Don’t die with the music still in you!

How much is left in your tank?

This is a question I like to ask people about their careers and life. The typical response is somewhere between 30% and 60%. In other words people are realizing as little as 40% of their potential at present.

Imagine the personal, professional and corporate value if even half of this potential could be unlocked, if not more.

Fortunately, there is no need for anyone to die with their music still in them, as Dr Wayne Dyer provocatively states. This article provides some clues about how.

Do you remember last year’s Apple watch series 4 ad with the 30-something hipster dude chilling on his couch watching TV (image above) who looks across and sees a clone of himself that ushers him to stand up and move?

The two doublegangers then look out the window and see a version of themselves walking down the street so they join him. Then another doubleganger jogs past them so they start running. Finally they all get to the beach feeling exhausted only to have the best version of themselves sprint passed them and dive into the waves for an ocean swim.

The ad finishes with the words

“There’s a better you in you.”

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by people who have found the better you in you, a better version of themselves.

Before I started school (me below and yes I was well fed) my mum used to take me on her rounds at a nursing home and I would sit for hours listening to the oldies share their stories about surviving the wars and overcoming adversity. Amazing stories of resilience, grit, hope and high performance.

40 odd years later I am still talking daily with people about the battles they face and adversity they overcome but now they are business leaders and the skirmishes are in boardrooms not battlefields.

Since finishing school I have worked with business leaders to help them find the better version of themselves, their teams and their cultures. No matter where in the world that has been the challenges are remarkably similar, as are the solutions.

My client work, research and studies have largely focused on answering two key questions.

1. How do we think and behave differently when at our best? AND

2. Can these variables be measured, trained and sustained?

No value in knowing the answer to question one if the variables are innate, invisible, or intermittent. The good news is that is not the case. 

We can measure, train and sustain our progress to becoming a better you in you.

The even better news is that there is a simple equation or algorithm for finding the better you in you. And to make it simple to remember it takes a familiar form thanks to our good friend Albert Einstein, i.e. E=MCsquared.

A quick caveat though, which my old mentor used to say…

“simple does not mean easy.” 

If simple and easy where the same thing we’d all be the best version of ourselves already. We are all a work in progress but at least the science and tactics of high performers makes it clearer today about how to get there more so than ever before. 

My job is to help people reduce that percentage of potential left in the tank, whether they are a CEO, the top team, the leadership community or the entire organisation.

So back to the algorithm.

Instead of E we’re talking about high performance here, or HP. So the official high performance algorithm is actually HP = MC squared.

So what is HP?

If you reading this article at work turn to two of your colleagues and ask them to write down how they define high performance at your company? Now compare answers.

I do this exercise with exec teams and you’d be amazed how many different answers come up. And if the top team is not aligned how much more confused and dissipated will people be in the rest of the organisation.

So by simply defining and aligning HP you are already ahead of the game. Then comes MC squared.

Any guesses as to what M stands for?

• Motivation - No
• Mood (i.e. engagement) – Nope
• Mojo – No, guess again
• Money – Definitely not!
• Mindset – Close but not quite right.
• Mindframe – YES! 

I had the very good fortune of interviewing Stanford Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck a few years back. Such an amazing human being. She started the whole ‘growth mindsets’ movement as captured in the graph below.

I am a huge fan of Carol’s (pictured below) and all her work with one exception. For the life of me I don’t know why she uses the term ‘mindsets’ when the basis of her entire approach is that our MINDS ARE NOT SET.

Mindframes is a far better and more appropriate term. 

Our brains contain a range of ‘frames’ that help us interpret and interact with the world around us. For example there is the ‘introversion-extroversion’ mindframe. We all have a position within this frame where we tend to reside most often but that position is by no means fixed.

I have worked with countless leaders that have learned to be energetic and expressive in front of large crowds of people, thinking on their feet and talking out loud despite being ‘naturally’ introverted.

On the other hand as card carrying member of Extraverts“R”US myself I get totally amped by running workshops and keynoting with big audiences however I have found at times that I crave space and quiet to recharge, reflect and connect with my inner world.

My point is that we move around within the frames within our mind, i.e. our mindframes.

If you’re thinking this is just a matter of semantics, think again. Social construction theory from social psychology reveals that the words we use both describe and design the world as we know it. Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples in the following TED talk.

More on social constructionism another day but the key take away is…

we need to be conscious of how the words we use influence the way we think just as much if not more than being aware of how we think determines the words we use.

