Fit to Lead E-Book

Marcus Marsden

• Herausgeber: Marcus Marsden
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 366

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Frank and forward-thinking, Fit to Lead offers a dynamic new vision of leadership development that places the role of your physical body firmly alongside that of your thoughts and emotions. Written by husband-and-wife team Marcus and Sari Marsden, the book combines the principles of executive coaching and fitness training to provide you with a holistic system for transforming your leadership and producing breakthrough results for yourself and the people you lead.

Leseprobe

First published May 2017

Copyright © 2017 Marcus Marsden and Sari Marsden

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The information provided in this book is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Consult a physician before performing any exercise programme, including the programmes in this book. It is your responsibility to evaluate your own medical and physical condition and to independently determine whether to perform, use or adapt any of the information or content provided in this book. Any exercise programme may result in injury. By voluntarily undertaking any exercise displayed in this book, you assume the risk of any resulting injury. The publisher and authors assume no responsibility or liability for any loss or damage suffered by any person as a result of the use or misuse of any of the information or content in this book.

Candid Creation Publishing books are available through most major bookstores in Singapore. For bulk order of our books at special quantity discounts, please email us at [email protected].

FIT TO LEAD

Transforming Your Leadership with the 5 Pillars of Performance

Author: Marcus Marsden and Sari MarsdenPublisher: Phoon Kok HwaEditor: Ryan HowLayout: Corrine TengCover design: Danijela MijailovicPublished by: Candid Creation Publishing LLP 167 Jalan Bukit Merah #05-12 Connection One Tower 4 Singapore 150167Tel/Fax: [phone]Website: www.candidcreation.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/CandidCreationPublishingEmail: [email protected]: 978-981-11-3359-6 (paperback)/ 978-981-11-3545-3 (hardcover)

National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

Name(s): Marsden, Sari, 1979- | Marsden, Marcus, 1967- author.

Title: Fit to lead : transforming your leadership with the 5 pillars of performance / Sari & Marcus Marsden.

Description: Singapore : Candid Creation Publishing LLP, 2017.

Identifier(s): OCN 983822953 | ISBN 978-981-11-3545-3 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-981-11-3359-6 (paperback)

Subject(s): LCSH: Leadership. | Physical fitness. | Executives--Health and hygiene. | Self-actualization (Psychology)

Classification: DDC 658.4092--dc23

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

The Structure of this Book

OVERVIEWLooking Ahead

1Connecting Leadership and the Body

2Building Peak Performance

3Move Your Body, Move Your Life

Overview: Self-Reflection

PART IPersonal Development

4The Challenge of Development

5Who Am I?

6Where Am I?

7Where Do I Want to Go?

8What Stops Me Getting There?

9Image

10Moods

Part I: Self-Reflection

PART IIThe Body

11The Transparent Body

12Fitness Today

13Learning to Move

14Movement and Stress

15High Intensity Interval Training

16Exercise

17Breaking Habits

18Nutrition

19Eating Habits

20Body Types

21Conscious Eating

Part II: Self-Reflection

PART IIILeadership Transformed

22Redefining Leadership

23Purpose

24Energy

25Resilience

26Movement

27Sarius Dynamic Energetics

28Building Capacities and Experiences

29More Ways to Move

Part III: Self-Reflection

CONCLUSION    Moving Forward

30Engaging with this Book

31Final Words

Conclusion: Self-Reflection

Bibliography

Appendix I: Chocolate Brownies and Willpower

Appendix II: Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q)

Appendix III: Sample Dynamic Energetics Development Training Plan

About Sarius Performance International

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a book in the field of personal development, coaching and leadership has been a daunting affair, because we are very aware that we are “standing on the shoulders of giants”. We have both been fortunate to attract many powerful mentors and coaches who have supported us along the way. We offer our thanks to the following people:

FROM MARCUS AND SARI

To our clients who have generously allowed us to feature their stories as case studies in this book, your real-life examples bring everything to life and make the theoretical ideas accessible.

To Kelly Poulos, for your insane and contagious passion that has never wavered.

To Terrie Lupberger, Beatriz Garcia and Chris Balsley, for your gracious, gentle giving and for introducing us to the wisdom of the body.

