THIS WEEK’S FOCUS:
Learning from TV Talent Shows
We seem to be inundated with TV shows where thousands of people compete against each other to become the Session 9 South African Idol or Winner of America has Talent etc. depending on what show they are involved in. I must confess that I am becoming sentimentally addicted to these programmes as I watch young people, typically, growing their potential over the length of the programme – in fact, I have concluded that there are few things more satisfying to me than to see people growing their potential.
I guess that shouldn’t really come to me – or you – as a surprise. After all, it’s my job – and my job reflects my passion of helping already successful leaders, managers and their teams become even more effective. At any given time, I am fortunate enough to be guiding thirty or more people through a similar journey that that helps them become the best that they can be.
There’s another similarity too: over the period of these TV shows, the participants spend hours training and practising daily in order to create that upward curve in their performances – if they merely turned up at show-time and performed, they would hardly improve. Similarly, in coaching processes worth their salt, clients should be changing and improving their habits on a daily basis otherwise little improvement will be seen. And yet, in the work environment, so many people believe cognitive learning is enough so they merely go on training or read a good book on whatever their chosen topic is.
We need to take a leaf out of the book of the participants in these shows and top sports people by putting processes in place whereby daily habits improve daily and then build on those new habits.
Monday Morning Perspective: “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” – Samuel Johnson
Kind regards,
Lauron
