Mark Bennett MBE on the Performance Development System
Mark Bennett MBE has spent the last 30 years developing scalable strategies to help individuals and organisations to maximise their performance potential.
This is not about just quick hit interventions. You will hear how Mark works in a variety of environments to embed his key principles that “Performance is a behaviour not an outcome” and to create the sustainable change required within individuals, teams and organisations.
A former British Commando and senior instructor within the Army Physical Training Corps, Mark has used that experience to design and implement what he calls the Performance Development System. In this conversation you will get a taste of what this system is all about and how you can apply it to improve your leadership, coaching, mentoring, managing and influencing skills. Things like the importance of self awareness, managing your state and ensuring you are in an effective state for the specific requirement and intervention, clarification of what is acceptable, unacceptable and exceptional and the ownership and responsibility of this using the player first, player last approach.
If you want to know about Mark Bennett MBE and his Performance Development System you can check out his website
Take a listen and let me know what you think…
Why not check out more great conversations with remarkable people, including world champions, elite performance coaches, top psychologists, award winning entrepreneurs and business leaders and many more, on our podcast page.
If you are interested in exploring our narrative coaching and consultancy approaches, then why not check out what we do and get in touch.
Full Transcript of Mark Bennett MBE on the Performance Development System
episode 22 of the infinite pie thinking podcast with Al Fawcett
Mark Bennett 00:00
They came on one of the pass off parades, where one of the parents came up to me and says, oh, you know, your corporal Bennett, my son doesn’t stop talking about you, you’ve really changed his life. And the light bulb went off in a negative way, because immediately I thought, I’d also change the life of every recruit that had not passed in, that had returned back to civilian life. So my evaluation of myself is the one that counts. So I need to believe I’m doing a good job or a bad job. And I always pride myself on doing the best job I could. How confident are you? And what support structure have you got as a manager, as a coach to know what to do in those moments? And then how good are you at measuring your success in your people’s behaviours, the people you’re working with, interacting with? And how good are you at developing that? Now, can you measure that based on behaviours and performance, not just based on outcome? One of the things we got to recognise is when we’re looking at someone, don’t look at their present behaviour and think, that’s them. Their present behaviour is influenced by their interpretation of the past and interpretation of a situation. And maybe they haven’t been given the tools to help them be a different person or a better person than themselves. If you speak to anyone that knows me, that the one thing I’ll say is, I live by the principles I share. And I think that’s so important for anybody.
Al Fawcett 01:14
Hi, I’m Al Fawcett and this is infinite pie thinking. So let me tell you what these conversations are all about. I get to talk with remarkable people who share their stories. They share their challenges, their experiences, their lessons, their perspective, and of course, what they did with it. This is not a how to guide, but it is a look inside someone’s world to have the chance to see it from their side. And along the way, maybe you’ll think about things a little differently or in a new way and take some action as a result. Okay, so today’s episode is my conversation with Mark Bennett MBE. Mark has spent the last 30 years developing scalable strategies to help individuals and organisations to maximise their performance potential. Now, this is not just about quick hit interventions, you’re going to hear how he works in a variety of environments to embed one of his key principles, that performance is a behaviour, not an outcome, and then how he created the sustainable change required within individuals, teams and organisations. A former British commando and a senior instructor within the Army Physical Training Corps, Mark has used that experience to design and implement what he calls the performance development system. In this conversation, you’re going to get a taste of what that system is all about, and how you can apply it to improve your leadership, coaching, mentoring, managing and influencing skills. So take a listen, and let me know what you think.
Al Fawcett 02:48
Mark, welcome to infinite pie thinking.
Mark Bennett 02:50
Thanks for inviting me.
Al Fawcett 02:52
Now, this is going to be great. I’ve been reading a lot of your stuff and looking at a lot of the things that you do. You’ve been working on your performance development system for 30 plus years now. So first question, I suppose I’m going to ask is, where did it start? Was there an ‘aha’ moment or a lightbulb moment that started you on this path? And if so, what was it?