To Ryan How and Phoon Kok Hwa, our long-suffering editor and publisher at Candid Creation, without whom this book would never have seen the light of day.

To book cover designer Danijela Mijailovic, book layout designer Corrine Teng, photographer Nigel Lau, and brand logo designer Zaki Ibrahim, for your creativity and understanding.

Thank you too to Liv Studio Singapore for allowing us to photograph in your studio.

FROM SARI

To Nike and the trainers of the Southeast Asian Nike+ Training Club team, for empowering me to become the best version of myself for the sake of others and for making sure I move dynamically by putting proper shoes on my feet.

To Tini Fadzillah, for bringing a light touch to our work in women’s empowerment and leadership development.

To Jacqueline Lee, for guiding me with your knowledge of movement training. Your simple and sensible approach has been invaluable in helping me design the practices in this book.

To the students from Aidha and Mountbatten Vocational School, for welcoming me into your lives and constantly reminding me about the powerful mood of joy.

To Uci, Dini, Patsy, Indri, Lia, Ina, Sessa and Lisa, my precious circle of dynamic friends who never stop championing and challenging me in the process of growth. I am truly blessed to have you all in my life.

To my family, for loving me for who I am.

Finally to Marcus, there’s a special sixth pillar of performance in my life, and that is you! I am especially thankful for the headphones.

FROM MARCUS

To Darren Rudkin and Bill McCabe, for believing in me when I took my early, faltering steps into this world of personal and leadership development. It was your early mentorship that really helped me believe I could actually flourish in this area.

To Mark Hemstedt, my long-time business partner at Newfield Asia and The Works Partnership, for letting me in to create a real partnership of equals in the company that you created.

To trainers Ken Ito and Doug Perasso, for challenging me to go far beyond the limits that I impose upon myself.

To my family: I think it is fair to say that you were all rather surprised when I upped and left marketing, Unilever and Europe in 2001. However, your unconditional love, support and encouragement have played a huge role in providing me with the secure foundation upon which my life and my work in this book is based.

Finally, to my wife and co-author, Sari, thank you for enduring all those early Oakland Raider mornings and late Bob Dylan nights.

FOREWORD

There are many books on leadership and many books on health, wellness and movement but few, if any, have made the direct link made here by Marcus and Sari. Most people still see leadership as a subject one learns or something one does that can be studied. As Marcus and Sari point out, we have pigeonholed leadership as a mental activity. The research however does not support this: in January 2015, The Telegraph summarised some of the research that shows statistical links between body weight and career progression.1 Although there are certainly exceptions to every rule, anyone wishing to take on this thing called leadership should consider the body they walk around in. Although the research suggests that our body and health do play a part, research can only suggest a link. Research does not tell us what to do about it or how to make changes. That’s where this book comes in.

I have had the pleasure of working with Marcus for over 15 years. I have known Sari for almost as long. Marcus always had a passion for learning and human behaviour. Sari has a passion for health and the body. They have always had a passion for each other that shows up in the joy they get from their work.

Marcus has always been a scholar of the work. He, like all great trainers and coaches in the personal development field, was willing to put on the white belt of a beginner and learn as an apprentice. As he practised over the years, he moved up the ranks from practitioner to virtuoso and is now an excellent trainer and coach. A master however is another step up the ladder. A master is one who takes the work and then makes it his or her own. This is what Marcus has done through his focus on leadership and fitness. Sari, not to be left behind, took it even further. As an international gold medal winner in the fitness industry, she is one of the leading talents in personal training and women’s leadership in Asia. Together they make a formidable team.

This book is for anyone who wants to improve their leadership or their movement or both. It is for anyone who has the 21st century’s most popular concern—work/life balance—or whatever that is. It is also for anyone who works in the coaching or fitness industries. After reading this book it is likely that you will no longer be able to separate the domains of fitness and work performance, or health and performance in any domain. Although medicine is helping us keep our bodies working for longer, it is still true that we really do only have one body and how we look after it determines our capacity to do anything and everything we want.

