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Number 148

Sport Psychiatrist Michael Lardon has worked with Olympic gold medalists, PGA tour golfers and other athletes seeking to understand and better achieve peak performance. In his book Finding Your Zone, Lardon offers suggestions that have helped athletes transform themselves from good performers to great ones. Much of his advice would be useful to anyone, whether they want to reach a higher level of performance or they want to manage a transition in some aspect of their life.

Of Lardon’s “10 Core Principles,” my favorite is Lesson Five: “Stay in the now and be in the process.” He says that excelling at an activity mandates that you resist giving into distractions, including anxiety or self-doubt.

To do that, he says, the trick is to stop obsessing about the score – your ultimate goal – and to concentrate instead on the process that is likely to help you play a great game today. Using PGA Tour golf as an example, he says that great players learn to shift their perspective from result goals, like beating a competitor, to process goals, like taking the steps that will allow them to do their best on each shot.

When working with golfers, Lardon asks them to stay in the process by keeping a scorecard that records three “yes” or “no” answers for every shot: (1) Did you visualize the shot before executing it? (2) Did you hit the shot without any doubt or ambivalence? And (3) if you incurred any negative or distracting thoughts, did you back away from the shot and clear your mind?

When a golfer can answer “yes” to these questions for most of his shots in a day, he has transformed himself into a winner, regardless of the score. By staying in the process, he has controlled those factors that are actually within his control and has not been distracted by bad breaks. And, says Lardon, when you stay more process-oriented and focus on mastering the controllable variables, you inevitably accomplish greater results over the long term.

Part of what happens with a process focus is that you pay more attention to what you are doing and stop wasting energy on mistakes or bad luck in the past, or possible future threats. The same process orientation that works for high performing athletes can help you navigate transitions or transformations in any sphere of your life.

To use a simple example, let’s say you want to lose weight. Programs like Weight Watchers Online can help you to shift your focus from the scale and remain engaged in the process of selecting healthy, low calorie food at each and every meal. By keeping within the Weight Watchers point system, and recording every bite of food you put in your mouth, you put your trust in the process, and your transformation – your weight loss – may come fairly easily.

A process orientation also can help to facilitate a more complicated life transition, like changing careers or creating a new life after a divorce or other trauma. Perhaps with a coach or friend, you can lay the groundwork of your successful transition by identifying processes that might help you explore and build toward your next phase.

The idea is to come up with daily or weekly tasks and practices that will support the change you want. For example, you might want to start routinely scheduling time to read about a new field, while at the same time you commit to a regular program of networking, and to fitness, financial or other routines to support your next move.

When in doubt, think about the factors that are within your control, identify processes that will allow you to address those factors, and commit your energy to sustaining those processes. Chances are you will reach your goals much faster once you stop obsessing about the longer term and remain more focused on the process steps that you can take today.

Number 147

A dialogue in the May issue of the Harvard Business Review asks two leading consultants whether the secret to effectiveness is the right system or the right state of mind?

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, is well known for his view that you can produce more with less input if you put the right system and practices into place. His many fans say they have become more efficient by adopting his process, widely known by its acronym, GTD. The idea is to create “clear space” for creative work by routinely capturing all your projects and commitments into lists, and breaking big challenges into smaller steps, including specific “next actions.”

Tony Schwartz, on the other hand, says that getting more done in less time requires learning how to better manage your energy. He and his colleagues borrow from the science of high performance in sports and elsewhere, as they teach knowledge workers how to perform at sustainably high levels. Schwartz, whose most recent book is Be Excellent at Anything, says that performing at your best requires you to manage four types of energy:

• Physical energy, which depends on factors like fitness, nutrition and sleep.
• Emotional energy, which requires cultivating positive emotions and, as a leader, communicating them to others.
• Mental energy, which means better managing your focus and turning on your right brain for creative work. And
• Spiritual energy, which is about defining purpose, because when something really matters you bring far more energy to it.

So where do you get started if you want to get more done, with Schwartz or with Allen? That’s a trick question, because the answer is that you must begin with yourself.

Before turning to wonderful experts like these, spend a few days noticing and making notes about the details of your workday. With one corner of your mind, sit back and, in a nonjudgmental way, start the search for barriers to your best level of performance. Notice your routines, and observe how you regularly approach your projects. Ask yourself questions like these:

• Are you getting the most out of prime time? Notice the time of day when you seem to have the most energy, when you are at your best. For many people that is first thing in the morning. Are you devoting your most productive hour to your most important project? Or are you frittering it away on routine email or other low value tasks?
• How are you wasting time? What are you doing when you are least productive? Do you spend minutes looking for information because your files are a mess? Or do you engage in meetings or conversations that last too long because you aren’t clear about your agenda? Do you have to redo tasks because you didn’t keep good notes the first time?
• Are you talking yourself out of enthusiasm? Notice not only what you routinely do, but also what you are thinking when you are at your best or your worst. Do you drag yourself into a deeper slump with negative repetitive thoughts, like “this is so stupid” or “I never get any credit”?
• How do you feel when you are at your best? In as much detail as possible, observe what it feels like when you are doing your best work. Describe how you function when your energy is flowing and you’re getting things done at a rapid clip.

