Martin Seligman became President of the American Psychological Association in 1996. He made a bit of an impact straight away by telling his fellow psychologists that through their focus on illness they were missing an important point.

He suggested that if they focused on what was right with people and learn how to help people to stay that way, many psychological issues would either never occur or would disappear – prevention being better than cure.

It’s amazing how many professions get this wrong – if you’re 7 years old and a great creative writer, but cannot tell the time, your teacher may focus on the fact that you cannot tell the time, as if it is likely you will grow into an adult who cannot tell the time.

Almost all managers focus on the poor performers and not the star performers. They assume the high performers have little more to give. But surely it will be more rewarding to focus on those who are talented right out the box, rather than trying to drag those who are below average up to the average?

Some industries do get it right – top flight sports teams get it right. They do not focus on trying to raise the game of those who are below average. They let them go and they focus on the best – helping them to raise their game. This is leadership.

Jo Owen touches on this area in the recently published 2^nd edition to his book How To Lead.

He interviewed 700 leaders and came up with the rather obvious conclusion that successful leaders are more positive that the rest. Now to me, “positive” is a state of mind that drives “positive” actions. This is not to be confused with wild optimism.

Owen suggests 7 areas where you can assess how positive you are -

1. Focus on strengths, not weaknesses.

You cannot succeed by dealing with your weaknesses. Successful leaders focus on their own strengths and find others who have as strengths the leader’s weaknesses. Symbiotic or what? We are all animals after all.

2. Manage your feelings.

Emotional intelligence. If you are upset or angry – accept the emotion but then choose how to react to it. Do not be angry or upset. Feel the emotion, do not be the emotion. Chose how to be. Be engaged. Be positive.

3. Visualise

Visualise success. Focus on the goal and how to get there.  Can you articulate in simple words where you’re going? Clarity of purpose. And ambition. But don’t be scared…it is better to aim for 100 and hit 80 than aim for 40 because that’s what you normally get, and then actually hit 40. Only you will know if your goal is really challenging, and if it is, and you miss by a bit, that’s OK. The real problem is those who aim for 40, or, even worse, those who do not aim at all.

4. Do something worthwhile – which may or may not be in work.

If you are not doing something worthwhile, where you feel real purpose, you will struggle to remain positive. Leadership is not for everyone, and that’s OK. But maybe you are a leader – just not where you are right now.

5. Move to action

Do not conduct a post-mortem on the past. It’s gone. Do not have a victim mentality – don’t blame others for your past misfortunes.

6. Wear the mask of leadership

No matter how you feel and sometime you will feel like a bag of nails…no one wants to know, not really. Sorry about that. When they ask you how you are, they want you to say “great”.

7. Take control

Even with your back against the wall you will have something you can do; something within your sphere of control; a lever you can pull. Do not worry about the things you cannot control. Stay focused on what you can do. And do it.

This is all obvious stuff.

If you find yourself getting any of this wrong today, pull yourself up.

Why?

Well think of the alternative – ignore your strengths and try to eliminate your weaknesses; be at the mercy of your emotions;  have no idea what success looks like; spend the prime of your life on stuff you don’t find worthwhile; dwell on the past; moan; focus on what you cannot do and don’t do it.

Yuk!

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on Visualisation.

Visualisation is an important part of the goal-setting process. It’s like a television advert for your own future. And you are the director of the advert. But where it’s different from a normal advert is that it creates the future. The advert isn’t pulled from the programme. The programme is made from the advert.
Now, before you reach for the delete button, I am not advocating that you can think yourself rich, because you can’t. No. You have to work really hard. But working really hard with the end in mind is much more effective work. And the end in mind, is the advert in your mind; the visualisation.
When you have something to do that is important, and perhaps worrying, visualisation is a powerful tool to help you raise your game.

Lights, camera, action…!

I have a small talk to give today, in Macclesfield, and it’s a bit different from any talk I’ve done before. I could furiously scribble notes down and try to memorise them, getting a bit stressed in the process. I used to do this, when I thought perfection was a good thing.

What I have done is this. I took a 3 x 5 inch index card and wrote down a few bullet points. No more than one for every two minutes of the talk. I then went and lay on my bed and I gave the talk, in my head, to an imaginary bunch of people in a place I’ve never been.

Can I do this in the car…?

No. Being relaxed is critical. Eyes shut. Lying down if possible.

How often…?

Depends on the event. I did this two consecutive times on Sunday morning and once this morning. That’s enough. If I was addressing the nation on TV, I’d do it a bit more. But not much more.

What do I see?

I try to imagine small details as I talk. The faces looking at me. The ties. The necklaces. The temperature in the room. It’s all made up. I’ve never been in the room. And I never will be truly in the room. I’ll be in the advert for the room. The advert I’ve created in my head.

What do I feel?

Exactly what I want to. This is about setting the emotion for the talk. How am I going to feel – I choose how I want to feel and I put it in the advert – I chose to feel calm, clear, in control and on top of my game.

The advert is imbued by all of this…twice yesterday and once this morning. The job is done, before it’s even begun. And will happen exactly as it has done in my head. The future is written, in my mind. The execution is a formality.

You can do this. Start with a small thing, something you know is going to happen, but you’re not 100% confident about it. Then move on to bigger and bigger things.

This stuff works…

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Goal Setting

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

- Michelangelo

Our success is measured by the extent to which we reach our goals.

It’s easy to write a goal, but effective goal setting is a wee bit more involved.

Does our goal tell us what to do tomorrow? If it doesn’t we may never get started. So we need to develop smaller, sub-goals, e.g. 90 day goals.

Do we fully understand what’s in it for us – all the benefits gained and losses avoided by achievement of our goal? This drives our motivation. Write them all down, by hand.

Have we considered the barriers that may block us? Working out how to overcome them beforehand makes us much more psychologically robust when barriers appear.

Have we considered the critical actions we need to do to achieve our goal and make sure that every day we do enough of them and do them first?

We must track our progress using a measure.

Developing an affirmation is beneficial: a positive statement in the present tense that we can believe, for example, “I am a winner!” We say this to ourselves every morning. We feel stupid at first, but it passes.

Visualisation – last Tuesday night on the radio I heard the footballer Wayne Rooney say “the day before a match I ask the kit man what strip we’ll be wearing. Then I imagine scoring a goal wearing that strip, over and over, in my head”. That’s visualisation.

This is effective goal setting. And success is goal-directed action. So let’s give ourselves the best chance of success. Aim high!

Get a Goal Planning Sheet by emailing me: mark@weareppp.com

Next week…..High Payoff Activies

Achieving goals is all about identifying our High Payoff Activities – and doing them – all of them. Regardless of our comfort zone.