In some earlier work that Marcus and I were involved in, the comparison between a typical athlete and a typical executive was made. An athlete or sportsperson at the highest level spends most of their time preparing for that opportunity to perform at their best. To do this they work on everything. They eat well, hydrate well, sleep well, work on strength, speed, flexibility as well as the visualisation and mental side of their endeavour.

Then we take the typical executives that we meet in our line of work. They prepare themselves for peak performance by eating fast food, living on coffee, and express pride in the fact that they function on less sleep. If they exercise at all it is irregular and infrequent and seems to cause more injuries than sustained performance. Speed applies to everything except their physical being, and flexibility is seen as a weakness. The mental state is defined as keeping up with the latest management thinking or business news. Hobbies that used to build capacity have been sacrificed in the search for balance between life and work. After all this, executives expect themselves to deliver peak performance in that important meeting or that difficult discussion. Something here does not make sense, and Marcus and Sari are part of a leading group of people trying to change this.

At the end of this book you will likely be fitter or a better leader but if you take on their advice you might be both.

- Mark Hemstedt  Founding Partner, The Works Partnership

1www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11322225/Career-going-nowhere-Perhaps-its-because-youre-fat.html

PREFACE

BY MARCUS

This book is the result of an ongoing journey, a journey that involves the clashing together of the many passions in my life: personal development, nutrition, leadership, sports, health and fitness, and coaching. Indeed, one of the central themes of this book is how the bringing together of seemingly disparate subjects and disciplines can illuminate new paths to the future. It is a journey that is still in progress.

I have been lucky. I have lived through one major change in leadership development and today, I believe that we are on the brink of another one. In fact, it is one that has been gathering pace for some time now and is about to become generally accepted.

The first major change occurred while I was working at Unilever. When I joined in 1989, Unilever had a well-deserved reputation for being one of the great developers of business talent in the world. However, after being in the company for a few years, I talked to HR managers and it was clear that they felt things needed updating. The company was still using techniques from the 1970s and 80s and while these techniques had once been cutting edge, they were now a little tired. The format was very didactic and lecture-based. It was really “school” for businessmen and businesswomen. The knowledge being imparted was still good, but it was not being retained. Not only that; with the pace of change picking up, the knowledge was also becoming less and less relevant.

There were two changes that really shook things up.

First of all, leadership development became far more experiential, an acknowledgement that human beings learn far more effectively by doing than by being talked at all day. Secondly, there was a realisation that leadership consisted of far more than what you know. Knowledge is all very well, but if you cannot use it effectively, it is largely a waste of time. A company is not a university. This was the time of Daniel Goleman and his groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, first published in 1995.

Gradually, this thinking began to infiltrate mainstream leadership development and it was in 2000 that I was fortunate to come across a company called The Works Partnership (TWP). Their work was highly experiential, very personal and focussed on “self-awareness” (Goleman lists self-awareness as the number one factor in developing emotional intelligence). This was a very different way of developing leaders. Suddenly, the focus was on you, the participant. You became the subject matter, not the case study, or the Powerpoint slide. In fact, there were no longer any case studies, Powerpoint slides, projectors or tables in the training room at all! Revolution!

Fast forward 20 years and we are on the cusp of another revolution. The big shift that happened after Emotional Intelligence was that, grudgingly, businesses had to acknowledge the existence and importance of emotions in leadership. The big shift we are experiencing now is that in addition to knowledge and emotion, the physical body is also beginning to be recognised as a critical element in leadership. This physical work has had its pioneers, just as the emotional work had Daniel Goleman. It appears to me that this work is on the cusp of breaking through and becoming accepted in mainstream leadership development in just the same way.

When emotions became an accepted part of leadership development, suddenly questions such as “How do you feel?” and “How do you think your manager feels when you do that?” went from being seen as weird to being seen as perfectly normal. When the physical body becomes similarly accepted as a key part of leadership development, questions such as “What did you eat yesterday?” and “When did you last exercise?” will also be seen as perfectly normal. We are not quite there yet, but it will not be long in coming.