Back to mindframes it turns out that there are patterns reflecting how high performers think that we can learn and lock in to enhance our own performance. I have identified over 25 patterns but there are five in particular that are most critical.

One of these is the Linear – Exponential mindframe

Many of us think in a fairly linear, incremental fashion. Nothing wrong with that. It has served us well for millennia. In days gone by if wanted to harvest twice as much we planted twice as much seed. The harvest and seeds have been replaced today by incomes and jobs but the game remains the same. But not for everyone.

An increasing number of individuals and companies are thinking exponentially. The go-to comparison is Kodak v Instagram. At its peak in 1996, 116 years after founding, Kodak was worth US$31 billion and employed 145,000 employees worldwide. It grew incrementally to a very healthy valuation of around $213k per employee. 

Conversely, exponential organisation Instagram was bought by Facebook for US$1 billion less than two years after founding with only 13 employees, i.e. $77m per employee. Today Insta is valued at around US$100 billion, more than three times that of Kodak at its peak. INCREDIBLE!

There are many differences between the two organisations but one of the keys is how differently they thought. How exponential organisations think differently is brilliantly captured by Canadian entrepreneur Salim Ismail in his book titled Exponential Organisations and summarised well in the videos below.

C stands for context? Context is king, queen and every other royal you can think of!

Usain Bolt is the poster child for this one. Despite being the greatest sprinter of all time he struggled when changing to football dreaming of playing for ManU but ending up playing with the Central Coast Mariners for only 8 weeks. His mindframe would have largely been the same but his context was very different.

Many companies are having a Bolt moment. Their context has changed and their performance is suffering. The difference is for some they haven’t even realised that they are playing a different sport. They’re still putting on the sprinting spikes and lining up for the 100 when the game has changed entirely.

New York angel investor David Rose sums it up dramatically saying

“Any company designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st.”

Fortunately, as long as companies realize their context has changed there is still much related to context within your control. 

Bain & Company research revealed that across the global 2000 organisation when performance expectations were not met 85% of executives cited internal reasons for their results as follows.

1.    Insufficient resourcing (45%)

2.    Inability to focus (34%)

3.    Culture, i.e. risk aversion (24%)

4.    Complexity (26%)

5.    Weak business plans (24%)

6.    Missing capabilities (23%)

Yes there is a bunch of stuff outside our control that will impact our performance, but there is far more we can control or influence that our energy should be focused on.

One the key contextual variables totally within our control that costs no money to change is our behaviour. 

High performance organisations tend to share similar behaviours as they do mindframes. My favourite culture management guru Carolyn Taylor (below) has identified three behaviours that are essential to the success of every culture as captured in her must read book Walking The Talk.

1. Behaving responsibly

“Let us imagine you are faced with a situation which did not work out the way you wanted. You have a choice in the way you respond. You can go above the line and take personal responsibility. Or you can go below the line and blame, justify, defend or deny. Which path you choose to take will determine the outcomes you get in your life.” pp.48-49 Walking The Talk

2. Behaving with principle

“…refers to the extent to which individuals and organisations stick to a set of internally held principles that guide them during moments of difficult decisions. They stay true to these principles, even when the pressure is on. The reverse of this would be individuals and organisations who seem to do whatever is most expedient to keep other people happy, or to make a quick buck.” p.49 Walking The Talk

3. Behaving with openness

“… relates to the extent to which the organisation and individuals in it are able to take feedback, to be curious about new ways of operating, to let go of past attachments, to change their habits. A key skill which demonstrates openness, and often provides a practical way to get better at it, is to become a better listener. pp.51-52. Walking The Talk

One word of warning about behaviours. 

To change them may not cost money but there is still a cost and for some this will be a cost they are not willing to pay. The cost relates to your ego. To behave responsibly, in a principled fashion and to be open can be a cost to your sense of self. The closer you are tied to your ego the harder it will be to adopt these three behaviours.

So much more to discuss and explore on this topic but if you have got this far I applaud you and won’t take any more of your time. The extravert in me is always happy to chat if you’d like to know more and in the spirit of 'behaving with openness' I would love to hear your ideas on this topic.

All my best to you in finding the better you in you.

Rich Hirst is a leadership, change and high performance psychologist. His insights are based on real world experiences from his work with 10,000+ leaders and over 1,000 CEOs, underpinned by his knowledge as an organisational psychologist and expertise as a change agent supporting organisations for more than 20 years going through major transformation.

For more information please go to www.richhirst.com or contact me via email on [email protected]. Please find below links to my previous monthly posts.

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