Managing temperament is key to performance
Top performers need discipline if their success is to be more than dumb luck, writes Jim Bright.
Underperformance has many causes. We are often encouraged to examine our own authorship in the search for reasons why we fall short.
We may fail due to a lack of knowledge. Alternatively the failure may be due to impoverished skill or poor execution. We may underperform due to bugs in our temperament.
Of course before we lose ourselves in an orgy of selfflagellation, we should also consider the possibility that we performed to our full potential, but circumstances or a superior opponent contrived against us.
The answer may lie in faulty knowledge. Such cognitive failings may arise from a lack of preparation, a failure to understand the requirements of the task, a lack of attention at critical junctures, a failure to ask the right questions, not appreciating the broader context or being overwhelmed by the complexity of what is required.
Addressing failures arising out of faulty knowledge may be quick and easy or it may be a long and tortuous process. Gaps in knowledge are relatively easy to spot in others if one is looking in the right areas carefully enough.
Gaps in our own knowledge may become apparent only after failing a test, and even then we are rarely ready to concede our own ignorance as we are to detect it in other people.
There are four quadrants of knowledge: what we know we know; what we know we don’t know; what we don’t know we know; and what we don’t know we don’t know.
Being honest with ourselves about the limits and gaps in our knowledge is essential if we are ever going to be motivated to learn and if we are to use that knowledge judiciously.
Top performers are remarkable in how frequently they mention a thirst for knowledge and how they subscribe to Aristotle’s aphorism, the more I know the less I know. Performance requires currency and relevance. Knowledge acquisition never ends.
Performance is nothing without execution, and for performance to amount to more than a flash in the pan or dumb luck, it requires technique.
Technique requires acquisition, practice, discipline, concentration and revision.
Psychoanalyst (and successful England cricket captain) Mike Brearley, in his new book On Form (Little Brown, 2017) observes that technique is ‘‘like the safe proximity of the mother for the growing child’’, a ‘‘secure base from which one may make excursions’’.
Technique is an attempt to reduce uncertainty and increase consistency and predictability.
Given the changing nature of things, inevitably even the best techniques will fail the test under certain circumstances or they may become outdated as circumstances change.
The cricket coaching manuals of my youth would not fully equip my son for the shots expected in 20-20 cricket. Technique is something we constantly must acquire, adjust and refine.
Knowledge and technique, while challenging to acquire and maintain, are usually relative straightforward matters. There is generally reasonable agreement in any field of endeavour as to what constitutes the body of relevant knowledge and the appropriate techniques to be employed. However, when it comes to temperament things get a whole lot more complicated.
It is not hard to see how temperament undermines performance, from the tantrums of a young child frustrated by a challenging task, to an overzealous investment banker making reckless calls driven by ego, insecurity or problems of impulse control.
Temperament is instilled long before knowledge and technique – indeed it shapes our knowledge and influences the techniques we acquire. It adds style, perhaps even aesthetics or art to our performance when in harmony.
Being honest with ourselves about temperamental limitations is generally more challenging than accepting the limits of knowledge or technique.
However, if we want to perform to our potential, then constantly working on our temperament is a non-negotiable element to minimise underperformance. –Sydney Morning Herald
❚ Jim Bright is a professor of career education and development at Australian Catholic University.