For many years now I have been excited by the possibility of building connections between different disciplines and I have explored these ideas together with thousands of people in workshops, coaching sessions and simple conversations all over the world. I have also been fortunate to work and spend time with many wonderful teachers, mentors and co-conspirators over the years. What follows in this book is an attempt to synthesise many thousands of such conversations.

I am also more than fortunate to be on this journey with my wife and coauthor Sari. She is the ideal companion for this journey: we agree on enough to be compatible, but not on so much as to be identical. You will see as much in her sections of the book. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we have enjoyed piecing it together.

BY SARI

This book is about a relationship. The relationship between Marcus and me, and the journey that we have been on together since the day we met. When I first met Marcus, I knew him as an executive coach and leadership trainer who was concerned with producing excellence through and with others. Over the next 10 years, I have watched him grow and develop into someone I now see as an athlete: someone who uses his body as well as his brain and his emotions in order to produce excellence.

In that same time, I have also developed and grown. What I find fascinating is that my journey and how Marcus sees me are almost the reverse of each other. My journey has seen me become an athlete in the more traditional sense of the word, as I now work as a personal trainer and with the Southeast Asian Nike+ Training Club (NTC) team. However, in that time, Marcus has come to see me not as an athlete but as a coach, a woman who makes it her job to support and challenge others to be excellent in their own lives.

As our lives and personal journeys have become intertwined through marriage, so our passions and interests have mingled and infused one another. This book is about our journey and how it has led us to create a new way of looking at personal development and leadership, not just in the corporate world, but in life as a whole; not just for businessmen and businesswomen, but for anyone who is interested in learning, growing and developing to produce peak performance, in whatever field they so choose.

This book is also about a passion, one that Marcus and I share. While we agree to disagree on many things, we do have a common passion for fitness, growth and personal development. I remember that someone asked me a question one day: “How would you know that you have made an impact on the people around you?” That question stopped me in my tracks and made me think. I have always wanted to make an impact, but how would I know that I actually have?

For me, the answer is now clear: I have made an impact when I see a person grow, develop and create results that they never thought they could achieve. If they achieve that as the result of my partnership with them, then I can say that I have made an impact of which I can be proud. In contrast to what I see in most of the fitness industry today, I see health and fitness as an outwardly-focussed enterprise, one that allows you to take care of the critical relationships and tasks in your world. The desire to have six-pack abs or big biceps for self-absorbed, aesthetic reasons leaves me cold.

My personal conversation is about how I choose to be growing, developing and learning, standing next to Marcus—because I believe our work is important to this world. At a time when so many people are fighting to be right, we aim to support people to be excellent and in particular, to support them to become leaders and to create leaders around them.

I guess it is not a coincidence that my name is Sari, which means “essence” in Indonesian. I want to honour my name by supporting other people to manifest their essence in the world, because ultimately, that is what I have discovered to be at the heart of my essence.

I dedicate this book to that purpose.

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK

Part I of this book is written by Marcus and contains some key elements of the personal development work that TWP and Newfield Asia (NFA) have used all over the world to support and challenge people to produce peak performance in whatever field they choose. The principles discussed in Part I form the foundation of the drive to produce excellence in your own life and in the lives of other people. It does not matter whether your goal is to be the best parent, athlete or manager you can be, these principles will support you in reaching your goal.

Part II, which is written by Sari, deals with the body, movement, exercise and nutrition, and provides a look at how these elements can all contribute to your personal and leadership development goals. This is where the rubber really begins to hit the road. This part aims to get you challenging yourself physically and starting to think about how movement, nutrition and exercise can help you develop not only your physical state but your emotional and mental states as well.

Part III is where it all comes together. Written by both Marcus and Sari, this part of the book offers a transformed view of leadership by combining all the elements of personal development, body, movement and nutrition discussed in Parts I and II. Historically, these have been very separate areas: movement and exercise work to make you fitter while personal development works to make you smarter. The whole premise of this book is that this separation is a fallacy and that in fact, paying attention to your physical state, your movement and your nutrition can make a huge difference in producing peak performance in all areas of your life, not just when it comes to your physical fitness. For too long the world of leadership development was purely focussed on the mental aspect. More recently, the world of emotions has grudgingly been admitted to the party. It is high time that we invite the worlds of the body and movement into the game as well, because as we shall see, they have a huge amount to offer.

