Leadership and Peak Performance

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. John F. Kennedy
Inspiring leaders lead by example. How a leader handles interactions with staff, how they handle conflict or differences of opinion sets the tone for the work environment. The degree of skill with which those in charge interact with staff is a reflection of their emotional development or emotional intelligence. 

Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence cites research that Emotional Intelligence is twice as important as mental acquity for creating success in the workplace.

 
Emotional Intelligence involves:

• Being aware of our emotions
• Being able to manage or process our emotions; being able to make sense and understand our emotional responses to situations
• Being able to motivate ourselves
• Being able to recognise other people’s emotional states and respond appropriately
• Being able to relate to others

Developing these skills requires commitment to personal development and developing the capacity for self-reflection is key.
 
Simon Pimenta

Button Pushers

We all have people that push our buttons, those who just get our backs up and we can't always avoid them.  Try out this brilliant NLP technique to put you back in charge of your feelings:

1. Imagine this person.  Where are they positioned around you?  Notice how you see them - are they in colour or black and white, big or small near or far away, moving or still, clear or fuzzy?

2. Now try playing with the picture - moving it away from you, making it tiny, still, black and white.  Make the image look funny by adding a silly hat or making it dance around until you find it amusing.

3. Now think of the next time you see this person and how easily you can now talk to them and then just walk away feeling calm and confident.

Helen Harding

Is this useful?

Do you tend to over think things, constantly questioning whether or not you're doing the right thing? Here's a handy tip for you, begin to substitute the "is this right/is this wrong?" thinking pattern for "is this useful?"  

This question has become my new best friend. It cleverly takes away all that pressure that comes with questioning whether what we are doing is right or wrong and instead allows us to think clearly and reach a simple solution. 

Enjoy!

Claire Brooker

Leadership and respect in the workplace

People often talk about being respected without thinking about what they need to do to command respect. In order to gain respect we have to give it. If we treat people without courtesy and respect, this is not going to encourage people to respect us.

Thomas Aquinas pointed out 700 years ago that it was immoral to misuse, underuse and abuse people, but that it was highly moral to draw out and make use of the gifts that people had. Employees will not perform to the best of their ability unless they are treated with respect.

Simon Pimenta

Intrigued to find out about all the 10 Questions?

I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog posts.  The exciting news is that my new book, 'The 10 Questions To Ask For Success' has just been published by Hay House and is now available to buy from our online store - http://store.philparker.org/p/The-Ten-Questions-To-Ask-For-Success

I’d love to hear your feedback once you’ve read it so get in touch!

Phil

‘How?’ not ‘Why?’

We’ve been trained from an early age to ask the ‘Why?’ question; it’s a great question to ask in so many areas, and rather surprisingly, a disastrous question to ask of much of life. 'Why?’ is often used as an opportunity, unfortunately, to find who is to blame, it focuses on the past of the problem and needs to be replaced with the much more useful ‘How?’ question. The ‘How?’ question focuses instead on solutions, on the future, on what action we need to take.

Look at this example: ‘Why do I never have enough money at the end of the month?’ This use of ‘Why?’ is predominantly a complaint, looking at who is to blame; it focuses on the problem and on the past. The ‘How?’ question, ‘How can I have enough money at the end of the month?’ is far clearer. It provides a much more interesting conversation; one that moves towards resolving the problem, looks at the future and creates action.  So the next time you find yourself asking ‘Why?’, check and see if it could be more usefully replaced with a 'How?' question - 99 times out of 100 it can be!

Hopefully you can begin to see from these simple examples the incredible value of knowing the '10 Questions' – my experience of working with some of the world’s top performers is that any plans or projects you have will be much more successful and easier to achieve if have these questions in your toolbox!

Phil Parker

What if I knew that whatever I did today would turn out brilliantly…

Below if one of the most important questions in the world:

‘What if?’

The start of any plan involves a leap of creative faith. Unfortunately we seem to have been well trained to destroy ideas as soon as we dream them. How many great ideas have you had which, as soon as you start to look at how to practically put them into action, you abandon, realising it will be too difficult, hard or impossible?  Unfortunately this internal criticism of ideas prevents them ever growing into something brilliant. Research suggests that we need to give ideas a chance, the ‘What if?’ question helps us to grow the seeds of ideas into reality. 

So the next time you have a great idea, let it live a little longer by asking ‘What if this actually worked? What if I found a way to do this, then what?’ Many people stifle their lives by imagining the worst; this question does the opposite, as it asks you to imagine everything turning out brilliantly. You can also use this following version of this important question: ‘What if I knew that whatever I did today would turn out brilliantly… What would I choose to do today?’

Phil Parker

Great questions are the secret of creating powerful change!

Over the course of the last 25 years working in the field of personal development and radical change I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon: great questions are the secret of creating powerful change!
Why questions? ...Surely I need answers?

Many of us have grown up with the idea that we should consult experts about our problems, as they will be more knowledgeable than us and therefore better able to offer effective solutions. This is sometimes true but very often their opinion, which may be appropriate for their own or other people's issues, isn't that useful for dealing with ours. The other problem with listening to other people's advice is that it makes us dependent on them as a source of expertise. Instead my latest book encourages the idea that we should learn to trust ourselves again, and to recognise that we have the answers already within us – after all, who really knows us, our desires and dreams better than ourselves?

