The Performance Equation: How Leaders Unlock Potential (and What Gets in the Way) | #19

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership. We hope to bring you grounded wisdom, stories from real leaders, and leave you feeling inspired. Let's dive in.

So, welcome to Unleash youh Impact Unlock Others, the podcast where we discuss inspiring leadership topics. Now, today's topic is one that I really am going to enjoy talking to Rich about. Hi, Rich. How are you today?

Hi, Dave. Good, thank you.

So many moons ago.

You'll know from listening to previous podcasts that I play a bit of tennis in my spare time, and I came across a book a few years ago called the Inner Game of Tennis. It's a seminal work by a guy called Timothy Galway who was a professor at Harvard University.

From what I understand, he was also the captain of their tennis team. Rich.

Oh, I didn't know that.

So there's the Inner Game of Tennis, which is his seminar work, as I said, the Inner Game of Golf, the Inner Game of Work, the Inner Game of Stress, and one that you might be interested in, the Inner Game of Music, as you are.

Right, okay.

Like to tinkle the eyebrows, don't you?

I do. I do.

And what the Inner Game was all about was the mindset issues that impact personal and professional development.

So what I want to do with Rich today is explore the relevance and depth of Tim Galway's performance equation that I came across in those books, which is P equals P minus I, and we'll dive into what that means in a minute.

We're going to unpack that model's practical application at both individual level, but also looking at how it applies to teams and organizations as a whole, and link it to our connected leadership approach and my management models that we've discussed in previous podcasts.

So really, hopefully from today, you're going to get some idea about how we can use this equation to drive better performance growth, not just as individuals, but in teams and in organizations themselves. So, Rich, P equals P minus I.

Yes.

What does that mean to you? How did you first come across that model and what does it mean to you?

Well, as you said, I mean, he's written some really interesting books, the Inner game of tennis, etc. And I came across this idea a while ago when I was, I guess, studying coaching for the first time.

And I was really struck by this model because I think it's very balanced in its approach.

So he describes performance being this balance between unlocking somebody's Potential, but at the same time understanding the things that get in the way, that potential being released. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a while.

But I think it's a very balanced approach because when I started to read up about this positive psychology and a strengths based approach was dominating a lot of the stuff around coaching leadership at the time. And I've got a lot of positive things, excuse the pun, to say about positive psychology and the strengths based approach.

I think that's been a very needed corrective in terms of personal and professional development in the workplace.

But there's a danger, I think, if you just focus on a strengths based approach, just focus on positive psychology, there's a sense in which some of the important barriers and things that get in the way can sometimes remain unaddressed.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right.

Focusing on potential, which is a combination of skills, knowledge, experience, all of those things and we've all got potential to varying degrees, I think is really important. And understanding what someone's capable of and how far they can push themselves, but actually to get there, you're dead right.

There's a lot of things that can get in the way.

And if we don't understand what those things are and make attempts to either sidetrack those barriers, get over those barriers, take those barriers away, then we aren't going to maximize our full performance, are we?

No. And I think what this model does, it absolutely does validate strengths based approach.

But at the same time it doesn't push to one side, as you said, those things that potentially can get in the way. So it's about explicitly and intentionally surfacing the interferences that get in the way of people's performance.

So I think it's a really good, a really good model. It really resonated with me. And it's also just very simple to explain, very easy to explain.

And it's often a concept that we introduce very early on in our coaching training and development with leaders. Because I think at the essence of a good coaching approach is this performance equation. And we'll talk about that in a little while.

So let's dive into understanding the equation. A surface level to begin with and then we'll dive into.

Because actually it seems quite simple, but there's a lot of nuance and a lot of depth around this, isn't there?

Okay.

Yeah. So the three elements, performance equals potential minus interference. That's the basic equation.

That's the basic equation, yeah.

You've already talked about the common misconception that if we over focus on capability and potential and ignore the interference. We're not going to maximize that full performance or the optimal performance. So let's talk a little bit about the interference bit then.

And some of those, those interferences will be visible and some will be invisible. Yeah. What do you think are some examples from your perspective of what interference means?

