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Balancing confidence and competence

By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics

A great way to get over the winter blues is to challenge your physical and mental skills at high altitudes. Every fibre in your body is alert to any physical feedback as your mind tries to balance the mental cocktail of extreme excitement, anxiety and danger. While surges of adrenalin keeps you totally focused on the here-and-now so you forget everything else, if you misjudge the conditions the consequences are immediate. . .

Skiing provides a unique combination of pure clean air to refresh the body and stunning views that refresh the soul. It is a crazy sport because the exhilaration of hurtling downhill whilst maintaining some sense of control is very addictive but things can change in a split second.

Earlier this month on our first day at the ski resort of Meribel, my wife Pam and I had the very sobering experience of seeing someone being transferred from an emergency ski stretcher-cot to the medical centre. It was not a pretty sight, and a stark reminder of the need to balance competence and confidence.

Many skiers (mainly the younger ones!) go for maximum speed rather than technique. It is very easy to seek the rush of wind in your face and to cut corners especially when you have been down a particular piste a few times. But you need to be acutely aware of all the other skiers and what they might – or might not – do in front of you. Making assumptions can lead you into serious trouble. However if you lose your confidence due to a bad experience like a nasty fall, you won’t be able to access your competence and this can negatively affect your performance.

Maintaining Performance

Many businesses are now under pressure to increase performance and to get the most from their resources including their people. The skill and competence of managers is being tested to the limit and an over-confident manager can damage your business and lose you your best people. In the current volatile economic climate people need to be kept motivated and continuously developed or their performance will stagnate. In a rapidly changing environment where agility is key standing still is not an option and continuous learning is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

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