Nominate someone for high performance recognition
We are rewarding high performing people around the continent. Help by nominating someone you are impressed with. Together we can create a better performing Africa. Do it now!
Finish the year with full power
At CONFIGURE|Q4 You will evaluate the last three quarters and develop a strategy to ensure your achieve your goal for the year. CONFIGURE now includes prayer.
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On-line marketing can be tricky. We provide a test the waters approach so you don't spend a fortune experimenting We are happy to assist you.
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For those seeking truly life transforming training programs, this is for you. Our workshops are facilitated by real performance technicians. They are not motivational speaking seminars.
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Traditional media owners now also own new media platforms. The reason is simple. It is more effective because it is interactive and the results are instantly measurable.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Free Workshop: Introduction to Peak Performance
It is a known fact that the continent is suffering from a quality human capital deficiency-- people are not functioning at their best. The question is; why. And so we ask a lot of questions. For the most part people do not know why. They just simply don't know better and most people are not conscious of their performance. The result is that organisations and nations are not function at their best and the reason is simple. People make organisations and nations; they are the most valuable assets of any group and when they are at their best the group is at its best.
In our quest to solve this problem and as a part of our social responsibility the CSD is now providing a free monthly workshop in various locations across the continent. Our objective is to train some 500 young people (every month) between ages 18 and 30 on what it means to be one's best and how it can be attained.
To participate in the program, email the message
"I want to learn peak performance" with your
your name, phone number and location to
your name, phone number and location to
workshop@csdafrica.com and we will send details
Thursday, March 21, 2013
A pint of Feedback please!
If you have
ever been at a concert where the artist’s performance intensified as the
applause grew, you have seen the effect of feedback. This is a very common
phenomenon in fact and speakers are very familiar with it. In Ghana it is very
common to see a very still and expressionless audience literally cold-staring a
performer who is trying very hard to force out a drop of positive feedback.
Such situations have the capability to steal the performer’s confidence and
render him powerless even with a great talent at their disposal. This is when
you hear,
“they don’t like me no matter how hard I try”. “Why is there always something wrong with everything I do”? “Nobody appreciate me even though I am doing my best”.
When we
engage in an activity there is always feedback except and it is not always
positive. When it happens to be positive however, we are empowered to do more
and the effects appears automatic. Positive feedback is nitro-octane 5 fuel for
performance and this makes a strong case for the reward and punishment system.
If you reward people for doing something they are likely to do more of it;
perhaps even better—they want more reward. Negative feedback is however, only
the opposite in a conditional manner. It is crude oil that can be refined into
a variety of products that can either fire or dampen performance. It is a
question of how it is processed. The high performer is in the habit, according
to experts like Czickzentmihalyi, of consistently monitoring feedback. They
need it as it is the signal on the dashboard that tells us when we are doing
the right thing or not. Guys, when the ladies say NO, they mean it. Trust me, I
have five sisters.
Anthony
Robbins’ success cycle also illustrates this idea quite well.
When the feedback is success, it engenders more success. If you have been reading
my work you probably already know that it is the small cycles of success that
culminate into the larger success. This develops the ever valuable success
mentality. The person who wins all the time is used to winning; because of
feedback. She enters an activity expecting nothing less than winning. And we
all know what roles expectation, confidence and goals play in the quest for
success.
The
opposite is the failure mentality that results from the same method. When one
is told all the time that he is a failure and hears the words fail and you in one sentence after an initial
attempt at something, he develops a failure mentality. He then approaches
everything with fear and the expectation to fail though he may not show this. Parents and teachers are especially
guilty of this when they are unable to determine what the strengths of a child.
In my part of the world it appears such negative statements; “you can’t even do simple things,
you will suffer in life” are
very often used if not abused on young people.