Mark Bennett 03:13
Yes, it was. I remember where I was, I remember the day, I remember the people in the room, I even remember the chairs and the room, the detail of it. It’s one of those…it was in the 90s, early 90s. I was in the army, I’d come from commando forces, served operationally, I was a physical training instructor as well. I was then promoted to a Recruit Training Centre as their physical training instructor. So obviously, the commando forces are a little bit fitter and the mentalities a bit more robust than your standard military. And the short story is, we had 10 weeks, you had a platoon and you had them for physical training on generally a daily basis, and I could pretty much do what I wanted to. At the end of the 10 weeks, there was different platoons with different physical training instructors. And at the end of that 10 weeks, you had competitions, blog race, obstacle course, endurance, etc. And for the first 18 months, my platoon won every single one so I’m thinking, I’m the man, I’m awesome at my job. And then the day came, the day came on one of the pass off parades, where one of the parents came up to me and says, oh, you know, your corporal Bennett, my son doesn’t stop talking about you, you’ve really changed his life. And the light bulb went off in a negative way. Because immediately I thought, I’d also changed the life of every recruit that had not passed in, that had returned back to civilian life. So I started to then consciously look at my numbers, and some of my platoons were smaller in passing out than the others. Well, I questioned and then I realised that actually, I wasn’t really developing everyone. The people that had a lot of the mental robustness, the ability to continue when things got tough, the engagement etc., kept up with me, but the people that didn’t have that, I clearly…I may have changed some but I didn’t change enough. So I asked myself then, I need to either change what I do, or change how I do it, because I’m realising now I’m pretty useless. So I went from a 10 out of 10, self score, to a 2 out of 10 self score, in a matter of an hour.
Al Fawcett 05:12
Wow. Okay. That’s incredible, really, in the sense of, we’re going to explore in a second what you did with that 2 out of 10, and how that motivated and drove you. But from the commando training point of view, don’t they pride themselves on the the weening out process? You know, in a lot of those environments, it’s almost like, well, it’s the elite of the elite, so therefore, only a certain percentage will get through. So why was that perceived as a bad thing?
Mark Bennett 05:36
Well, there’s two elements there is, I came from commando forces. And in the 90s, and before, you had to be already a trained soldier, and then you volunteer, to go on the commando course. And they didn’t really…they weren’t bothered about numbers, because Royal Marines and Army are slightly different. But the Royal Marines were running the commando training wing, and they didn’t care how many pass. So it was a very arduous mentally and physically, but where I went to wasn’t a commando unit, it was a standard Recruit Training Centre. So this was just civilians joining to join the Army and basic recruit training. So although actually, at the time, there was talk about numbers, but it wasn’t a big deal, because it was getting enough through the door. It was my own self awareness, you know, you don’t know as spiders on the shoulder and you’re happily wandering along, but as soon as you see that spider, you change, and it was that change moment.
Al Fawcett 06:24
Right. I love that. And again, like I say, that self awareness piece, that’s something that I feel is the catalyst for change, you can’t have it without that sort of recognition. It’s that age old saying of, you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. So you’ve gone from a 10 to a 2 in the space of a very short period of time. Now sometimes people have these ‘aha’ moments, and then very quickly go into the, ‘ah, yeah, but’ follow up. ‘Ah, yeah, but it’s not my fault’, ‘ah, yeah, but that’s what’s expected of me’, ‘ah, yeah, but…’ and they’ll justify it away. You’ve obviously reflected on that, and not useed it as a ‘ah, yeah, but’, you’ve used it as a kick up the backside to do something about it. What was that? When you had that recognition and went, I’m now a 2, how did you not just go into a vacuum? What was your direction from there?
Mark Bennett 07:04
Well, we could use other words, but I’ve been called tenacious in the past. So for me, my evaluation of myself and I would say I self evaluate myself, even as a kid, more than most people I know. So my evaluation of myself is the one that counts. So I need to believe I’m doing a good job or a bad job. And I always pride myself from doing the best job I could. So there was no ‘what ifs’ for me. For me, it was a recognition that that was unacceptable for me. The challenge I had, I had no one around me that was following the path that I now recognised, I need to find, but I didn’t know what it looked like, that was the challenge. But I had no problem in exploring it. But linking back to the negativity of this journey, the next platoons, I lost a couple of the competitions. So I had a lot of stick by everybody around me. Remember, these were no internet days, I didn’t know anyone that was doing this. And I just got people saying, Mark, you’re getting soft, what you doing? Blah, blah, blah, because success for them was winning competitions. Success for them was not about getting the numbers through or changing people that maybe didn’t have those skills. And I was not good at explaining that. And I think this is a key thing as well is this, you may see something or believe something. But unless you can share that in a way that other people understand that are of influence, it becomes very difficult. So I was on a lonely path, but I was getting better. And within about a year, I was starting to win the competitions again. And I was getting the big numbers. So I still didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I knew I could kind of do it. If someone said, Mark, what are you doing differently? I couldn’t really quantify a level of explanation. And I certainly didn’t know how to influence other people in it, which came to another light bulb of negativity, in another 10 years time, which was one other step.