I mean, let's think about this practically.

Yeah.

We can start actually with tennis. Do you love tennis?

Yeah.

And, and Tim Goy actually wrote that book, you know, the Inner Game of Tennis.

Yeah.

So if you think about the anatomy of a Wimbledon champion, for example.

Me, for example.

Yes, you, exactly.

No, not me, actually.

But if you think about the anatomy of a Wimbledon champion, if you think about the people that are at the elite level of sport, people that get into the Wimbledon final, semi finals, quarterfinals or whatever, if you think about, if you like their potential, their innate potential talent, if you like their strengths and their abilities and their skills, what do you think is the difference between the relative potential of people at that level?

Yeah, and I kind of know this because a few years ago I had the luxury of going down to the British Tennis Centre and it was for a charity event. We were basically playing tennis in the middle of the night for four hours against some pros and ex pros. Okay.

Yeah.

So we got to chat to them.

I was playing at 3 o' clock in the morning, doubles against this guy who was, I think at the time, something like 25, 26 years of age, had been on the pro tour nowhere near a Wimbledon final. I mean, we're talking to somebody who was, I don't know, at his best, probably 150th in the world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I could see what a great tennis player he is. So I had a little chat with him afterwards and said, like, what is it that stopped you carrying on as a pro?

Why are you now not doing that and doing something different? And he said, Dave, he said what was really difficult was you get to sort of playing players that are around that level.

And he said, by and large, your technical ability is not that dissimilar. He said, but what becomes really obvious is the mindset that they bring.

And he said some of the people I was up against who were not any more technically gifted than I was, they just wanted it more and they were able to control the mindsets in the ways that I wasn't. And I was getting beaten regularly because of that reason, not because I wasn't gifted or.

And I think, you know, take that even to the top 50 in the world or the top 10 in the world that I think that becomes even more of a discerning point.

Yeah, yeah.

That ability to deal with pressure, etc.

That potential differential at the elite level is relatively small.

Yeah.

You could almost say tiny. When you get to the very top, it's tiny.

And often when you talk about elite sport, you're talking about how can you control your mind in very small moments.

In the moment. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I just want you to think about. Imagine you're in the Wimbledon final.

I wish.

And you're just about to serve. Yeah, serve A championship point.

Yeah.

At that level you're going to have all the skills and the talent and the capability and the technical skills to serve for the match. But it's the mindset that gets in the way. It's the self doubt, the self talk sort of stuff, those internal interferences that get in the way.

And at the heart of Tim Galway's model is this idea that actually in leadership it's the same. Yeah, it's the same. That's, you know, lots of people have really great strengths, really great talent, really great ability inside an organization.

But often what gets in the way are interferences. Either whether that's personal interferences.

So in other words, some of the mindset issues, some of the self talk issues that get in the way of you personally. We'll talk about what some of those might be. It could be what are some of the team issues that get in the way.

So what's the culture like inside your team? What's the leadership or the management that you're receiving as a person that can get in the way, that can be an interference.

And then at an organizational level, you can get things like misalignment around systems and processes. The way values are played out inside your organization, all sorts of cultural issues, those things get in the way as well.

So this model teaches actually if you want to get optimum performance out of people, to release that potential. Often.

Yeah.

There's stuff you can do in terms of training people to get better at what they do and you know, you can do knowledge and skills based training. That's all very important. But often the missed bit is the mindset stuff and the cultural stuff that gets in the way of unlocking that potential.

Yeah. So in preparation for this podcast, Rich, I just did a little bit of brain dumping. Just look at the individual level.

Forget the team and organization for the minute.

Yeah.

What might be interference on an individual level? Now I've written down here something like 15 different things.

All right. Okay.

Now we can form those around sort of four key areas. We'll just give you some examples. Psychological and emotional interference. That could be the self doubt bit. I'm just not confident.

I'm doubting myself. Maybe it could be imposter syndrome. It could be that kind of stuff. That's an example of the psychological or emotional interference.

