I am walker. I enjoy the act of walking as much as I love getting there. I love mountains as much as Iove walking long distances in plains walk. I adore lonely walks and also walking with a companion. I love walking in sunshine and in rain and snow: walking never lets me down. This summer I challenged myself to rewire my brain and undertook Nordic Walking as a new hobby: using the walking sticks required me to change the way I walk: sharing my strength between my legs and my arms. Sometimes my legs resisted, because they were already strong and used to working hard. You need to move differently when you want to increase the power and speed by connecting your arms and back into the game. It makes you faster, as if you had 4 legs.
Changing your habits requires a lot of energy and stamina, you need to leave the autopilot behind, but I enjoy the learning challenge. It makes you fit for all the other times when you as a leader need to take on new ways of doing things. No matter how and when and where you change your habits, it will strengthen the muscles of the body and the soul. There is no leadership without this kind of work.
Last week I decided to enter my first Nordic Walking competition of walking 22 kilometers of the Ultrabalaton Trail, with 700 meter altitude. To be honest, I knew I could do it, still, it was a big step for me in checking how far I got with my new skill. I told my coach that I am planning to do this and this is what he said:
“Ágota, this is great and I am sure you are ready for the challenge. I think you will be able to do it within 4 hours, but 4.5 hours is more realistic. Anyway, you can definitely be proud of anything less than 5 hours.”
The announced timing of the competition was maximum 6 hours.
I loved the way he said that. He challenged me with the 4 hours and reassured me that I was capable of reaching a very good result, this really increased my self-confidence. He supported me by setting a goal easier to reach, to ensure that I do not lose faith in myself. Moreover, he added a way out of disappointment in case he did not measure my ability in exactly the right way – all in all, things can happen on the way. I had a clear understanding of how success would look like, but I also had a reassurance that unexpected or unknown factors can have an impact on the results.
Sometimes as a leader you need to set goals without being able to precisely evaluate all the factors that have an impact on success: your team’s competencies, the changing circumstances, the complexity of the task. But in any case, make sure you paint a clear picture of success and even failure – obviously, anything longer than 5 hours would have counted as failure for me. Being detailed and realistic about the goals can be really motivating.
I finished the competition in 4.5 hours, impacted by a severe pain in my knee and some really slippery surfaces downhill due to the rain in the morning – the unexpected factors. But I knew I did well enough: somewhere in between plain success and clear failure. It encourages me to do better next time and feel the self-confidence that I am capable of more.
How can you translate this to your way of setting targets to your team? How do you paint a clear picture of success and failure? Are your team members clear about your expectations?
We are curious at curious@mindberriseconsulting.com