Al Fawcett 08:50
We’ll come to that, hold that thought. It sounds like you recognise that the competition was just one measure of success. And you were focusing more on the process and the developing of those around you, rather than whether or not you could win a competition or not. Is that right?
Mark Bennett 09:08
Well, if I use the language I use within the system, I shouldn’t buy success criteria. So one was a want, one was a need. So before, my need was for my own ego, and everyone around me, I needed to win every competition, because I was…that for me, you’re the best PTI if you win physical training instructor, if you win all the competitions, that then shifted to a want. So then, when my need shifted to, I need to get these people to pass in. I need to help develop people. My want is, I want to win all the competitions, but I can’t compromise the need for the want. And that was the mental shift.
Al Fawcett 09:46
Okay, and then it’s only over time that you’ve actually been able to articulate it in that way.
Mark Bennett 09:51
Yes. Yeah. That took a long time as well.
Al Fawcett 09:56
And that’s quite interesting, isn’t it? Because that’s what we see within business and leaders across a piece where, they have this desire for something, they have wants and needs. And it’s their ability to articulate that to get others to influence others. I mean, to be a leader, you have to have people who want to follow you, right?
Mark Bennett 10:15
Yeah. And I think the military doesn’t help with that. Because there is a hierarchical scale that’s very dominant. And that does change your mindset a little bit. So I was really good at developing people that were underneath me. I mean, now I have an awareness to it but at the time, I didn’t really. But at that time, and it was me, I was in the present, I was flowing, I was listening well, there was no fear. And I was really good. But, when I was being challenged by peers, or people above me, I didn’t flow, I wasn’t present, I wasn’t listening as well, I wasn’t explaining well, I wasn’t listening to understand first, and then I was less effective. So I think that’s part of the culture in the military, that is not a good thing. And I think it’s in some businesses as well, that I’ve learned now is also not a good thing, that we need to break down those barriers of, just because someone’s above you, actually, you still need to be the best version of you and be confident and be present at listening, articulate, without fear, but understand how to communicate. And I think sometimes, without realising, people shift how they communicate, or how listen, whether they’re speaking to someone junior to them, equal to them or senior to them. And definitely that that was a weakness in the military for me, at that point.
Al Fawcett 11:23
Yeah, we can see that a lot. You can see that positively and negatively, you can see environments and cultures. But we see this environment where people are brought in, there can be a hierarchical structure, and it just becomes a, I will tell you what to do. It becomes a directive type approach. It’s easy to talk about empowering people. But what about enabling them? What about giving them the tools to do the job and then getting out of the way? You talk about now, you talk about almost like making yourself redundant as a coach. So is that something that you’re talking about in that sort of environment, where you’re empowering and enabling people to do it while you’re not there, I suppose?
Mark Bennett 12:03
Yeah, that’s definitely…when I run my training, on one of the first slides, our aim is to make ourself redundant, but while developing people that can be present, scan well, make effective decisions, commit to them with intent, without fear, review them live under any type of pressure without the need for you. That’s kind of the quick, you know, off the tongue. And that’s, that’s where we need to get to, and then share with people that has a light and shade to get there. But there are tools, fundamental tools that you first need to be aware of yourself and what to do, more than tools that you just share at others or with others. So back to, as you mentioned earlier, it’s about self awareness of self. How accurate are you within yourself awareness of what you think you do and what you actually do? How you interact, how you manage your state, how you listen? And do you know how to get someone that is fearful, or is just in a position really, where the culture is developed, or the environment to say, well just tell me what you want me to do? Whatever that may be, do you know how to shift someone and take them on that journey. So I called and I use the word interdependent. So we have independent people that are very confident in their role, but can work effectively with each other. And it’s that shift that I found now, is a bit of a light bulb for many businesses and many sports, because there are so many similarities in education as well, I have to say, but if you look at sport, it is the pressure of sport, if you’re a high profile coach, and everyone from the outside is measuring your success on the score line, on a win or lose, but actually, the facilitators of winning and losing is performance and behaviours. Now the coach may know that, but the coach staying honest to that and not getting caught up in, right, we’ve just lost three in a row. Right, now I’m going to tell you what to do players, and which is the worst thing you can do, but the pressure of doing that very similar to management. So that’s when we’ve got to understand, how confident are you and what support structure have you got as a manager, as a coach to know what to do in those moments? And then how good are you at measuring your success in your people’s behaviours, the people you’re working with, interacting with? And how good are you at developing that? And how can you measure that based on behaviours and performance, not just based on outcome?