It is not
an easy feat for the untrained mind to rise above negative feedback which I
should mention is not always authentic. Because of this, many talents are
rendered powerless. This is the reason why it is extremely useful for one to
build a career in an area they are naturally gifted for. It is unwise to
disconnect goals and occupation from purpose must be the result of
self-knowledge. Because once the feedback is positive, one builds the
confidence to step further and build the reputation of a high performer. This
then can serve as the platform from which they can use the winners’ mentality
to reach other areas.
Monitoring
and dealing with feedback lies within the realm of information processing in
the Uptimetrics® training program. Read more of my work and you will know that
things, events, circumstances have meaning and purpose only because we gave
them one. One statement that I abuse almost on a daily basis; we are the most active participants
in the creation of our circumstances. Such tools as the PSR™ (Positive
Speculative Reasoning) are of great value in this regard. It is possible to
turn negative feedback into something useful when you know how to process
information. This is what I meant earlier by crude oil needing refinement. At
the same time it is possible to receive positive feedback and indulge in
complacency and this is not as rare as you might think.
When a
person tells you consistently that you cannot do something or you are not good
enough, you have two things to do. The first is to verify the authenticity of
the statement itself—people talk crap for their own reasons. Yet they are a
great source of feedback and this is the reason why you cannot hang with the “I
will do only what I like and others do not matter” folks. The teacher or the parent
cannot tell the child they are right when they are wrong. The second is to
investigate how and why you have arrived at the decision to engage in that
activity in the first place—but that is when you are sure the comment was
authentic. In short if you are going to be involved in something ensure you are
gifted for it. It will ensure you have positive initial feedback-- Nitro-Octane
5 for your performance; remember? Those with natural capability will always be
ahead because they have positive feedback.
I just
realized I cannot possibly exhaust the idea in one article look out for the launch
of the SPiD-UP® book series.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Maximizing 2013 at full capacity.
It is the custom with many of
us to have a resolution when a new year begins. But as often is the case, most
of us never see it through. Circumstances have a way of changing things even in
the face of “man's reach exceeds his grasp” and “I can do all things”. While it is easy to point to
indiscipline as the reason many goals or are not achieved, it might be important
to consider other factors too. I follow the Anthony Robbins school of tough;
that there are no such things as lazy and indiscipline people. It is often a
case of lack of motivation. As soon as a person is motivated enough, they will
do something that they of themselves did not believe was possible. So if you failed
to manifest that resolution last year, it may not be because you lack disciplined.
Sometimes we set our eyes on grand things when all we need is to check the
basics and everything else will fall in place.
It is not often that a person
engages in activity and decides to be lazy and undisciplined and even go
further by finding reasons for it. Not many people consciously decide they are
not going to be their best. Indeed people work really hard and many of us are
very talented in our own ways. The trouble is sometimes with the structure
with which we approach the world. I.e. how we interpret the world and its
influence on how we approach.
The philosophy of peak
performance offers a concise means by which we can tackle the basics in order
to ensure that whatever power is being generated from our main engine (talent
and skill) is being brought to its maximum. Two things can set us back: leakages and hindrances. Perhaps you
have seen one of those old cars that make a lot of noise yet doesn't move much.
That is the indication of a leakage. Further, when something gets in the way,
you can’t really move forward even though you are firing on cylinders. Hard
work is ok but very often it is not what we should be looking at. In some of my
work I have tried to establish the idea that the people who are the best at
what they often don’t work hard as it is an effortless affair for them.
We maximize opportunities when
we have eliminated hindrances and sealed leakages. This automatically makes
even the small amount of work powerful because we are maximizing opportunity. Leakages and hindrances are a result of liabilities. In the philosophy of performance one can classify absolutely everything into
two categories, assets and liabilities. Assets power you forward
and liabilities slow you down. When
anything becomes a liability, we must see how it can be converted or offloaded.
