exhaustion
• The difficulty of escaping should you want to give up
• Missing people back home
• The muscle pain and potential pain of injuries (and the lack of access to a doctor or pain meds or a nice warm bath)

Before you set off you would have to be pretty sure that you were prepared to take part despite all of these difficulties. In fact, you would have to believe that the end result - the sense of achievement - would be worth it.

But how much consideration do we give when we embark on a mental or emotional challenge? When we sign up for a self-development programme or try to bring about a change in our company or in our lives...how much do we think about the difficulties we will face?

I find that people under-estimate how hard these mental or emotional challenges are going to be. And then, when they face the inevitable difficulties, they are unprepared. Emotional or mental challenges are just as likely to be tough and include -

• Feelings of physical discomfort (stomach aches, headaches etc)
• Lack of familiar comforts (change inevitably means stepping outside the familiarity of the comfort zone)
• The company of a small set of other people who are bound to annoy you at some time
• The relentlessness and potentially the boredom (change isn't always interesting!)
• Missing people from your past life
• Wanting to give up or downgrade the success criteria (e.g. "Maybe just by getting this far we have proven enough")
• The pain of growth and change for which there is no medication

I don't lightly make this analogy. I believe this is one of the main reasons we so often give up when we set about making a change to our lives or to our company or to our relationships or to ourselves. We don't think of it as giving up because it isn't as obvious as turning on your heels half way to the North Pole. But it is giving up nonetheless.

At Taming Tigers we are going to ask all delegates to fully commit to the journey they are about to embark on as if it were a physical challenge rather than a mindset challenge.

I believe that, if we fully recognise what we are about to do and face up to the myriad ways we will find it hard before we start, we will be far better equipped to deal with those obstacles when they arise...certainly better equipped than if we entered in to the journey oblivious of the hurdles and pains ahead. Ignorance is not bliss.

Adrian Moorhouse in upbeat mood

Adrian Moorhouse has known his fair share of adversity. In 1984 he was a "sure thing" to win Gold at the Los Angeles Olympics. He was expected to carry on the British tradition of Olympic Gold Medal breaststroke winners - Wilkie '76, Goodhew '80, Moorhouse '84.

It didn't happen. The pressure of expectation was too great and he came fourth. His self-esteem took a battering as a result of the pressure he put on himself and the newspaper headlines.

He had to rethink his strategy. He decided to work on his mental game. Physically his training remained much the same but the main work he did in the next 4 years was shifting his mindset. In 1988 he finally won his Olympic Gold. You can read more about that journey, the lessons he learnt about himself and the power of the mind in the book he co-wrote with Professor Graham Jones "Developing Mental Toughness".

I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago to ask his advice for people in this economic climate. As a businessman (he is Managing Director of a professional development consultancy called Lane4) and as a sportsman, what does he think people need to do to be successful in the coming months?

Download Adrian Moorhouse Interview