Cognitive interference. I'm overthinking things. I'm overanalyzing things. Physical or environmental interference. I didn't get enough sleep last night.

I haven't done my hydration properly. You know, some of those factors or even what I would call motivational interference.

So that might be misalignment in the workplace with the values of the business or I don't have enough accountability and autonomy. Yeah. So there's a whole raft of things. Yeah, I've got a list of 15.

Yeah, well, and things like stress as well. And your ability to manage yourself in stressful situations, your ability to be resilient and bounce back. They're all interferences as part of this.

And you imagine if you just got one of those things I've just been talking about getting in the way. That can be bad enough.

Yes. Yeah.

To get optimal performance when you've got three or four of those all at the same time.

Yeah, exactly.

Are you ever going to approach your best.

No.

No. You're not, are you?

No, no, no.

Now you could. As you said, this also applies. I did the same thing on team in IT level as well.

I've got, I don't know, something like 12 things written down at team level. Communication interference. Actually, is it psychologically safe.

Yes.

To communicate Relational interference. Do we let internal politics, power struggles get in the way? Cultural interference. Is there a blame culture in the business?

And things like structural interference, which is. Do I understand what my role is? So there's a whole raft.

I mean, again, we could go into a lot more detail here, but there is a whole raft of things at team level.

Yes.

Get in the way and then take it into the organizational realm. So things like strategic interference. Is there a lack of strategic direction, for example, that gets in the way. What else have I got on my list?

Cultural. Again, that could be to do with mismanagement of trust in the business. Leadership interference. Leaders can get in the way. So leaders can be blockers.

And again, bureaucracy. So structural stuff, bureaucracy, processes. So again, I've got a probably list of 12 or 15 there. So there is an awful lot.

What I'm saying, I think that can get in the way.

Yeah.

So where do we go from there? I mean, I think it is a very clever model. Simple on the outside, but quite nuanced and a lot of depth to it when you start looking into it.

Yes. Yeah. So I think it's worth just unpacking this model from the self perspective.

Yeah.

From the team perspective and from the organizational perspective.

Let's talk about the self first of all, then. So performance on an individual level.

Yeah.

And this is really about how we use this model to coach other people, but also to almost coach ourselves. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we've talked in a previous podcast, Rich, about our mind management model. So I guess that's also highly relevant here.

Yeah, yeah.

So do you want to unpack that a little bit for us?

Yeah. So our mind management model is based on a number of ideas and then different concepts and models. One of those is the. Is the chimp paradox idea.

So if people want to go away and look up that. It's a very famous book. But essentially our mind management model contains three core components, what we call the filter hub.

In other words, that's the part of us that, if you like, interprets our reality, takes in the stimuli from our environment, and then interprets those based on things like our beliefs, our values, the stories, the experiences that we've picked up and developed over time, the things that shape us as a person, those things we use to interpret our reality.

We filter reality. That's what we call it.

And we filter reality, and that in turn then drives what we call the hot edge. In other words, that's our interpretation of reality, drives our emotional response.

So the hot head, for those who use different analogies, is the chimp brain.

It's the chimp brain. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

So our interpretation drives our hot head, our emotional response.

And in order to bring the mind back in balance so we're not acting just purely instinctively and reactively all the time, we have to engage what we call the cool head. So the cool head is the rational, aware part of our Persona, if you like.

And that's our ability to notice what's going on and to manage things like our hot head response based on what the cool head knows about things like our values and our beliefs, that's driving that emotional response. So our ability to self manage, if.

You like, and those three elements of the mind management all come together. So you have your hub that is filtering all that information.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's obviously feeding into your hot head.

Yes, yeah.

And if that hot head isn't serving you well and we'll talk about how that works in a minute. You need to engage the cool head.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think in the filter hub, things like our beliefs and our stories and our values, all that stuff that's been scripted into us from childhood, they can either serve us well because some of those things are. So hopefully, you know, there are certain aspects when we look back at our childhood and upbringing, hopefully there's some positive stuff.

Yeah.

