I've had a long break over the London 2012 summer, so it's a while since I've blogged. But I think I have a good insight to kick of this new season - at least, it has been really helpful to me!
In the last two weeks I have been working on programmes with very senior participants who appeared far less skilled than you would have expected from people at their level, especially around building relationships, understanding the politics of the situation and exercising influence without direct authority. What became clear in our work was that they already used these skills in getting to where they were, but something was now de-skilling them - that something being what you might call the "altitude" of their situation.
Let me explain the reference. I am not a rock climber, but a friend who is once told me that climbs are rated for difficulty on two measures. One is technical difficulty and the other is "exposure" - essentially a measure of how scary it looks and feels. You could call it the fear factor. Climbers recognise that what seems easy at one height becomes almost impossible at another. Even without going into the brain science, we all know this from experience. Imagine walking along a bench one foot wide but only one foot off the floor - no risk, no fear, so no problem at all. You know that you'd probably even be happy to jump up and down, joke around, stand on one leg etc, all without falling off. Now imagine that was the one foot wide top of the parapet surrounding the viewing platform of a great tower - you probably wouldn't even get up there, and you certainly wouldn't mess around.
So take this back to the senior executives / partners I was working with and look at some of the key skills they needed to use but weren't. One of those skills is keeping your attention focused on the other person when listening. Not exactly a new concept for them. But what happens when you suddenly realise how important this conversation is? Let's say the other person is a global CEO of your key client, you only meet him once a year, other people are watching how you do - you'd better not screw it up! It's hard not to start thinking about what you are going to say to impress them, what you have to offer, how you are doing so far etc. In other words, all your attention is on you! So guess what, you've already screwed it up!
Another skill is seeing things from another perspective - again, not rocket science and something every successful executive can do. But what if the stakes are really high? Ultimately the other person's view is something you're imagining, whereas your own view is the reality you see. Are you really going to trust your imagination over your own perception? No way! So your ability (or agility) is gone and you are stuck in your own world view with no sensitivity to how it looks to others. Again, that's not a recipe for success.
The last example is the skill of using non-rational data, in other words your senses and your intuitions. This is also something that nearly all successful people can do to a greater or lesser extent. But for many, it is yet another skill that deserts them just when they need it most. When the situation feels high risk, we may sense that a particular action is right, but we won't actually take it until we have checked out our instincts with rational analysis. And that brings two problems. One is that the moment for that action may have passed before we've finished thinking. And the other is that our rational brain is not well equipped to give us the right answer. So what we feel is reducing the risk of getting it wrong is actually increasing that risk.
So what? What can you do about all this? Well, I suppose the benefit of this insight is that once you recognise the true problem, you can find the right solutions. You don't necessarily need to learn new skills, you need to do two other things. Firstly, you need to work directly on the fear factor, by learning how to monitor your state and use appropriate techniques to manage it. Secondly, you need to make sure that certain skills you do have become such ingrained habits that they do not desert you even at altitude - and you do this through conscious developmental practice.
It sounds like the approach of a top athlete, doesn't it. Which is not surprising, because they know better than anyone that once you have reached a certain level, it is not your technical skills that limit you, it is your ability to use them when it matters most.