OVERVIEW

LOOKING AHEAD

BY MARCUS & SARI

CONNECTING LEADERSHIP AND THE BODY

Leadership. Your body. On first glance, they seem to be two entirely separate things. Leadership is intangible, and involves having a vision and engaging with other people so that they follow you, whilst your body is a physical, tangible and personal thing. The main purpose of this book is to offer a different point of view, namely that your body, how you hold it and move it, is a fundamental part of your leadership. The world of leadership and the world of the physical body are not as separate as they may initially appear.

In fact, the athletic and sporting world has known and embraced these links for some time: athletes and sportspeople have taken on the principles of personal development and leadership much more enthusiastically than business executives and budding leaders have taken on the principles of health and fitness. It is now commonplace for athletes to talk of SMART goals, visualisation techniques and game debriefs, but it is still very rare to hear executives and aspiring leaders talk about the way they move their body, their nutrition plans, their exercise routine or their level of flexibility.

Undoubtedly, there is still some snobbishness at play here: have those sweaty, muscle-bound jocks and quinoa-eating yoga types really got anything to teach a serious MBA graduate or budding business leader? In short, we believe that yes, they have, and in this book we will explore crossovers between these domains that can supercharge your efforts to grow and develop, not just as a leader, but as a human being too.

Because the crossover between these two areas is better received by athletes than business leaders, there are many more books out there that deal with applying personal development thinking to the world of sports. This book therefore largely focuses on the converse: the application of physical movement, nutrition and exercise to the worlds of leadership and personal development.

The two of us have watched our worlds coming closer and closer together in recent years. Sari began as a personal trainer dealing largely with physical fitness and working with people who wanted to lose fat, gain muscle, become more flexible, etc. Marcus began as a leadership development trainer and coach dealing largely with belief systems, thinking patterns, moods and emotions and working with people who wanted to become more effective at learning, developing and growing themselves and other people.

Over time, we started to notice this distinction disappearing. Sari began linking people’s physical health with their emotional and mental states. Marcus began incorporating physical elements such as movement and nutrition into his coaching and training. As this integration of physical (or “somatic”, from soma, Greek for “body”), mental and emotional states accelerated, we formed a company that was focussed squarely on developing this concept: Sarius Performance International (SPI). Our initial thinking was crystallised in the Five Pillars of Performance model that we will outline below and which forms the foundation to the whole book.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF PERFORMANCE

When we first formed SPI, we began with these five pillars as our underlying philosophy: the Internal Pillars, comprising the physical state, mental state, and emotional state; and the External Pillars, consisting of practice and support. In the subsequent years, we have greatly expanded our thinking, with the results of that expansion making up the bulk of this book. However, the original Five Pillars of Performance model serves as a useful foundation for the book because it introduces the key pillars and elements that we will return to time and time again.

The one core belief that underpins all the work we do is that in order to truly grow, develop and flourish, human beings cannot rely solely on their thinking and feeling. In addition to their intellect and their emotions, their physical body and range of motion are also of utmost importance. For so long, the physical state and movement have been excluded from these types of discussions and relegated to the gym and the sports field. We believe that for those looking to really maximise their own development and the development of those around them, the body and the practice of conscious movement can offer significant boosts in performance.

In order for human beings to achieve peak performance, all aspects of their “human-being-ness” need to be taken into account. At SPI, we call such an approach Active Synergy Training and Coaching (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 SPI’s Active Synergy Training and Coaching Model

The Five Pillars of Performance work synergistically to generate sustainable development through a focus on a person’s internal system (physical, mental and emotional states) while at the same time working with the external system that surrounds them: their support network and their practice regime. The three Internal Pillars work to generate performance, while the two External Pillars work to sustain performance. Individually, the Five Pillars of Performance can be summarised as follows:

Physical State Pillar

So many people today see themselves as a brain on a stick and treat other people in a similar manner, especially at work. The body is seen as some kind of necessary evil, an irritating appendage that has to be dragged around in order for the brain to do its work.