In terms of what's been instilled in this, that serves us well, but sometimes they can sabotage us.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, let me give you, if you like, a personal example. So I'm hoping my mum is not going to listen to this podcast because I'm talking a little bit about my childhood.

You mean she doesn't follow your career that closely?

But I mean, one of the things my mother installed into me from a very early age is to be very deferential to people in authority.

Okay.

Yeah, okay. Okay. So that's, if you like, that's a value. That's a belief that was instilled in me from her belief about how the world should be.

Yeah.

And you could argue some of that is good stuff. Yeah. You know, because actually, you know, we live in a world where we need to know our place.

And actually, if we lived in a completely chaotic world where we weren't, if you, like, intentionally deferential, that might not always serve us. Well.

We don't want to fight everybody, do we? Because.

No, we don't want to fight.

Pretty horrible if we did.

Yeah. You know, so. So human beings are naturally hierarchical. We need to find our place, all that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Okay. So potentially that might be a good thing. Okay.

In certain situations.

In absolute situations.

Yeah.

The danger is, is when I bring that, if you like, when I bring that wiring those. Those childhood scripts into the workplace, if, as a leader, I walk into a room full of senior people and then suddenly, unconsciously, those.

If you like, those scripted filters inside my filter hub, you know, that unconscious belief that I should be deferential to people in authority, suddenly I'll go into, if you like, child mode when I walk into the room without realizing it.

Yeah.

And actually, as a leader and a manager, is that a good place for me to be in?

So that must have, in the past, sabotaged you in some ways.

Yes. Well, it did. Yeah, it did.

So if you, like, that was definitely in the early part of my leadership career and it still happens now from time to time, it sort of sabotages my mindset, you know, so all that imposter syndrome, sort of stuff that gets kicked off if I'm not careful when I go into a room full of senior people.

So in practical terms, what does that mean? You don't speak up for yourself, you don't challenge things that you don't believe.

Yes. Yeah, I could be a bit submissive, a little bit passive, you know.

So what I've learned to do in the past is to understand actually that those values and beliefs, sometimes they serve me well. So my mum taught me some good stuff around that, sometimes that serves me well.

But to understand in a leadership context, sometimes those beliefs and values get in the way. So in other words, use the cool head to surface those interference and to use that knowledge then that self awareness to then self manage.

So I went through a phase of my leadership career where for example, I became aware of this. So before I'd walk into a room full of senior people, so what I would do is I would consciously manage my self talk.

How did you become aware of it initially?

I don't remember exactly. It might have been something I read, it might have been through some coaching I received.

I can't remember exactly but there was definitely like a turning point in my career. We're thinking, no, this is a problem. Yeah, this is a problem.

So my ability to be self aware and then to have strategies, if you like, to self manage so consciously and proactively managing myself to walking into senior meetings was one of my strategies for managing my interference. And as a result I believe then my potential, if you like, my leadership voice was released more because the interference.

Wasn'T suppressing it and your performance therefore as a leader went up and the.

Performance therefore went up. So P potential, my potential minus interference, if you remove the interference, the potential goes up, the performance goes up.

Yeah. And I think the point to make here is that interference doesn't necessarily go away, you just manage it better.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Because that, you know, that wiring from childhood that's in my brain, you know, unless I cut my brain open and try to rewire my brain, that's always going to be there.

I'll give it a go for it as long as you. Sounds like fun.

Yeah, but so the whole point is, you know, through intentional managed self talk, I've, if you like, carved new neuro pathways in my brain to help me self manage.

Yeah. And I think that's used a really good example there to bring this to life for people in terms of how this P equals P minus I works.

Yeah, exactly.

There's a lot of other Examples that people can use. I'm sure people listening to this can think of their own. It could be a leader, for example, that goes into a new role.

Yes.

And they've got the ability to do that role. They're perfectly capable of delivering in it.

But for some reason there's an inherited belief or a fear or a story that actually just stops them releasing that potential.

Well, think about a leader who is responsible for, if you like, managing somebody, say that they're relatively new in the role and part of their role is that they need to do some presentations and this person is finding presentations particularly challenging and particularly difficult. Okay. So a very one sided, two dimensional approach would be to send a person on a presentation course.

