Capacity is the ability to use every skill and resource at your disposal.
—Dr. Phil Nuernberger, author Strong and Fearless
We believe this book can be the catalyst for our two most insatiable desires: success and happiness.
Every leader and organization recognizes the power of professional development and skills training. Without evolving people, processes, and products, organizations will not survive changing demands and fierce competition. Without growth, market share begins to erode until there’s no bottom line left to protect. And yet, despite heavy investment in ongoing development, most organizations fail to see the kind of cultural transformation they desperately want. The road to transformation is littered with the carcasses of once-great giants who spent millions upon millions on professional development. Employee engagement is at an all-time low. Productivity is decreasing rapidly with endless e-mails, meetings, and electronic distractions diminishing focus, stifling creativity, and slaughtering innovation.
Look around your office—is this the best it can be? What can your organization do to thrive and prosper? What if it were possible to improve the organization one person, one team, and one leader at a time—not by simply teaching more or turning up the volume, but by plugging into a deeper source?
Our capacity for change is limitless. Our ancestors have shown us what’s possible if we all unite under the universal theme of human progress—creating a better future built on an expanded capacity for change. We are a resilient species that plows the fields of failure in order to plant the seeds of change. We will show you how to capture the hearts and minds of your people and provide a clear, compelling, and actionable path toward transformation and prolonged prosperity. It’s time to look inward and unleash your full potential.
We have all used the word capacity in our daily lives to describe maximal storage or effort. What’s the towing capacity of my pickup truck? What’s my lung capacity? Let’s look at the formal definition of capacity:
ca·pac·i·ty
Here is how we want you to think about capacity:
There is no question that some people are simply born with more talent or skills than others. One of the hallmarks of a fully realized life is optimizing your innate abilities and applying them with maximum efficiency. We have all witnessed the often-tragic trajectories of child protégés. They were destined for stardom and had every conceivable advantage to pave a surefire road to glory. Then out of nowhere, a lesser talent makes a bigger impact than the protégé ever dreamed! This book isn’t about the merits of talent over training or taking shortcuts to success. Capacity is about asking the tough questions that lead to better choices and expanding your body’s ability to contain more input without sacrificing the quality of your body’s output (Figure 1.1).
What follows is a list of a few names you might recognize. There is no question that all of these people have talent—in many cases a ton of talent—but we think you would all agree there are graveyards full of talented people with unrealized aspirations and dreams.
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Think of all the talented people who fell short in life. Many just relied on their talent and skill, without growing their capacity to do more with it. Now think of the seemingly talentless person who changed the world by consistently growing their capacity and refusing to settle for less.
What Tom Brady, LeBron James, Captain Sully, Arianna Huffington, and Sara Blakely possess—what separates talented athletes, people, and organizations—is the desire for continuous improvement. These folks build a rock-solid foundation and carefully construct a process of incremental improvements on top of it.
Resilience is a common attribute used to describe countless people who have shaped our world for the better. Here is something to think about—the definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from adversity or strife. Toughness is the great equalizer. Some people are born with natural abilities, talents, and skills, but capacity must be earned and managed.
First, you must develop a growth mindset—small incremental steps for continuous improvement without succumbing to the arrogance and complacency of immediate success.
Second, nobody starts out being great—they all slowly build their ability to be great. Everyone has similar raw materials, but the game changer for almost everyone is the ability to build capacity. We are at our best when we are growing and learning so we can accomplish the seemingly impossible! Growth is the most rewarding part of a fully realized life!
There are many books on the secrets and shortcuts to success. These can be very entertaining and a great way to provoke new thoughts and shatter preconceived notions, but no amount of new ideas will come to fruition without working hard. Building capacity is not easy. You never took shortcuts to achieve all you have up to this point and neither should a system that sustains it.
Here are just a few shortcuts we hear and see every day:
Many organizations and their people may lose hope over time and give up. This can happen for multiple reasons, but if you boil it down, in most cases it comes down to losing capacity!
Do you feel like your organization and your people are expanding their capacity? Changing behavior can be extremely difficult, and it begins with self-awareness.
Ask yourself, “How much am I willing to devote to improving my skills and increasing my capacity for greatness?” “How much time is my organization spending on increasing capacity?” If you resolve to put in the hard work and follow a process through despite all obstacles, you will prevail over any challenge.
Here are a few questions to ask before embarking on this journey:
Organizational Capacity
Individual Capacity
Now that we’ve done a little soul-searching, it’s time to get started. There are thousands of self-help books, consultants, and programs on how to accelerate growth, innovate, and increase profit margins. Many organizations and their people are doing tremendous work. The real key to thriving in today’s economy is making better choices about building an inexhaustible supply of energy to tackle any problem in the most efficient way.
We can’t simply upload the extra capacity and push play. Humans aren’t built like machines. Human capacity must be learned, practiced, and developed. It all starts with changing the mindset of organizations from the top down to create and sustain unstoppable growth fueled by healthier and happier people. Albert Einstein once stated, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” Intelligence and performance are really two sides to the same coin. Imagine the possibilities if we all had greater capacity to accomplish more without having to learn a new skill or language. We only need to focus our attention inward before we can radiate greatness outward.
Capacity is your secret weapon to winning the performance war.