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Issue 14 January 2007
2007 is already speeding away but fear not Perform is here! This month we take a look at change. Why we need it and why we do not want it!
Make 2007 the year you make a change!  We are fortunate this month to have an article on Jack Welch written by someone who worked with the man. Our guest author this month, Mike Stokes, has kindly prepared the article which you can find on our website here.
 There is no doubt that Jack Welch presided over a stellar performance at General Electric. It is our view that great leadership shows itself in great performance so Jack Welch certainly deserves that status. Mike now runs his own export consultancy business, Exportential. He is a good fellow and really wants to help. You can find his website here.
What is a “comfort zone”? Simply it is what you feel comfortable doing.
You might wonder how you arrived at the “comfort zone” of your own. It is built on your mental map of the world. You start to build that map as a baby. Gurgling happily gets a cuddle, crying and wailing gets food. We all build our mental map with everything we sense around us. This mental map has a high survival value. We are constantly judging our current perceptions against our mental map to detect inconsistencies. Inconsistencies spell danger. A blade of grass moving differently from its neighbours may be hiding a stalking tiger. This mental map called instinct, intuition, gut feeling or sixth sense is well developed in us all over time. Inconsistencies that do not yield to analysis are painful to hold in your brain. Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance theory says that contradictory ideas can only be held for a short, disturbed time.
Attempts to move out of our comfort zone are genuinely mentally uncomfortable. I did some training a while ago where we were asked to do something to overcome  our fear of embarrassment at networking events. We were asked to go into a shop and ask for something they didn’t sell – a glass of wine in a florists for example. Could you do that?So why bother? Because some of the constraints we place on ourselves are not or no longer valid. They may only exist in our head. How do you stretch your comfort zone? Test it and learn where it is. Experiment by going just beyond it, a little more each time. Look for the real world signals. not your mental map signals, telling you it is wrong. Who knows, maybe one day all drycleaners will sell clotted cream! Meanwhile all you have to lose is your shackles. All it will cost is a little embarrassment, a commodity in unlimited supply! The threat in everyone’s mind at the moment is globalisation. Post-industrial and industrialised countries have seen vast swathes of their jobs leave for the developing countries.
The assurance that globalisation is good for everyone in the long term, DVD players at £20/$35, helps not a jot when you lose your income.  We should be aware though that the “bad guys” in this also have their own fear of change. The CEOs of organisations are faced with complaints about red ink from their Financial Director, assurances that costs cannot be cut from their Operations Director and those cheerful Sales people can always sell more if only the price was lower. In this stressful environment the news that average tenure for CEOs has fallen from eight to six years since the 90s (US figures) merely serves to heighten the perceived personal risk.  CEOs push the organisation to improve performance but the environment works against radical solutions. The preferred alternative is “doing what we do now but better”. A self limiting outlook!I am pleased to see motivation management increasingly recognised as a valuable tool to increase performance. At the moment this option is new and little known. How should we dispel the fear and ignorance of motivation management methods? We need to develop a risk free method for CEOs to find out for themselves. Perhaps by learning a useful tip that makes a difference to performance, they will be less fearful. As you expect, help is at hand. As part of our revamp of the website, the functionality of the Help page is to change.
You will be able to pose a question through the FAQ page and the answer is then posted on the FAQ pages. The process will not require your email or any personal identification whatsoever. Obviously posting the answer publicly means that sensitive issues must be dealt with circumspectly.
Take a look at the new FAQ facility on our website and post a question!
Have we made you stop and think about your own organisation and what could be gained by improving things? If you are curious about the improvements in performance that are possible, or you would like to know how to solve specific performance problems, then resolve to make a difference this minute. Call us now on 01787 378851 or email performance@motivationmatters.co.uk to start improving performance. You pay people to come to work. What they do when they get there depends on their motivation.
We hope you enjoyed this Perform. Please forward it to anyone you feel would enjoy it. Please look at the information on our website for more details and articles. The next Perform will be in the middle of February.
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© Motivation Matters 2007
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