Al Fawcett 14:11
I think that’s the key, isn’t it? I’ve done things before now where I put up on a slide some score lines for games, literally from the newspaper at the weekend, up goes to score line to go, good game, bad game, and people will have an opinion. Three nil, that must have been cracking. That’s just an outcome. That is just literally a result. You don’t know if there was great performance, if it was own goals, if the referee had a shocker, you don’t know anything from that, other than a result, a number. And it’s really, really fascinating to see that. And again, you mentioned there with regard to the manager, if he starts to have a bit of a slide and three in a row on a downward trend. There’s a tendency to want to come in and start to tell, right, this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re doing it. Where does that come from? Does that come from fear? Does that come from anxiety? Does that come from, well, I’ve got to take control? Where do you think that desire comes from?
Mark Bennett 15:04
I think it’s a combination of, their own learning and their interpretation of their own experiences and their knowledge and understanding of being aware in that moment. What to look for, what to analyse, and then what intervention will be the effective intervention? So there’s a lot there and we could unpick that later. But the key thing is, is understanding that, always that…Stephen Covey always begin with the end in mind. So there’s a reason why there’s a perception that you have itself that you’re not getting the results that you want from others. So, do you know how to break that down to identify if there is a behavioural source, a scanning choice, a choice of option choice, or an intent intervention, that you can identify the source of the issue, then put in a support mechanism to develop that, to build the confidence in the person so they can still do it without you, they can just do it better next time.
Al Fawcett 15:57
So, again, we talk about this, from a sports perspective, we talk about the fact that once they go over the white line, we have limited influence on them, at the end of the day, that’s the players performing. And you can say that in business as well, that, you know, whilst I am not standing over their shoulder and looking at them and telling them, we have this, you could argue, minimal opportunity to influence. And it’s how we maximise those minimal opportunities, rather than just like, right, I’m going to literally sit next to you and tell you what to do the whole time. So am I right in saying that, from your perspective, that a coach needs to, sort of, take a beat and do that self analysis of going, okay, before I just let the emotional side of things take control and just go in and react accordingly. I need to take a beat and, what am I thinking about myself here? What is going to be the best use of my skills, my knowledge, my opportunity to get the best out of those around me?
Mark Bennett 16:53
Yeah. So there’s two elements to that, one is being aware of your state first, and as you would do in a relationship, whether that’s with your partner or your kids is, am I in the effective state to be effective in this interaction? If the answer’s no, you don’t start the interaction. So that’s…I’ve got to do that as a manager. That’s my first step. So let me sort that out. Now, I’ve sorted that out. And we can put in interventions to do that, internally, externally, which takes practice, but it’s worth doing, then we get to, okay, let me use a formalised process, so I’ve got an action review process to, to put back to that person, not me, to allow them to share with me the journey of the action review process they’ve been to, so we can both, together, analyse if there was a source of an issue, or it was just one of them things, you wouldn’t change a thing, it was just one of those things, but they’re involved. Now, once you give managers that framework, it makes it so much easier, because one, it’s the same framework we’re asking for. If we use sport, the athlete and a coach would use the same. The manager and the member of staff would use the same, but we’re not taking it off them. We’re saying, okay, let’s work through this together, and we just go through the steps of the action review process. They share, we’re listening, then if we pick something we go, ah, it’s there. Then we can go, okay, let’s just discuss that, I’ve spotted something there that will help us next time. And then we put the intervention in there, firm, fair and friendly, they’re still owning it, or if we’ve identified, actually, it’s an attitudinal thing, they haven’t committed to what they said, we’ve just got our go to, remind me what we agreed. It’s back at them. We’re not telling them, we don’t say, I told you to do this. It’s back at them. Remind me what we agreed, they’ve got to tell us. So it’s understanding, is it behaviour or is it a process of decision making?
