P to the Power of Infinity™
10th Installment of our Self-Coaching Process
Blueprint for real transformation and success for individual employees/executives, teams and organizations
STEP 6: PARTICIPATION & PEAK PERFORMANCE, THE SEVENTH & EIGHTH P’S
By the time you have conscientiously practised the first five steps, peak performance is yours whether you like it or not!!
But, in case you haven’t and need further persuasion to do so, let me encourage you further with this quotation from Margot Cairnes’ book, Approaching The Corporate Heart:
“As managers, we have been exhorting others to change but at the same time, we’ve been fearful of letting go the old ways on which we’ve based our authority, influence and self-esteem. If we are to be successful in the future, those old ways have to go because they are holding others back from realising their full potential. Admitting that we are the ones creating the blockage is the first step – and the most difficult.”
Cairnes was in fact quoting a special client of hers, David Judd who wrote the above words in the introduction to her other book Peaceful Chaos: The Art of Leadership in Times of Rapid Change. Judd was able to achieve his external goal of making his aluminium smelter (in Portland, Victoria, Australia) the best in the world when he bravely journeyed inward to change himself.
His own team had called him “our greatest asset and our biggest liability.” He knew he had to stop being the blockage. Cairnes took him through the process of change and before Judd died (he had a life-threatening cancer), he did an amazing number of things not only for his company but his township of Portland as well. By working on himself and his transformation, he was able to be his best self and accomplish wonders.
This is true for yourself as well as your team/organization. If you are not seeing the change in your personal or professional life, ask yourself what needs to be transformed within you so that external circumstances you would like to see happen would materialize. This is so that you yourself can realize your own potential and you can perform at your peak.
Then, apply the same for your team/s. Look at the results you would like to achieve. Thereafter, look at what individuals and the team/organization need to change. Next, get the group to be committed to change. In order to be able to get their commitment, you need to engage their hearts and souls, their full and authentic participation in the change process and in the planned path forward.
To forge ahead in synchrony, you must be a great leader, who is very aware, very centred and totally in your power – the kind of evolved and smart power we described earlier.
When you are such a leader, having tapped into your own Power of Full Engagement, you would be able to get others to do the same. And you would be able to lead people to step into A World of Endless Possibilities and to create results even greater than what you have envisioned.
“The foremost challenge for leaders today, we suggest, is to maintain the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility; no mater how fierce the competition, no matter how stark the necessity to go for the short-term goal, no matter how fearful people are, and no matter how urgently the wolf may appear to howl at the door. It is to have the courage and persistence to distinguish the downward spiral from the radiant realm of possibility in the face of any challenge,” write Benjamin Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander in their book, The Art of Possibility.
The above quotation holds true for all times, including challenging times when organizations are being downsized and spending is dramatically cut back. There are always solutions that you can arrive at, if you were calm enough and in your power (individual and team power) and can creatively and intuitively dream up possibilities:
The great leader who had a great vision, which spoke to many people of all ages and races for years after the words were first uttered in 1963, spoke of “a dream yet unfulfilled”. Dr Martin Luther King’s dream is now very much fulfilled with Barrack Obama in place as the first African American President of the United States, something unimaginable back in 1963. There is also generally far greater equality of opportunity in the US than there was back then.
Ask yourself and your team/organization: What is it that is stopping you from coming up with a great vision? Will you purposefully and with passion move forward and upward (together); or are you going to allow yourself/selves to spiral downwards with what’s happening globally? As the Zanders put it, are you going to be the “Can-Do Company” or a “No Can-Do” one?
Ask yourself and your team/organization: What is the grandest vision you have of and for yourself and your team/organization?
Garner your own full and authentic participation and that of your team/organization; and succeed beyond your vision, beyond your wildest dreams!
Dare to dream, in the first place and reach deep within yourself/selves where you inherently have all the qualities that will allow you to materialize those dreams, your individual and collective visions!
We would be delighted to show you how you can do all of this and enjoy full participation and peak performance, individually and as a group. Have a great week!