Questions also have the added bonus of being much more flexible than others people's advice. Advice can only be valid for the solution it is given to; applying it to another situation, or all situations, is often disastrous.  If you seek advice on the problem, ‘should I go out with her?’ you might get the qualified advice ‘No, don’t.’ Although it might be right in this particular case, if you apply that advice to all potential dates, or meeting up with anyone, then that advice starts to become much less useful.

Questions however have the magic of being able to be applied to any situation and make a positive difference.  In my next blog posts I will give you two of the most important questions in the world for you to use and see what a difference they can make to your life.

Phil Parker

Phil talks about the 10 Questions To Ask For Success

Phil's latest book "The 10 Questions To Ask For Success" was published by Hay House last week.  In this short video Phil talks about the book and how the ideas behind it developed.

This week we will be publishing a few short articles by Phil about the book and some of the interesting life changing questions it asks.

Rewiring the brain

Unlearning a negative bias through ‘re-wiring’ the brain may stave off depression even before it appears according to a pilot study by Ian Gotlib’s group at Stanford University, reports New Scientist Magazine.

To us at P4, this makes sense.  As trainers, we have been teaching people for years how to change their response to external situations and people.  


For the full article see here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20707-braintraining-games-stop-depression-before-it-starts.html


Kate Gare

Achieving Your Goals

Henry Ford said “It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”

One reason that people often give for not achieving goals is that they don’t have enough time. However if we look at how much time we waste, we often discover that if we used our time a little more effectively, we can generate time to focus on those goals that we want to achieve.

As part of a time management course, one of the exercises was to record how I had spent my time in 15-minute blocks over a period of a few days. The results were revealing; highlighting areas where I could make efficiencies with my time.

Simon Pimenta

5 Top Tips on how to talk to anyone

During our career we frequently find ourselves in situations where we must start conversations with people we don’t know. It’s not unusual to find this challenging. So how do we confidently talk to different kinds of people? Follow these five top tips and learn how to talk to anyone:

1. Be the best you. People can tell if you’re being authentic or not so be yourself. Just make sure you’re being the best version of you. First impressions are important.

2. Most appropriate state of mind for the job at hand. What state of mind would be useful when striking up a conversation with someone? Perhaps confident, relaxed and open would be your preference? Recognise that you are in charge of how you feel so switch your state of mind by remembering a conversation you had where you felt this way, perhaps talking to friends or colleagues and start to engage in a conversation in this way. 

3. It’s not what you say it’s how you say it.  Brushing up on current affairs is handy if your conversation runs dry, however it’s not necessarily the content of your conversation that will leave a lasting impression, but your manner. This is because a significant percentage of our communication is non-verbal so make sure that your body language is just as appropriate as your mindset. Don’t gaze over a persons shoulder while listening to them or lean away from them while they’re talking. Instead give them your full attention by maintaining eye contact and use body language that is open and welcoming to help create rapport.

4. Find common ground. It’s easy to hold a conversation once you have found common ground. To do this, ask questions that are open and engaging. What are they interested in? Be observant, paying attention to details like what newspapers/books they read, what coffee they ordered can help you strike up a conversation in a natural and effortless way. Warning: Avoid questions that are too personal or provocative. This is about creating rapport not causing offence!

5. Dealing with curve balls. No matter how good your opening question is prepared for curve balls. They could come in the shape of one word answers. Resist the temptation to skip from subject to subject. In order to create a connection it’s better to build on one topic. So instead stay calm and ask a leading question. If you ask someone about the book they are reading and they reply with a limiting, “It’s good,” follow up with a leading question such as “I’m still not sure how I feel about these e-readers, I still like a book, how about you?” If this still doesn’t work, don’t take it personally. It’s not you; they’re probably just having a bad day.

Claire Brooker

Plato Quote

"The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily." Plato 

http://www.inspirationalquotes4u.com/platoquotes/index.html

Kate Gare

Peak Performance and Motivation

Career Analyst Dan Pink asserts that for tasks that require even rudimentary cognitive skill, financial incentives don’t improve performance. They actually reduce it!

He believes that in order to help people perform at their peak, we need to understand that people have a desire for:

• Autonomy: they want to be able to direct their own lives
• Mastery: they have a desire to get better and better at something that matters 
• Purpose: the yearning to do what they are doing in the service of something larger than themselves.

Therefore developing a leadership style that has an understanding of these motivating factors will enhance Performance.

 
Simon Pimenta

1 minute to... Be compassionate

Core to many of the world’s religions and spiritual thinking is the idea of compassion, but is there a way to develop this without having to live in a monastery for a few lifetimes? Try these tops tips:

1)     If someone has done something and you have got yourself (or more precisely 'are dûing' - see www.duing.org) annoyed, then pause and ask if they intended to have you become upset. If not let it go.
2)     If you think they did intend to have you become upset, pause and ask, ‘is dûing upset part of my plan for today?’ - decide to not take their kind invitation to derail your day and move on.
3)     If you are not being nice or compassionate to yourself ask, ‘if I treated my friends like I am treating myself, then, would I have any?’ – decide to treat yourself like someone you care about.

Phil Parker

Overcoming Defensiveness in the Workplace

In order to create Peak Performing teams it is important to encourage openness. Johnnie Boden, founder of the popular clothing catalogue Boden, encourages openness by setting the example. He feels that having staff who get defensive is counter-productive, so encourages people to admit to mistakes by doing this himself. He is able to put his hand up and admit to having made mistakes or being wrong. If we create an environment where people are able to accept that they are human and will make mistakes, we can learn from them and move on and get on with the task of growing the business!

Simon Pimenta