Number 146

In The Blame Game, psychologist Ben Dattner suggests that our careers will be greatly influenced by whether or not we fall into the trap of mishandling the distribution of blame when things go wrong. He says that it is human nature to want to grab credit and escape blame. But we can be more successful, and also influence the culture around us, by understanding this human tendency and behaving in ways that are more thoughtful and strategic.

Dattner looks to personality psychology to explain why it is that some people have such difficulty in coping with failure and assigning blame. He says that we may be inclined to play the blame game in some way because of characteristics built into our personalities. Relying on earlier research, he suggests that many of us may fall into one of these three personality categories:

• Extrapunitive. These people look anywhere but themselves to explain away problem situations. They consistently blame their mistakes on other people or external factors. They may overreact to minor mistakes or even anticipate failure before it happens. But they look for excuses if the error seems to be theirs, perhaps blaming whoever assigned the task.
• Impunitive. Members of this group may become angry or hurt when held responsible for errors. But they tend to avoid getting in that situation by spinning the facts, denying problems and remaining vague about outcomes.
• Intropunitive. These folks direct blame inward, perhaps to an extreme extent. They may be so worried about failure that they cannot make decisions. They may overreact so much to criticism that others are reluctant to offer feedback.

Number 143

Are you trying to assist an unemployed friend? You might provide a great service by locating project work that he or she can take on while looking for a permanent position. Professional job searches can easily take a year or longer, and short-term projects can provide a bit of income to ease the pain. But there are many other reasons for a job seeker to adopt this strategy:

• Stay in the flow. Job candidates who are engaged in even small projects are more likely to keep up with trends and developments in their field.
• Try something new. A frequent mistake made by the unexpectedly unemployed is to keep looking for jobs much like the one they used to have. And those jobs might not be around any more. When they take on projects that are a bit different from what they are used to, they develop fresh ideas about their skills, their preferences and their options.
• It may lead to something. All kinds of work is being outsourced these days, and sometimes full-time positions emerge from small contracts that grow into bigger contracts and trusted relationships.
• Build a story. Potential employers will want to know how you have been using your time. You will be a more attractive candidate if you can enthusiastically describe the ways you’ve stayed engaged in creative activity.

Marcia Newell is the owner of The NewinCo, Inc., a well established Washington attorney search firm. She agrees that a good way to energize a job search, and improve the candidate’s attitude, is to line up interim projects.

Newell says that, “Although candidates’ expectations, attitudes and market approaches will not turn a bad market to good, the boost that can come from project work will give candidates a significant competitive posture and maximize their odds of receiving offers.”

“Another benefit of project work, including pro bono work, is the expansion of candidates’ networks,” Newell says. “People seeking employment must place themselves in a target-rich environment – usually not found when we’re sitting in our home office in pajamas.”

“Of course the electronic network can be implemented from home,” she says, “but I find that candidates have far more success in attracting/creating new job opportunities when they are out in the community actively engaged in … well, in anything. Oddly, there is a significant positive correlation for job seekers who avidly pursue a beloved hobby during times of unemployment. This supports the suggestion that a key to assisting job seekers is to help them keep up their energy.”

Staying energized and engaged in interesting activities may help candidates overcome a stigma that could be plaguing the more than 4 million Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. A USA Today story in January described the growing phenomenon of employers who are reluctant to hire the long-term jobless on the assumption that they are lazy, lacking in creativity or unwilling to work.

And often it is a third party, like you, who can help find the project work that will make all the difference to a job seeker. For example, you might notice friends or colleagues who are overwhelmed with work, and suggest ways that they could lighten their load by offering a modest consulting contract.

While you are working your network, looking around for possible projects, think broadly. Perhaps you know of a nonprofit group that could use your friend’s expertise. Could you raise some contributions that would fund a small contract, bringing in your friend as a visiting expert?

While you are thinking about options, consider the potential of internships. As mid-career job changes are becoming the norm, more and more older workers are gaining experience as modestly paid, or even unpaid, interns.

And at the same time you are looking for interim work, find other ways to help keep your friend stay involved in social and other enjoyable activities. As Newell suggested, job seekers who find engaging ways to use their time away from employment may be the first to be hired.