It is said that there are a hundred ways to improve your game, and the most important, perhaps, is to get out there and play it. And we all know that ‘practice makes perfect’, but it can be hard to perfect your game in business when you are dealing with too many uncertainties. Whether in sport or business, however, the more involved you are with your game the more familiar you become with these variables.
Whenever I ask my husband, who has been playing golf for many years, whether he enjoyed his day out playing golf, his reply invariably depends on his performance and how he has dealt with certain unpredictable factors such as the weather, the direction of the wind and golf balls landing in a pond or a bunker.
So, in order to perfect his game, my husband can often be found in the back garden, practising his golf swing, straight after playing a round on the golf course. Even as an experienced airline captain he can often be found flying his realistic PC-based flight simulator following a long day in the cockpit! Having a passion for what you do best helps and like the master of his craft, Tiger Woods, my husband enjoys investing time into improving his game.
Do you ever wonder whether your game in business could do with a little improvement? No matter how much of an expert business person you are, we can all benefit from a good tip now and then to stay at the top of the field and this can easily be achieved by assessing your performance on a regular basis.
For example, following a big event my colleague and I always conduct a feedback session which she calls a ‘wash-up’. Even on my own I will usually do a ‘wash up’ after coaching sessions, presentations, or to assess the impact of decisions. It is a really useful process, particularly when I’ve had either a bad or exceptionally good week, or one that is unusual in some way.
The intention is to turn the learning about yourself and your performance into an opportunity for improvement. And doing this consciously, rather than haphazardly, guarantees much better results.
Would you like to have a go at this? If so, just work with the following questions:
• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• What could you have done better?
• How and what will you improve next time?
It may only take a few minutes to assess whether your game may benefit from a little tweak here or there. If you want to be the best in your field, don’t forget that even the world’s number ones strive for continuous improvement to help them stay at the top!
Ute Wieczorek-King is a Business/Career Coach, Trainer and Facilitator who runs Success Network and is founder of the Inner Circle Business Clubs. More top tips and articles can be found on the article page of the Success Network website
