We live in an ever more demanding world. The speed of change is relentless. Global economics and new technology mean that decisions are taken ever more quickly. Success and failure are close companions. Shocks and surprises come in many different shapes and sizes. Long-term values and expectations are continually being questioned.
Today, the environment for everyone in every sector is tougher and more challenging than it has been for many years. We sort out one challenge and then there is another one to address. How can we be at our best in challenging times? When it is really tough over an extended period, what will keep us going so that we can make good decisions, give our best and be creative at work, and make a contribution to other spheres of life that are important to us?
How can you best raise your game and achieve your full potential when the pace of change is fast and the demands on you are considerable? Personal growth and survival depend on how you handle relentless challenge. You can feel at the mercy of external pressures. It can seem like three steps forward and two steps back. How do you raise your game when you feel frustrated, buffeted, ignored and weary?
The pace of change creates opportunities as well as frustrations.
Those who are able to raise their game can become influential beyond their expectations. Those who can rise above turbulence and provide focused, measured and calm leadership can create a new sense of direction and renewed energy.
Success comes from taking control of what you can control while accepting what you cannot control. It is recognising when you do have a choice, even if it is only the choice of what you think about an issue. Success flows from keeping a positive frame of mind and not wallowing in misfortune.
So how can you ensure that you step up and raise your game effectively? How can you build on your strengths and ensure that you can get a grip on your responsibilities quickly and smoothly? Sometimes you feel daunted and there is an element of self-doubt. What are the next steps you need to take? How do you up the pace and keep a life?
Maybe you are about to start a new job, which you are looking forward to. Maybe your job is going faster and faster and you have to run to keep up. What will make the crucial difference to your skills, your behaviour and your attitudes to help ensure that you will step up successfully and enjoy those further responsibilities?
This book will enable you to become more confident so that you learn and thrive as well as enjoy what you do. It provides a practical tool kit for raising your game and stepping up successfully. Do you resonate with the experiences of Miranda, Mary or John?
I suggest that the way forward is a powerful blend of two key concepts:
Self-belief that comes from a combination of inner confidence and clarity of values; alongside
Practical action that is realistic, determined and planned.
At the heart of this book is the balance between being and doing. Being is about becoming comfortable in your skin whatever role you are in. Doing is about the practical behaviours and steps that underpin success.
Being is thinking yourself into the role so that you fill the space of the leader or manager you want to be in a confident and effective way. Doing is about techniques that enable you to do this effectively.
Being is about:
Embedding your values
Knowing your strengths
Believing you can step up
Being confident in yourself and your role
Keeping an open mind
Being clear what matters to you
Knowing what difference you want to make
Knowing what will give you joy
Doing includes:
Developing your strengths
Understanding your least strong areas and knowing how best to live with them
Creating an equilibrium in the way you work that is successful for you
Building your network of supporters and stakeholders
Growing your resilience
Knowing how to use your time well
Being practical in using your energy in a focused way
Both the being and doing dimensions are crucial to success. The interplay between them is also vital.
In addition, this book considers six phases that occur as you raise your game:
Take stock, which looks at developing your strengths, understanding your least strong areas embedding your values, and creating your equilibrium.
First steps, which involves addressing your fears, believing you can do difficult things, knowing who your supporters and stakeholders are and the learning that comes from taking some risks.
Up the pace, which embraces stretching your muscles, growing your supporters and converting your critics, understanding how you respond to problems and warming down thoroughly.
Grow the momentum, which includes keeping your focus, growing your resilience, building your team and renewing your freshness.
Where next, which embraces keeping an open mind, recognising when the tide turns, knowing what matters to you and renewing your vision.
To what end, which covers the difference you want to make, how you want to be remembered, the relevance of family and friends and where joy fits in.
The combined effect of taking forward the being and doing dimensions is to create the prospect of a sequence of step changes that mean you will raise your game and achieve your full potential. What is so important is embedding your learning and thinking it through with colleagues, a mentor or a coach.
The book draws from the practical experiences of individuals in a variety of different spheres, embracing the private, public and voluntary sectors. The common advice from all of them is:
Be active in identifying and building on your strengths.
Know what your values are and test your actions against those values.
Be willing to take risks and be bold and adventurous in your approach while being rooted in practical realism.
Set your sights high while recognising that the journey will be one step at a time.
Recognise the choices you have.
Build a network of supporters who will give you encouragement and constructive challenges.
Be self-aware enough to know when you are being driven in a way that is more likely to take you to 'death rather than glory'.
Paul West, the Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, summarises what he observes in people who step up successfully as:
They can understand strategy and are able to simplify it and make it relevant for their staff. They are capable of taking a corporate view and avoid 'silo' working. They are willing to delegate but do not abdicate responsibility. They are skilled in networking and managing relationships. They are good at coaching and developing others and are open-minded to things being done differently. In terms of their own performance, they are receptive to constructive criticism, advice and feedback.'
You can read this book from start to finish or by looking at specific sections that relate to your needs and circumstances. I strongly encourage you to use the book as a basis for discussion with a friend, a colleague, a mentor, a coach or within your team. Even if the best way of learning for you is to reflect on something inside yourself, it is as you speak your thoughts and actions to someone else that you embed them and commit yourself to take them forward. Do enjoy this book as you raise your game and step up to take on new and different challenges successfully.
As you articulate your thoughts and actions they become embedded.
Peter Shaw Godalming, January 2009