Most professionals learn a wide variety of skills over the course of their careers: communication; presentation; sales; leadership and management skills. These skills are all very valuable across a wide range of professions, each allowing people to grow their careers in their chosen directions. However, the professional working environment has changed enormously over just the last five years, and organizations that are seriously committed to remaining competitive know their employee require better skills than they currently possess.
Let’s look at a sales professional working day-in and day-out. They are attending meetings with clients, responding to emails, prospecting for new clients, all while trying to stay focused on achieving sales targets. Plus, trying to figure out what daily tasks they need to accomplish that will enable them to be successful. The reality is they may feel very fragmented, being pulled in all different directions, unsure if they will achieve their sales targets, knowing if they don’t, their performance pressure will just keep increasing.
Now take the sales professional who has learned some high-performance skills (which are very different from the professional skills already mentioned above), and starts applying one skill, such as focus control. They start to improve their focus and become less distracted regardless of the task they are performing and the situation in which they find themselves. Their pressure to perform is now focused on the key activities that will enable them to reach their sales targets.
The impact of applying performance skills such as focus control could have an enormous impact on the overall sales performance of a sale professional and have a direct impact on the organization’s overall revenue and profitability.
Next, let’s look at that busy executive who only a year ago was excited about their new role and responsibilities and the positive impact they could make on the organization. Now a year later they find themselves struggling with all the organizational changes that are occurring. They are on the verge of burning out and not sure why.
This executive receives some high performance coaching, gaining some insights into how they are performing and the cost it’s having on the people who report to them. A simple performance change such as gaining perspective on how we perform as a leader often has enormous impact on an organization’s ability to retain talented and motivated employees.
As a busy professional, ask yourself, how can I remain focused on the current task and prevent myself from being distracted? Also, see if there are ways to keep your responsibilities in perspective enabling you to improve your performance.
If you are in a leadership role, ask yourself what actions can I take that will allow my team members to stay commonly focused on the tasks at hand, or how can I help them take a step back from their daily activities allowing them to maintain a positive perspective on their current task.
As always, please contact me and let me know what you discover.
All the best in achieving your highest performance,
Paul