However, the body and a person’s physical state play a fundamental part in their human growth and development, especially in the domains of learning and knowing, as we shall see later. The body is a key transmitter, receiver and processor of information. Critical elements of the physical state include, but are not limited to: nutrition, energy, breathing, flexibility, strength, power, stability, posture, movement, sleep and restoration. All of these factors are fundamental to peak performance. Rather than seeing the body as an inconvenience, we believe that attending to your body can provide a significant edge not only to your own performance but also to the performance of those whom you seek to lead.

Mental State Pillar

People spend an inordinate amount of time talking to themselves, and most of what is said is unprintable in these pages! The actions that we do or do not take are tightly linked to the beliefs that we have, but we are unaware of the vast majority of these beliefs. This is a recipe for failure and mediocrity. Critical elements of the mental state include, but are not limited to: affirmations, visualisation, beliefs, effective target setting, creating effective self-talk, clarity of purpose and focus.

In Part I of this book we will pay particular attention to how your mental state can either facilitate or impede your performance and the performance of others. A big part of the mental state comes down to language because we communicate with others and with ourselves through the medium of language. In our lives we are always communicating and, as with everything that we repeatedly do, habits begin to form and the resulting patterns become transparent to us. Once our patterns of speech become transparent, we lose sight of them and they come to be seen as “situation normal” or simply “the way things are”. It is very difficult to change a habit you do not know you have. This is especially critical with our patterns in language, because, as we shall see, language has the power to shape our reality.

Emotional State Pillar

The English word “emotion” comes from the French word émouvoir, which means to stir up. This word in turn comes from the Latin word emovere, which means to move out of; e- “out” + movere “to move”. Peak performance, growth and development are not created by intellect alone. Human beings are “moved” to perform (or not) through their emotions. Critical elements of the emotional state include but are not limited to naming, identifying and shifting moods, creating effective emotional states and stress mitigation.

For many people, especially in the corporate world, moods and emotions, like the body, are simply dismissed as irrelevant and inconvenient. They cannot be commanded and controlled and, as such, they are often seen as “dangerous” or “messy”. But moods and emotions are critical because they set the frame for what we see as possible in a situation. If you are full of resignation or resentment, then you will see far fewer possibilities than if you are feeling peaceful or enthusiastic.

Support Pillar

Human beings are not islands floating around in some kind of glorious isolation. Rather, we operate in a series of interconnected networks and relationships, and these connections are fundamental enablers or barriers to us achieving what we say we want to achieve. Critical elements regarding support include creating and maintaining networks as well as working with beliefs that can undermine these networks. This is one of the biggest barriers to success that we encounter in our clients. The desire to be Superman or Superwoman is very strong—“I have to prove that I can do everything on my own”. Equally strong is the desire to be a nice guy or nice gal—“I don’t want to disturb you or be a burden to you”.

The top athletes and sportspeople in the world all have coaches, despite the likelihood that they are better players than their coaches. They hire coaches because they are passionate about improving and winning and because they know that however good they are, they cannot “see” themselves in action. Another pair of trusted eyes makes all the difference. Videoing yourself and watching the playback is not the same thing—you are still watching the tape with the same eyes.

Increasingly, the corporate world is waking up to the importance of coaching at senior levels, but it is a slow awakening from what appears to have been a very deep sleep. There are support opportunities all around you, but if you want support, you need to invite it in.

Practice Pillar

A key element in any drive towards growth, development and learning is the nature of the practice in which people immerse themselves. A key distinction between those who create peak performance and those who produce average results is their practice regime. It is not enough just to practise, rather it is important to pay attention to what it is that you are practising and how you are doing it. Elements of focus include developing and maintaining effective practices.

One of the most common flaws in people’s routines is that they end up practising what they enjoy doing. If you just keep focussing on the area that you enjoy, then other areas are going to be neglected; these are often the areas that are holding you back. For a classic example, go to a golf driving range, and look at the number of people pulling off the head cover of an enormous driver and practising their drives over and over again, because they enjoy it more than practising the little chips and pitching shots that everyone knows are the secret to improving your golf score. Moreover, this practice very often goes unsupervised, making it highly likely that these people are simply reinforcing ineffective habits while practising!

