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Is fear stealing your peoples’ resourcefulness?

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

Fear can be useful – it keeps us safe when there is real physical danger, but it can also be very detrimental because it can steal our resourcefulness just when we need it most. How is your behaviour as a leader and manager impacting on the resourcefulness your people?

A metaphor for life

My wife Pam and I love skiing because it is a magnificent metaphor for life. For the first five years we spent every morning of our holiday in ski school with only the afternoons for playing and practicing what we learned. The skills required for skiing are like no other. You need to make totally counter intuitive movements that make it feel like you will be totally off-balance and fall and yet they make you safer. This means your mind is constantly screaming at you not to do the very things that will make you a better skier. There were a lot of falls in the early days and a lot of bruised egos too. But the anticipation of being free to ski on all types of slopes and the excitement of going downhill with the fresh crisp cold air in your face kept us going.

There is an interesting paradox in skiing. You need to be very conscious of how dangerous it is and have a healthy fear of being injured or injuring someone else. Every year many skiers are hurt and sadly some die. Given this fact you need to learn how to be safe and only go at a speed that you can fully control and only go out in conditions you are competent enough to manage. However, if your fear becomes inhibiting and prevents you from stepping out of your Comfort Zone you will never learn the skills you need to really enjoy the exhilaration of elegantly navigating some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring landscapes on the planet.

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