You know, so they understand the mechanics of how to do a presentation, how to structure something, how to create a PowerPoint presentation.

Yeah.

And that might be valuable. So that could build some of the potential stuff.

Absolutely.

Building their knowledge, building their skills and building their capabilities, that could be important. But what it might miss if you send them on the wrong course is some of the mindset stuff that gets in the way.

When somebody stands up in front of a room to present, there's all sorts of mindset stuff that gets in the way and becomes an interference.

So the really good skillful leader and a manager as a coach, they might develop and help people to develop their capability and their skills and their knowledge, but they will also work with them and coach them around some of the mindset stuff that's getting in the way.

So, you know, essentially what we're encouraging people to do with the support performance equation is for leaders and managers to go deeper into their coaching conversations with their people.

Yeah. And you don't have to be a trained psychologist to do this either, do you?

As long as you understand the mechanics of what you've just been talking about, about how mindsets work. It's just about using coaching skills.

Yeah. Bringing a three dimensional approach to those conversations.

So in other words, rather than just focus on the skills, knowledge and capability, you deepen the conversation to include some of the mindset stuff and just talking those issues through with somebody and giving them the opportunity to verbalize some of their fears around, you know, presentations and stuff. Because it's perfectly natural.

Yeah.

Validating that and then helping them to come up with some self management strategies. Well, essentially what you've done is you very skillfully then used the performance equation to coach somebody through that issue.

Yeah. And they'll go and then practice those strategies that you.

Yes. Yeah.

And actually they'll Then get better through practice.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So it becomes one of those things that just gains momentum, doesn't it? Every time.

Yeah.

So that's probably all we need to say on the individual level of this equation. This equation also affects performance at a team level.

Yes, it does.

Now, I've got in my notes here, interference is contagious. Do you want to just unpack that for me? What do we mean by interference is contagious?

So I think there's a couple of things here that can affect the culture and the perceived psychological safety of a team. What I would call the behaviors, and we've talked about this before, the micro behaviors of leaders and managers.

Yeah.

Okay. So, for example, if you do things like when people make a mistake, you huff and sigh or huff and puff.

Yeah.

Little micro behaviors. Those sorts of behaviors create an interference pattern in the team, which make people less likely to own up to their mistakes and their failures.

So that'd be an example of where your behavior as a leader and a manager can create cultural interference inside the team.

The other thing, actually is to be very cognizant as a leader and a manager is things like gossip and, you know, some of the unhelpful stories that teams have and they create, they can really sabotage a team's culture.

So, for example, if a team has a constant story about another team that's unhelpful and the leader and the manager is not challenging that story, if you like, that becomes a bit of a contagious interference inside the team.

Yeah. And one of the examples we see with this, we see it quite regularly.

Imagine a leadership team in a business are trying to drive some sort of change initiative. But what they haven't really done is communicated the reasons why, the context for that change that they want to do.

Of course, human beings being what they are, if you don't give them context, they'll just create their own context. So this is where sort of negative stories come from. And they start to actually gain a life of their own.

They start going around the business, don't they?

Yes, exactly.

And they gain momentum. Well, that's another example of this interference being contagious.

And I think it's really important for leaders and managers to be aware of these stories and they are stories, and to challenge the unhelpful stories, to challenge them, to get people to stick to the facts and to break these, what I call sticky stories down so they don't become like this contagious virus that can really impact team performance.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And often this stuff is quite subtle.

It is.

You're talking about examples. I do remember once, many years ago when I was working early 20s in a big open plan office of, I don't know, 60 odd people.

And the guy who was in charge of that whole office had a habit of bawling people out from his desk in the corner when you did something wrong. Now that is pretty damaging. That isn't the norm actually. What a lot of stuff that happens is quite subtle stuff.

It can be. Yes, yeah, indeed.

Okay. The role of psychological safety and communication in this is actually fundamentally important, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

Let's just talk about that a minute and how that works.

So building trust in the team and being cognizant of that, what we call vulnerability based trust. So in other words, building a culture where people feel they have a voice, they can say their stuff without being bored out.