Here is a good example of how the External Pillars often interact with each other. If you are willing to engage the support of a coach as you practise then it can pay huge dividends. In the next chapter, we will go into greater detail on how the individual pillars influence one another, and how you can make them work together to create peak performance.

BUILDING PEAK PERFORMANCE

The Five Pillars of Performance operate as the underlying philosophy throughout our coaching, which will become evident as you read this book. At many points in the book we will return to these pillars and examine more closely the key roles that they all play in personal development and leadership.

To reiterate, your physical, mental and emotional states are all important, and these three Internal Pillars function together to generate performance. Although they are made separate and distinct in our model, in reality they are all closely integrated; if you remove a pillar from a building, do you trust that the building will stay standing for long? In order to develop as a leader, you need to not only be aware of this, but also be able to work with all three of these pillars. However, as we mentioned in Chapter 1, the Internal Pillars on their own can only generate peak performance; they cannot sustain it. It is only when you are willing to practise effectively and connect to an effective support network that you will be able to sustain the performance generated by the Internal Pillars.

As we shall see, this is true not only for your own performance and development but also when you want to lead or develop other people.

THE INTERNAL PILLARS—GENERATORS OF PERFORMANCE

The Internal Pillars of the physical, mental and emotional states are intimately interrelated. It is very difficult to produce your best performance and to lead others if you only have one or two of these states functioning optimally or if they are pulling in different directions. If one pillar shows any weakness at all, you can be sure that the whole structure will soon collapse on itself. For example:

•You are physically strong enough to accomplish your goal. Mentally, you think your goal is a good idea, but you just do not feel emotionally connected to it;

•You are very passionate about your goal. You think it is achievable, but you just do not have the physical energy to complete the task; or

•You have the physical energy to achieve your goal. You feel passionate about it, but inside, that little voice is telling you, “You cannot do this!”

So many times, it is the one negative element that overcomes the two positive elements! We are programmed to give more attention and credence to the negative element as a way to protect ourselves, as a kind of inbuilt self-defence mechanism.

Often, what then happens is that you get yourself into a negative whirlpool, where these three elements reinforce one another and drag you down in a spiral of non-performance (see Figure 2.1):

Figure 2.1 The Sarius Spiral of Non-Performance

You don’t think you can do it (M).

And because you don’t think you can do it,

You don’t enjoy doing it (E).

And because you don’t enjoy doing it,

You don’t do it (P).

And because you don’t do it, you tell yourself:

“I can’t do it” (M).

And so the spiral repeats.

On the other hand, if you have ever experienced being “in the zone”—this is when you have all three of these states in alignment: you believe you can do the job, you feel passionate about the job, and you have the energy to get the job done. Now, you create a cycle of peak performance (see Figure 2.2):

Figure 2.2 The Sarius Spiral of Peak Performance

You think you can do it (M).

And because you think you can do it,

You begin to do it (P).

And because you can do it,

You begin to enjoy doing it (E).

And because you enjoy doing it, you keep doing it and then you tell yourself:

“I can do it” (M).

THE EXTERNAL PILLARS—SUSTAINERS OF PERFORMANCE

Support

In our coaching experience, one of the biggest distinguishing factors that we observe between those who succeed and those who do not is the willingness to ask for and accept support.

There is an old proverb that says:

“If you want to go fast, then go alone, but if you want to go far, then go together.”

In the world we live in today, the unwillingness to ask for and accept support is one of the things that never fails to amaze us when we are coaching people. People are surrounded by other people, or even whole departments who would be willing to support them, and yet they insist on doing it all themselves.

The cult of the superhero has much to answer for this—people want to be Superman or Superwoman, and then they wonder why their relationships are all messed up. It is very difficult to be in a relationship with a superhero, and when we come to discuss leadership later in this book, we will see that fundamentally, leadership is a relationship: it happens in relationship with other people. It is not a solo endeavour.

Barriers to Receiving Support

In general, we have observed two main reasons why people are reluctant to ask for and accept support. Some people do not want to be a burden; they worry that people are already busy enough and don’t have the time or the energy to support them. Other people see asking for and accepting support as a sign of weakness. They have their whole identity wrapped up in their ability to be able to do everything required on their own, and see the need for support as a fundamental flaw in their own character.

