You, too, could be a star performer

by Lionel Wijesiri

Two of my classmates in school hoped to have careers in publishing. Each was talented, personable, and ambitious. Yet one ended up heading a large book publishing company, while the other had a dull, modestly paying job editing business directories. Why has one man flown so much higher than the other? Not because of luck, connections or dedication to work-but simply because one was a peak performer and the other was not.

Charles Garfield is the author of the widely acclaimed 'Peak Performance' trilogy: Peak Performers, Team Management, and Second to None. Together, the three books - which focus on high-performing individuals, teams, and organizations, respectively - are a blueprint for anyone pressured to continuously improve while doing more with less.

Writing the first book, Berkeley had studied thousands of outstanding achievers in nearly every walk of life. He found they all have certain traits in common - the traits that are not innate but which can be learned by anyone. This doesn't mean that everyone can become a company chairman or win an Olympic medal. It does mean, however, that all of us can learn to make much more of the gifts we have. Here, based on Garfield's research, are seven steps that can lead to peak performance:

Seven Steps

Lead a well-rounded life: High achievers, we often hear, are inevitably 'Type A' personalities - hard-driving, obsessed people who bring work home and labour over it until bedtime. Not so, according to Garfield. "Such people tend to peak early," he says, "then go into a decline or level off. They become addicted to work itself, with much less concern for results. High performers, in contrast, are willing to work hard-but within strict limits; for them, work is not everything. They knew how to relax, could leave their work at the office, prize close friends and family life, and spend a healthy amount of time with their children and intimates.

Select a career you care about: Garfield's data show that high performers choose work they truly prefer, and spend over two-thirds of their working hours doing it and only one-third on disliked chores. They want internal satisfaction, not just external rewards such as big increments, promotions and power. In the end, of course, they often have both. Because they enjoy what they are doing, their work is better and their rewards higher.

Rehearse each challenging task mentally: Before any difficult or important situation a board meeting, a public appearance, a key tennis match-most peak performers runthrough their desired actions in their minds over and over. A good golfer never takes a golf shot without first mentally visualizing the precise trajectory of his swing, the flight of the ball, the spot where it lands. Nearly all of us daydream about important coming events. But idle daydreaming isn't the same as a deliberate mental workout that hones the skills actually used in the activity.

Seek results, not perfection: Many ambitious and hard-working people are so obsessed with perfection that they turn out little work. High performers, Garfield has found, are almost always free of the compulsion to be perfect. "They don't think of their mistakes as failures, he says. Instead, they learn from them so they can do better the next time.

Be willing to take risks: Most people stay in what Garfìeld calls the comfort zone -settling for security, even if it means mediocrity and boredom, rather than taking chances. High performers, by contrast, are able to take risks because they carefully consider exactly how they would adjust-how they would salvage the situation-if they did fail. "When I want to take a leap of some sort," one business executive told Garfield, "I construct a catastrophe report for myself. I imagine the worst that could happen if I tried my new plan, and then ask myself what I would do. Could I live with it? Frequently I can. If not1 I don t take the chance."Constructing a 'worst-case scenario,' as Garfield calls it, allows you to make a rational choke. If you remain immobilized by fear,you have no choice at all.

Don't underestimate your potential: Most of us think we know our own limits. But much of what we "know" isn't knowledge at all but belief - erroneous, self-limiting belief. "And self - limiting beliefs," says Garfìeld, "are the biggest obstacle to high-level performance.

The point is: we rarely really know what these limits are. Thus too many of us too often set our individual limits far below what we could actually achieve. High performers, on the other hand, are better able to ignore artificial barriers. They concentrate instead on themselves on their feelings, on their functioning, on the momentum of their effort- and are therefore freer to achieve at peak levels.

Compete with yourself: not with others: High performers focus more intently on improving their own previous efforts than on beating competitors. In fact, worrying about a competitor's abilities and possible superiority can often be self-defeating.Because most high performers are interested in doing the best possible job by their own standards, they tend to be "team players" rather than loners.

They recognise that groups can solve certain complicated problems better than individuals and are therefore eager to let other people do part of the work. Loners, often over-concerned about rivals, can't delegate important work or decision-making. Their performance is limited because they must do everything themselves.

Try harder?

Such are the skills of high performers according to Garfield. If you want to make more of your talents- to live up to your full potential - then learn to use them. As Garfield explains, "I'm not saying 'Try harder.' I am saying that you have the power and capacity to change your habits of mind and body and acquire certain skills.

And if you choose to do so, you can improve tremendously your performance, your productivity and the quality of your whole life."