Welcome to Episode 80 of my podcast where I talk about High Performance. This episode was recorded because I wanted to discuss some of the key messages from a book called High Performance, lessons from the best on becoming your best. It’s by Jake Humphrey and Professor Damian Hughes.

What do I suggest?

Some of the key points I make in this episode revolve around the authors’ belief that your mindset impacts behaviour. This in turn affects the Team behaviour you have. Ultimately in the case of a leader, this will impact the business too.

Our mindset refers to the choices we make when we think about situations and events. An event is neutral until we add our thoughts in to the mix. Although it’s natural to find some events particularly difficult to handle, the trick is to realise how much we can influence our thoughts.  And therefore, our reactions. Taking more control of this process helps us. It encourages positive reflection and learning whilst aiming to improve our behaviour.

This brings me to the idea of continuous learning and Black Box Thinking. This is after a book of the same name written by Matthew Syed. His work comes from the field of sport and the desire to constantly improve performance.  In his book, he refers to the culture of the airline industry. A black box in this context is the piece of kit bolted in to the airplane which records every detail. In theory, this is simply a measure of success, but it becomes essential if anything goes wrong because it ‘literally’ records every decision. From this, a crew and the industry can learn. Other cultures don’t do this. Instead, a typical event is met with a desire to ‘forget it quickly’ or worse, become defensive when asked, which results in blame.

Other topics I cover include thinking about what you are good at and what is a good use of your time as opposed to something other people might do better. Also, the recognition of peer pressure and how we all try to conform. This made for an interesting study with Psychologist Solomon Asch who observed the pressure we can come under when someone tells us the opposite of what we think!