The New Model of Performance Improvement
2007 Jack Ricchiuto
We have entered a new era of understanding performance, inspired by the emerging body of research on top performers and performance. We have become clear on what distinguishes top performing athletes, employees, leaders, and teams.
Before this research, performance models were based on research of performance failure. We didn’t know what caused peak performance, but were very clear on the role of weaknesses in people’s failure in performance and learning.
The old models suggested that performance improves with the identification and removal of weaknesses. These models remain popular with organizations yet unexposed to the new research on the structure of optimum performance.
The new research, based on performance success, suggests the opposite, that optimum performance has nothing to do with weaknesses. It’s all about the engagement of strengths. In this new model, we look at strengths and weaknesses as abilities. A strength is an ability that supports our effectiveness and a weakness is an ability that gets in the way of our effectiveness.
The strength to be on time is an ability that we’ve learned. The weakness to show up late is also an ability that we’ve also learned. Each ability is possible because of the chemistry of ingredient abilities. Our ability to be on time happens because we have learned how to start early, be prepared, and watch the time. Our ability to be late happens because we’ve learned how to postpone preparedness, start late, and ignore the time.
Because both strengths and weaknesses are abilities, once we have them, we have them for life. This eliminates the possibility of getting rid of weaknesses.
When people improve performance then, it’s not because they’re eliminating weaknesses. It’s because they’re getting better at engaging their strengths.
Whether we are more likely to engage a strength or weakness in any situation depends on whether we’re taking a more positive or negative approach to the situation at hand. A positive approach is when we’re focusing on what we can do, do have, do like and want, are achieving, and will promise. A negative approach is when we’re focusing on what we can’t do, don’t have, don’t like and want, aren’t achieving, and our excuses.
Reaching new levels of performance in more complex and challenging situations is a matter of creating new combinations and chemistries of strengths. Learning to cook complex dishes simply involves new combinations of strengths we already have, since every single possible dish can only engage the same 7 basic strengths: measuring, pouring, cutting, mixing, pounding, peeling, and arranging.
When we improve our performance, it’s because we’ve engaged our strengths in ways that make our weaknesses irrelevant. This approach accelerates our learning curves because we are no longer wasting time and distracting ourselves with trying to get rid of our weaknesses. We simply invest ourselves fully in the engagement of our strengths.
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