Liabilities are baggages—they slow you down. People and everything else can be
a liability. Friends and spouses can be a starting point. If they are not
helping your cause, they might be slowing you down and causing a leakage in
your system. A friend who only thinks about the pub only when he sees you is a leakage
on your finance. If you don’t do something a lot of your money will end up in
the pub owner’s account and your friend will be the agent who made it possible.
This doesn't ensure that you finish the year at full power because if you end
the year with less than you are worth, you are under-performing. The less time
you spend in the pub the more money you save. The power you are generating from
working can then be maximized.
A spouse must necessarily be
an asset or they must be disposed (I don’t
mean to be nasty). If a spouse doesn't provide the emotional support you
need to spur you on and instead their actions slow you down, it might be time
to rethink. It is not possible to list the number of things that can be your
angels and your demons, but perhaps an expose of the core idea in the philosophy
of performance and how it can be applied on 2013 as a period will be useful.
It starts with having specific
goal in mind and if you have read any of my work you know how I feel about
goals. They must not just be SMART,
they must also be intelligent. Intelli-goals
are situation sensitive as such, they react and modify themselves according to
situation whiles still maintaining integrity. They are also very connected to
purpose and personal strength so you are no setting a goal that you don’t believe
is achievable. You must understand first that 2013 is only one of the many
years you have left on planet earth and in fact only one of the many blocks of
your larger life. Each block must be strong in order for you to finish your life
at full power. Your goal for 2013 is a component of the larger goal of your
life. The two must be integrated seamlessly. As indicated earlier the first
step towards getting the best out of the year as per the philosophy of
performance is to have a set objective or what we have termed the goal for the
year.
The sum of the philosophy involves;
identification of assets (because they power us forward), elimination of liabilities (because they
slow us down) understanding and maximizing capabilities (because they
are assets) and fully exploiting opportunity (because they
engage us) towards a specific objective.
Sealing leakages and avoiding hindrances
is a huge subject that cannot be covered in this article. I shall however point
us to two key points to pay attention to. A lack socio-emotional competence can
create hindrances and leakages that will slow us down. This involves our
performance in the social arena where there are other people we must deal with.
A high competence in the social arena is a powerful way of sealing possible
leakages and avoiding hindrances. Maintaining assets-people and transforming liability-people
into asset requires an understanding of human behavior. Experts say that social intelligence
makes success more predictable than even
talent.
A leakage to look out for is Trapportunities:
these are traps that present themselves as opportunities. They derail you and
trap you in a place you shouldn't This of course has a negative effect on your
performance. The best way to avoid them is to maintain a high level of
integrity and focus. Avoid unauthorized short cuts and to think in terms of the shortest
distances and straight lines.
Whiles I do not know what you
are involved in; this philosophy has been designed to work for every situation.
However, its application will have to be customized to meet your peculiar needs.
I have said in my soon to be published work the
Philosophy of peak performance that there is no such thing as a
one-size-fits-all approach to life and therefore it is important for us to
consider our unique circumstances in applying any idea. I will encourage you to
follow in that direction. May we also be reminded that regardless of what you
want achieve in a day or in your entire life; after all the visualization and
dreaming, the next thing to do is to engage in activity. This is why performance
is of great importance. Perform at your peak and you will experience the first
fruit of success. The ultimate maximization of your life depends on the maximization
of the opportunities present in the seconds, minutes, hours and days.
When they
are maximized, your life will be maximized. Happy New Year and May you
finish it with full power.
I am giving away an unedited version of my
book; Performance Awareness.
If you have been reading my work it is my gift to you for the New Year. Please click on the link here to download it for free. Send us comments at spidup@csdafrica.com and let me know how we can improve it. Five books will be released in the first half of 2013 and what you tell us will play a key role in ensuring quality.
If you have been reading my work it is my gift to you for the New Year. Please click on the link here to download it for free. Send us comments at spidup@csdafrica.com and let me know how we can improve it. Five books will be released in the first half of 2013 and what you tell us will play a key role in ensuring quality.
Markus and CSD/SPiD-UP team.