Tag: success

Top Performer

In the quest to excel in the workplace, it’s essential to adopt behaviors that distinguish top performers from the rest.

Top Perfotmer

1. Get Sh#t Done

The foundation of top performance is the ability to complete tasks efficiently and effectively. Embrace the Pareto Principle, focusing on the 20% of efforts that yield 80% of results. Avoid getting bogged down by problems; instead, channel your energy into finding solutions and executing tasks promptly.

2. Be Very Self-Aware

Self-awareness is crucial for personal and professional growth. Understand your strengths and weaknesses, and actively work on improving areas where you are less proficient. This continuous self-assessment helps you become a more balanced and capable individual.

3. Show Empathy

Empathy is about understanding and sharing the feelings of others. It involves respecting and valuing other people’s perspectives. By studying the empathy framework, you can better navigate interpersonal relationships, leading to more meaningful and effective communication.

4. Be a Strong Communicator: The SBI Model

Effective communication is a hallmark of top performers. The SBI Model—Situation, Behavior, Impact—is a powerful tool for providing clear, actionable feedback. Here’s a closer look:

Situation: Clearly describe the situation where the behavior occurred. Be specific about the context to avoid ambiguity.
Behavior: Describe the observable behavior without making assumptions about the person’s intentions or thoughts.
Impact: Explain the impact of the behavior on you or others. This helps the person understand the consequences of their actions.

Think of the SBI Model as a traffic light system:

  • Situation (Red Light): Stop and observe the situation carefully. Just as you must stop at a red light to understand your surroundings, clearly define the context in which the behavior occurred.
  • Behavior (Yellow Light): Proceed with caution, focusing only on the behavior. Like the cautionary yellow light, describe what happened without jumping to conclusions or making assumptions about intentions.
  • Impact (Green Light): Go ahead and communicate the impact. Similar to the green light giving you the right to proceed, explain how the behavior affected you or the team, guiding future actions.

By using the SBI Model, you can provide feedback that is constructive, clear, and geared towards positive change.

5. Be Great at Simplifying

Complex problems can be daunting, but top performers excel at breaking them down into simple, manageable parts. The Feynman Technique is an excellent method for this: choose a topic, explain it in simple terms, identify gaps in understanding, and then refine your explanation. This approach ensures a deep, clear understanding of any subject.

6. Have Control Over Your Emotions

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and manage your emotions and those of others. Develop skills to handle stress and remain calm under pressure. By managing emotions effectively, you can make better decisions and maintain healthy relationships.

7. Speak Up Regularly

Top performers don’t shy away from expressing their ideas or concerns. If you want to see positive change, it’s essential to voice your opinions and advocate for yourself and your colleagues. Regularly contributing to discussions ensures that your perspective is heard and valued.

8. Manage Your Time Well

Time management is a critical skill for achieving top performance. The Eisenhower Matrix is a helpful tool for prioritizing tasks:

  • Do: Focus on urgent and important tasks.
  • Schedule: Set aside time for important but not urgent tasks.
  • Delegate: Assign urgent but not important tasks to others.
  • Eliminate: Remove tasks that are neither urgent nor important.

By organizing tasks effectively, you can maximize productivity and ensure that your efforts are aligned with your goals.

9. Enjoy Being Wrong

Embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes. Being wrong is an integral part of growth and innovation. A growth mindset encourages you to see failures as learning experiences, fostering resilience and continuous improvement.

Adopting these nine behaviors can significantly enhance your performance and professional growth. The SBI Model, in particular, provides a structured approach to communication, ensuring that feedback is constructive and actionable. By implementing these strategies, you can navigate your career path with confidence, empathy, and effectiveness.

How to make a speech By George Plimpton

International Paper asked George Plimpton, who writes books about facing the sports pros (like “Paper Lion” and “Shadow Box”), and who’s in demand to speak about it, to tell you how to face the fear of making a speech.

One of life’s terrors for the uninitiated is to be asked to make a speech.
“Why me?” will probably be your first reaction. “I don’t have anything to say.” It should be reassuring (though it rarely is) that since you were asked, somebody must think you do. The fact is that each one of us has a store of material which should be of interest to others. There is no reason why it should not be adapted to a speech.

Why know how to speak?
Scary as it is, it is important for anyone to be able to speak in front of others, whether twenty around a conference table or a hall filled with a thousand faces.

Being able to speak can mean better grades in any class. It can mean talking the town council out of increasing your property taxes. It can mean talking top management into buying your plan.

How to pick a topic
You were probably asked to speak in the first place in the hope that you would be able to articulate about something that interests you a lot. Still, it helps to find out about your audience first. Who are they? Why are they there? What are they interested in? How much do they already know about your subject? One kind of talk would be appropriate for the Women’s Club of Columbus, Ohio, and quite another for the guests at the Vince Lombardi dinner.

How to plan what to say
Here is where you must do your homework.
The more you sweat in advance, the less you’ll have to sweat once you appear on stage. Research your topic thoroughly. Check the library for facts, quotes, books and timely magazine and newspaper articles on your subject. Get in touch with experts. Write to them, make phone calls, get interviews to help nourish your speech. Rehearse your talk—and learn—for learning means self-confidence. You’ll discover how much confidence that knowledge will inspire.

