If we want to improve our performance, we have to do something other than just perform.
Consultant Eduardo Briceño calls that the performance paradox. We think we’re effective, getting things done. But we’re stagnating.
“No matter how hard we work, if we only do things as best as we know how, trying to minimize mistakes, we get stuck at our current levels of understanding, skills and capabilities,” he writes in The Performance Paradox.
To prosper in today’s complex and fast-changing world, we need to balance and integrate performance and learning. Yes, perform. But also, grow.
To do that, you need to develop and implement strategies and habits that support growth. He calls that the learning zone. For a basketball player it might be practising a jump shot for thirty minutes. For an actor, it might be working with a dialect coach. For a salesperson, it might involve testing different pitches as she meets new clients and keeping track of which got the best results.
“The learning zone is about inquiry, experimentation, making and reflecting on mistakes and implementing adjustments on the journey toward greater excellence,” he writes.
He stresses this might not involve a lot of time, but it does require intention. You must seek feedback, study what others – notably competitors – are doing, and test different routines like that salesperson. It’s learning while doing – not just doing.
He offers these strategies when in the learning zone:
- Practise deliberately: Not all practice makes perfect. You must be deliberate, breaking down abilities into component skills, figuring out how to move past your comfort zone and getting frequent feedback. Ideally, it helps to have a skilled coach but that doesn’t fit all work situations.
- Learn big by experimenting small: Don’t rush to try experiments that have high chances of surprise and failures. Stay small scale and build over time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t test a few things at once. Remember to clarify what you seek to learn from an experiment.
- Work smarter: Make it a habit to consider what’s working, what’s not, and what to do differently. Identify challenges and points of frustration and ponder how they might be turned into opportunities for improvement. Deepen your expertise by learning from articles, books, podcasts and other people with more effective practices. Use the people around you as a brain trust.
- Don’t bulldoze: The late Anders Ericsson, the Florida State University professor whose research led journalist Malcolm Gladwell to coin the 10,000 hours rule – that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in a given field – found that world-class performers limit how much they practice in one interval because it requires full concentration that the brain can’t sustain all day. “In other words, rest is essential,” Mr. Briceño says. Find a pattern for your learning and growth that is sensible. Overdoing it may backfire.
As well, you need to unleash the power of mistakes. Research by University of Texas professor Robert Duke and colleagues found that the most noticeable difference in practice sessions between top-ranked pianists and lesser souls related to their handling of errors. They all made the same number of mistakes initially. But the better students identified the specific source of their errors and practised the needed adjustments until they had corrected the issue.
Mr. Briceño notes that when we have a fixed mindset, not believing we can grow and thinking we have reached the full extent of our abilities, “mistakes sting because they feel like personal flaws.” Instead, you must pay attention to mistakes and see them as a chance to grow … and escape the performance paradox.
Quick hits
- Always share the negative truth about what you’re selling while the sale hangs in the balance, argues advertising consultant Roy H. Williams. Look the customer in the eye and tell them what they deserve to know while they still have the chance to walk away. If you just smile and make the sale, when the predictable moment of crisis arrives, the truth will no longer ring true; it will just sound like excuses.
- Are you a talk thinker or a quiet thinker? Talk thinkers formulate their ideas out loud, talking as they think, explains executive coach Robyn McLeod. Quiet thinkers prefer to think first, then talk. Know your style, and that of colleagues.
- There are signs artificial intelligence can improve creativity. A study by Wharton School professors compared ChatGPT-4 against students in a popular innovation class that has historically led to many startups. ChatGPT-4 generated more, cheaper and better ideas than the students. The experiment’s judges were also more likely to purchase what AI proposed.
- If considering going to HR to complain about a “toxic” employee remember that the person must be more than just annoying, warns career coach Octavia Goredema. If the issue is annoyance rather than toxicity, HR will be happy to serve as a sounding board or offer advice but will approach it far differently than if the person was truly toxic. Also, know what your objective is.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.