As you said, they can share their mistakes, they can share their failures.

And then how you respond to that as a leader and a manager and actually how the other team members respond to that can either create the interference or actually it can create a culture where the interference is removed. So it allows people to have a voice.

And then that's, if you like, that's a really good example of how that potential, you know, that voice that people have, their ideas, their creativity, their innovative ideas, those are potentials, if you like, that you want released in a team context.

Yeah, and there's an example, isn't there?

You could put a team together of very capable, high potential people, but because there's a fear of challenge or because there's not a sort of culture of feedback or whatever that problem might be, they never ever realize that potential.

Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, so we talked about that. Let's talk about performance now. At the organizational level, I think this also happens.

So we're talking about sort of systemic interference here, aren't we? So culture, structural issues, it could be values misalignment, it could just be poor leadership.

So how can an organizational system undo performance?

Yeah, I mean, in some ways it's not that dissimilar to what happens at team level. It's just on a bigger scale. So for example, I mean, let's take things like values inside an organization.

I've worked in a number of organizations where you have this values initiative and you put your values up on the wall.

I've even worked in an organization where you've had values on our screensaver and all that sort of stuff, which is all well and good, but if the leaders and managers are not living those values.

Yeah.

And you see that a lot. Essentially. That creates like an interference inside the system.

Yeah.

And you know, you can.

All sorts of negative stories can start to emerge because actually people are seeing a misalignment between leadership behavior and their stated objectives, their stated values.

Yeah.

That misalignment and understanding as leaders and managers, where those misalignments are, I think is really important.

So another example of this structure interference that I see quite a bit, and I'm sure you do, siloed departments and poor collaboration. That's an example of what we're talking about here.

Yes.

That can really get in the way of actually optimal performance in a business.

Yeah.

So having leaders and managers and challenging leaders and managers to, if you like, challenge the silo mindset in themselves and in their teams, encouraging relationship building, encouraging collaboration, I think is a really important part of forming a healthy culture.

Another example of interference. And it taps back into a couple of podcasts we did a few weeks ago about coaching in the workplace.

I think a culture where there's a lack of coaching to develop performance.

Yes.

That can really get in the way.

Yes.

And I think if you've got a healthy coaching approach inside an organization, what that would do is to create a healthy balance between being very people focused, being very supportive, but also at the same time holding people to account and getting them to perform. So if you think about that performance equation, performance equals potential minus interference.

You want inside organizations, people that perform, people that deliver value for an organization and to be held accountable for that.

But if you do it in a way where you build people's potential, you validate their strengths, focus on their strengths, but also remove the interferences culturally and at a team level and at an individual level, you're balancing that people versus performance tension that. That's really actually so easy to get wrong inside an organization, I think.

And another thing to bear in mind here, for anybody listening to us thinking, well, okay, yeah, I totally get what you guys are saying.

So at an organizational level, if you think, well, okay, we'll just train our individuals to be better leaders, we'll put them through a leadership training program or some coaching, what have you. So, you know, for want of a better word, we're going to make that individual better or fix them if they got a few things they need to be better at.

But you ignore the fact they're going into a system that has got all these interferences in it. Actually, that's not going to necessarily have the. The impact that you want it To. Exactly. Because the problem isn't the individual.

The problem is the system they're going back into. And I think that is really, really common.

Yeah. So you need a holistic approach to people and capability, sort of development and.

Course, we've always said on this podcast, and we'll say it again, I'm sure, plenty of times in the future, you can't change what you're not aware of.

Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I think the other thing, just going back to that people versus performance thing, just one more thing to say, which I was going to say around that is when you work to remove interference from people, what that doesn't mean is you're not removing the challenge element of being a leader. It's important as a leader to balance being supportive with challenging.

So holding people to account, if you like, holding them over the fire in a healthy way around, actually, you need to, you know, these are your goals, these are the things that you need to deliver. And then holding people to account to that, I think is an important part of this performance equation.

Well, yeah, because if. If you don't take people out of their comfort zone.