Now start organizing and writing. Most authorities agree that a good speech breaks down into three basic parts—an introduction, the body of the speech, and the summation.

Introduction: An audience makes up its mind very quickly. Once the mood of an audience is set, it is very hard to change it, which is why introduction is so important. The mood of the introduction is to be lighthearted and enticing. It can start off by telling a good-natured story about yourself.

But be careful of jokes, especially the shaggy-dog variety. For some reason, the joke that convulses guests in a living room tends to suffer as it emerges through the amplifying system into a public gathering place.

Main body: There are four main intents in the body of the well-made speech. These are 1) to entertain, which is probably the hardest; 2) to instruct, which is the easiest if the speaker has done the research and knows the subject; 3) to persuade, which one does at a sales presentation, a political rally, or a town meeting; and finally, 4) to inspire, which is what the speaker is perhaps seeking in the graduation talk, in a sermon, or at the pep rally.

Hurry-Up Yost, who coached Michigan’s football team for twenty-five years, once gave a particularly inspiring talk to the members of a sales force who had come in from all over the country for a dinner. He got carried away and at the final exhortation held his team up by picking the wrong locker-room metaphor. (He urged the sales force to dive into the swimming pool.)

Summation: This should be where you “ask for the order.” In ending should incorporate a sentence or two which sounds like an ending—a short summary of the main points of the speech, perhaps, or the repetition of a phrase that the speaker has hoped to convey. It is valuable to have a fairly clear idea of the last sentence or two as something which might produce applause. Perfectly acceptable phrases are perfectly acceptable. (“And now I would like to signal my conclusion by saying: “In closing…” or “I have one last thing to say…”)

Once done—fully written, or the main

A Prisoner’s Dilemma in Disguise

The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.

Peter Drucker

The prisoner’s dilemma, a cornerstone of game theory, has been captivating minds and sparking debates for decades. This thought experiment, in its elegant simplicity, reveals profound insights into human behavior, cooperation, and the complex dynamics of trust in our interactions.

Imagine two suspects, held in separate cells, faced with a choice: betray their partner in crime and go free, or remain silent and risk a longer sentence. The catch? If both betray, they both serve a moderate sentence. If both remain silent, they face a lesser charge. The temptation to betray is strong, but the reward for mutual cooperation is enticing

Now image your career as a high-stakes game of chess. Each move you make, each decision you face, is like a prisoner’s dilemma in disguise. Do you prioritize your own success, or do you work together with your colleagues for the greater good of the company? The corporate climb is a delicate balancing act between self-interest and collaboration.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Theodore Roosevelt
A Prisoner’s Dilemma

Meet Sarah, a bright-eyed young professional starting her journey up the corporate ladder. She quickly realizes that the path to success is not a solo climb, but a team expedition. Like a climber navigating a treacherous mountain, Sarah must rely on her colleagues, building trust and cooperation to reach the summit.

The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.

Phil Jackson

Sarah’s first project is like a microcosm of the prisoner’s dilemma. She and her colleague, John, are tasked with delivering a crucial presentation. They each have the option to focus on their own contributions or to collaborate and create a cohesive message. If both prioritize their own agendas, the presentation suffers. If both work together, the project thrives. Sarah realizes that the key to success lies in building trust and cooperating with John.

As Sarah progresses in her career, she encounters countless prisoner’s dilemmas in disguise. In a meeting with a difficult client, she and her manager face a choice: prioritize short-term gains or build a long-term relationship. In a cross-departmental project, she and her team can either focus on their own objectives or work together towards a common goal. Each decision is a move on the chessboard, shaping Sarah’s path forward.

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry Ford

Sarah’s journey takes a turning point when she’s offered a leadership position. Suddenly, the prisoner’s dilemmas she faces have higher stakes and broader implications. As a leader, Sarah must navigate the delicate balance between her team’s success and the company’s overall goals. She realizes that building a culture of trust and cooperation is the key to unlocking her team’s potential.

Like a master chess player, Sarah learns to anticipate the moves of others and make strategic decisions that prioritize long-term success over short-term gains. She builds alliances, fosters collaboration, and creates a shared vision that inspires her team to work together towards a common goal.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

As Sarah reaches the upper echelons of the corporate ladder, she realizes that the lessons of the prisoner’s dilemma have been guiding her all along. In a world where self-interest often seems like the path to success, Sarah has learned that true success comes from building trust, fostering collaboration, and working together towards a shared vision.

The corporate climb, like the prisoner’s dilemma, teaches us that we are all interconnected. Our success is not just a measure of our individual achievements, but a reflection of our ability to work together, build trust, and create shared value. By navigating the prisoner’s dilemmas in disguise and prioritizing cooperation over self-interest, we can all reach new heights in our careers and in life.

So, as you navigate your own corporate climb, remember the lessons of the prisoner’s dilemma. Build trust, foster collaboration, and work together towards a shared vision. The path to success is not a solo journey, but a team expedition. With each move on the chessboard, you have the power to shape your own path and the success of those around you.