A key question to ask yourself at this point is this: What does how you are living your life right now tell you about your attitude towards support? Notice that we did not say “Look at your beliefs about support…” People find it notoriously difficult to truly identify their own beliefs, but if you are willing to look clearly at the results you have in your life right now, then they will give you an indication as to your real attitude and beliefs. This will be a recurring theme in the book.

It is very easy to kid yourself that you have a wonderful and open attitude towards accepting support from others, but if you look at your life and you do not actually have anyone supporting you in a meaningful way, then the chances are that you have some hidden beliefs or attitudes towards support that are holding you back from allowing others to support you.

Practice

Nowadays, almost everyone knows that practice is critical to producing peak performance. Malcolm Gladwell’s famous “10,000-Hour Rule” to attain mastery is now well known.2 However, it is not enough just to keep mindlessly repeating the same tired old practice routines over and over again. How you practise is just as critical as the willingness to practise itself.

You probably know the first half of the famous saying: “Practice makes perfect…”, but do you know the second half: “…so be careful what you practise”? For a perfect example, visit a gym anywhere in the world, and you will see people enthusiastically practising bad habits over and over again and then wondering why they are developing injuries and postural imbalances!

Practice does not just refer to something that you do in order to develop a skill. Rather, instead, consider that you are practising whenever you do something, anything, repeatedly. So, if you drink six cups of coffee every day, that is what you are practising and, hey presto, you get very good at drinking six cups of coffee a day. Practice does indeed make perfect!

Creating Practices

Closely linked to the willingness to practise is the willingness to create practices. Practices are a key part of any coaching program. Our good friend and Director of Training at NFA, Terrie Lupberger, puts it very well in her upcoming book You Are What You Practice:

Helping people generate new results, futures and outcomes is at the core of our work as coaches, leaders and change agents. We encourage new thinking, perspectives, and paradigms. Our questions and observations can generate new awareness in others that a particular habit—either in their way of thinking or in their way of behaving—isn’t working any longer.

Unfortunately, we human beings have become short-sighted and demanding of quick-fixes. We have immediate, 24/7 access to information. We are inundated with data and overwhelmed with complexity. We want sound bites. We privilege formulaic approaches. We want answers and solutions—fast.

And that’s the problem. As much as we would like the quick fix, there just isn’t an instant “how-to” for changing thinking and behaviors, so we can get new results. That’s where practices and practising comes in. They are the key to change.

A practice is defined as something that you do with the aim of building capacity. It is not linked to a specific goal or target. So, for example, in order to develop a capacity for assertiveness, you might adopt the practice of attending boxing classes twice a week. You are not aiming to become the heavyweight champion of the world, but you are looking to develop and embody a capacity for assertiveness.

Marcus goes to the gym on average five times a week, but he is not looking to be Mr Olympia or win any competitions. He goes five times a week because, amongst other things, he is looking to build a capacity of discipline and commitment. There are other capacities that he is also seeking to build; these capacities will become evident later in Part III of the book when we discuss movement and its links to leadership.

There are classic practices, such as yoga or meditation that aim at building basic capacities such as flexibility and peace. However, it is important to be aware that there is no inherent link between a practice and a capacity. So, for example, a yoga practice may be aimed at developing flexibility and relaxation, but not necessarily; a yoga practice can easily be adopted to develop a capacity of resilience or stability instead. Moreover, it is also perfectly possible, based on Marcus’s personal experience, to practise experiencing tension and frustration by attending yoga classes! As we shall see, the critical element is to be aware and conscious of the specific quality you are intending to build as you practise, and then to focus on that quality while you practise.

CLIENT CASE STUDY

Amit Sevak, former CEO of Laureate Education, South Asia, working with Marcus

After attending one of the programmes at NFA, Amit realised that he had gotten stuck on a plateau and was feeling rather uninspired. He had created a successful career for himself but found that he had lost the original energy that led to his initial success. Upon making this discovery, Amit decided to take up boxing as an attempt to kickstart his system.