Yes.

And help them address these interferences, you're not going to maximize your potential. You're not going to reach optimal performance, are you?

And actually, I mean, it might sound weird to say, but if you don't have an accountability culture inside your organization, actually that can be an interference, you know, because that will mean people are not stretched.

They might become a bit, bit bored, they might not know where to focus their efforts, you know, so it's important to have that challenge and performance focus inside an organization and balance that with the people stuff.

So that's the three levels of interference, if you like, an individual level, a team level, organizational level. There are lots and lots and lots of things that can get in the way.

Hopefully we've just given people a flavor today of using this performance equation as a way to sort of have a look at their organizational setup.

Yes.

Where is the potential? You know, where have we got some untapped strengths? Have we got some untapped experience, some untapped skills, or can we develop more of those?

But before we say, yeah, job done, what are the things that are getting in the way? Be really clear about what are the things that are getting in the way? So just to sort of wrap up this discussion, what is interference, really?

Let's just go back to where we started. What is interference really, Rich? Is it just mostly mindset issues or is it a lot more than that?

So it Certainly is that at an individual level.

But I think as you said, you know, you can fix some of that individual stuff, some of those individual interferences, but if you don't address some of the team and organizational cultural stuff, if, if the system is inherently, if you like toxic or inherently creates this contagious interference, that's going to really undermine any work you do at a mindset level with the individuals. So you've got to do both.

You've got to do both. Yeah, sort of. Final thoughts on how leaders can practically use the model we've talked about today. So just a couple of tips from you really.

How can somebody practically use this model?

So first of all, use it as a self coaching model.

Okay.

So if you have a particular challenge, you know, particular difficult relationship, if you have a particular challenge in leadership, say you might find doing presentations particularly challenging, by all means think about the knowledge, skills and capability that you need to develop to do that.

But go a little bit deeper, you know, do a bit of journaling, do a bit of reflection on what are the, some of the mindset, the deeper mindset issues that are getting in the way. So use it as a self coaching tool, I think would be one thing.

Okay.

And I'll also encourage you to do the same thing in your one to ones have a deeper conversation about actually what's really getting in the way. Sometimes we say on our coaching training that the presenting issue is not the issue.

Yeah, often. Yeah.

And it's often the case. What we mean by that is it's usually a mindset, sometimes a systemic issue that's getting in the way of people's performance.

It's very easy when we're having a performance conversation with somebody is to blame them, get into a very sort of blame mode and actually not have the deeper conversation, understand the why that's going on behind the scenes.

So actually, yeah, you could argue that every single performance conversation that needs to happen out there should be loosely driven around the P equals P minus I.

Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

So closing idea, if you do all think about listening to this, if your team is not delivering, if you have individuals that are not delivering, don't just ask what's wrong, ask what's getting in the way.

Exactly.

And the harsh reality might be if you're the leader of that team is part of the answer, that could be you.

It could be you. Yes, yeah, indeed.

So, yeah. Not. Not necessarily a nice thing to have to realize. No, no, but it could be. So anything else you want to say, Rich, before we wrap up today?

No, that sounds great, Dave.

So thank you for your thoughts around that.

Yeah, thank you.

So if anybody is listening to thinking, wow. Yeah, we've got those issues.

Yeah.

How do we develop the skills around coaching? You know, we do run programs.

Zentano, we have a Pathfinder program that specifically deals with a lot of the issues around this and helps people to be better at coaching, mindset management, etc. So if you want to find out more about that, please get in touch with us.

Yeah. And the other thing to say is our associate, Andy Flack, who's a performance psychologist, is running a workshop in Stanbrook Abbey.

So go to our website, have a look at that workshop.

Andy in that workshop is going to be doing much deeper, dive around some of the psychology behind what gets in the way of people performing at their best.

Yeah. So, 10th of June, Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire.

If anybody's close enough to come along to that, Andy is brilliant at talking about this stuff, so it'd be really worth attending. Right. Rich, thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will be back to talk about the inner game of stress next time.

Yeah, thank you. Cheers, Dave.

Bye.