Al Fawcett 18:37
Yep. Love that. And again, just something you said, almost like a throwaway line there with regards to, is this something you know, where they’ve gone against what we agreed? Well, that means you’ve agreed it in the first place. So that means that you’ve actually sat down and had that right, let’s agree, what are the non negotiables here? What are the way that we do things around here? And are you prepared to play that game with me? And I think this is where sometimes we don’t go to the conscious with that, we don’t make it almost like a literal contract of, right, so this is what we’re both committing to, this is the roles that we both play in this. And therefore, when you have that conversation, well, we agreed this. Well, no, we didn’t. You thought you agreed with me. But I never committed to that. So you’ve got to have that conversation, first and foremost, up front, where that becomes part of it, whether it be from a business point of view in the recruitment process of, is this person the right fit? Do they have the same values that we’re looking for? Or are they just really good at what they do? And therefore we’ll let them get away with certain behaviours until such times is their performance doesn’t hit the measures that we’re looking for. And then we’ll call them on it and they go, well, you’ve let me get away with it for six months. Why do I need to change now?
Mark Bennett 19:48
Yeah, and there’s some key factors in there. And there’s three big ones that I found in business now and in sport are common trip ups, and I’ll use business as an example. We’ll have the manager that in their head, they’re really clear on the tasks, they know exactly their expectations, they know what would be acceptable, what would be unacceptable, what would be exceptional, all in their head. Beautiful. Then what can often happen is, they share that with the people that are going to go away and do it. So because they’ve shared it, they may share it again at the end of the meeting. So just confirm, we’ve all agreed this, this, this, and everyone else around the table is going, yes, boss, but they’ve never said it. So I use the principle of and I’ve got these little tag lines to help things along. So I use a principle of, player first player last. And we use that in business, in sport, in education. So if we put it in a sport context, the coach or the manager, when a player comes to them, we don’t first share our thoughts or our ideas or our evaluation, we go, okay, go, what have you got for me, the player then goes through the action review process and shares, bang, bang, bang, we’re now listening, because it’s a audited process, we can pick up only the processes, then we might ask any questions or seek clarity of the discussion, but at the end it’s player last. So the player last means whoever is going to go away and do it, they’re the person that says what they’re going to do, not us reminding them. So it would would be that player or that person in the business meeting, not the boss going, so we just agreed this and you go, okay, Sheila, just share with me what we’ve agreed to make sure I haven’t missed anything, then Sheila would say, right, boss, this is what I’m going to do. This would be unacceptable, I’m working towards this. And then they share what I call ‘what ifs’. So if this happens, I’m going to get back to you on this day, I’m waiting for this information, if this happens, that I’m going to do this and that the boss is just listening. And we go great, I agree. So now we know that person that’s going to do it knows and never articulate in their own words what they’re going to do, not us reminding them. And I think this is a common issue, particularly in business. We think, well, because we’ve covered it, I’ve said it, we think people are going to go and do it. The next stage is, if the environment is not right, they may still be nodding and telling us stuff, but it’s dreamworld, it’s not reality. So in that process, what we do is we give them what we call a cold call time, and we say okay, I love you saying that now, can you now confirm by text or if you’re in a support groups with WhatsApp, or Slack, whatever, or an email, whatever you’ve said is by 10 o’clock tomorrow, can you just confirm that you’re happy with that, or that will give you time to pick anything else up you’ve missed now. So what we’re doing is, we’re understanding that if we put this into an intervention with people just nodding at boss, they’re still going to nod at boss, so we’ve got to get them to understand, actually, I don’t want you to nod at me. Oh, you’re the specialist, you’re gonna do it, I want you to tell me what you can and can’t honestly, do. I want you to set your relative deadlines, or you know your timetable, if you can’t do it, you need to let me know. And it may be an example to say, boss, I’ve got 10 things to do now, if I do all of them, my quality lines going to drop, so which ones do you want me to drop? Because I know you don’t want to drop the quality line, which ones do you want me to prioritise? Now, if we can get someone saying that to their boss, we know where we’re making good progress now, as opposed to nodding the boss, now they have permission, I call these permissions, to actually push that back at boss. And it’s, I mean, there’s many things, that’s just a little example of shifting that relationship.
Al Fawcett 23:05
I love it, I love it. And again, what happens is when you have those quality conversations, rather than boss standing at the front of the room, and it’s his meeting, or her meeting, and they’re just cascading, this is what needs to be done. And you’ve got to do this by such and such, and I’m expecting this by Friday, or whatever it might be, you’ve got this engagement, where they’re sort of giving the overarching information, I have this belief that when you go to a meeting, you want to go with the attitude of what can I get from the meeting? And what can I give to the meeting? So what I want is, I want to understand boss, what are our current priorities and areas of focus are? So, you know, we have a roadmap for the next 12 months of success looking like x, y, z. But at the moment, our focus is improving this. As a result of that, I turn around and go, right, this is how I can help to achieve that. But in order for me to do that, like you just said, I’m gonna have to drop a couple of these things. Is that acceptable to you? And we can have an agreement. But what also happens is, there’s four or five other people in the room go, well, I can pick that up for you, I can help you with that, and we go, brilliant. Now all of a sudden, we’re becoming a team, rather than just a bunch of individuals with a whole load of tasks. But I’m going to ask you the question. So I love that bit at the beginning of, what have you got for me? Because it just a big starter for 10 question like that is great. When they’re coming back to you with information, what are you looking for? And what are you listening for? Because I think that a lot of people focus on, you know, I’m going to give you some feedback and that feedback is based on what I’ve observed, but they’re not always great at observing the right thing. So what do you think are the key things you’re looking for and listening for?
Mark Bennett 24:41
Well, first of all, we got to know, I call it the lighthouse or the success criteria, we’ve got to know what is it we’re having a conversation about. So if it’s the meeting, then there’s two things going to happen. But both of them are linked into what’s success for us? So even if they’re walking down the corridor and someone grabs them and go, oh, can I just chat to you? That little, okay, what’s success for this? Because we’re all in a rush, oh, I haven’t really thought about that. It’s just about, okay, how long do you need? Oh, just 10 seconds? Or it’s, oh, I need this, great. So what we’re doing then is we’re keeping people relevant to what success is by the end of it. So there’s two things that are going to happen. They’re even going to come in with new information to allow you as boss to make a decision, so that they’re capturing…they’re sharing data. Or you’ve already told them what success is, now you’re asking them, right now I’ve told you what success is, where are you going to fit within this? Or how is it going based on what we agreed? So it’s either new or ongoing? But again, my action review process, we go back to using that again, so it’s a common language is the same. So the basics of it is, if I share it with you, then you can go, okay, let’s break that down or it makes sense. This is what we want managers to do itself, any one of the stuff to do. I get athletes, teachers, pupils, doesn’t matter. They do it itself, but they use it as a pre decision making tool, and a post decision making action evaluation tool. It’s the same language and it goes like this: step one is, be aware and manage my state, how is my state? So if my state’s no good, my next step is scanning. So scanning is data finding. So whether that’s at a computer screen as an accountant or a basketball player on the court, what we’re doing is, I’m recognising there if my state’s unacceptable or I’m not present, my scanning will deteriorate, I won’t be present, I won’t be collating all the data. So my state’s first, then I collate data, scanning. Once I collate the data, I then look at all the possible options, not just the one I always go for, all the possible options, then I look for, what are the variables influences that will reduce those options? That may be a time thing, that may be a seasonal thing, it may be a qualitative thing, doesn’t matter. So the variables now get it down to one or two, then we decide, okay, based on this, I’m going for this choice, then you commit to the choice 100%. Next one is then, you do it. Next one is, did I commit 100%? Second one is okay, how was the choice? Then how was the execution? And that is the action review process. We used for post, pre and self.
Al Fawcett 27:10
Love that. Again, lots of questions in relation to that. So do you see that from two sides then? So the individual should be doing that themselves, but as a coach and an influencer, that’s what you’re looking for, their ability to do that? Have I spotted that they managed their state or am I going…so when you’re giving feedback, for example, that the feedback might be as simple as, using your language, your scanning went down to virtually nothing, because your state wasn’t allowing you to explore the data effectively. We don’t even have to move on to commitment and execution and all that sort of stuff yet, because we’ve nailed it at the first point, is that where we’re going?
Mark Bennett 27:47
Well, let’s do a yes or no on that one. Okay, so the yeses. We are scanning for the source, the source is the earliest one. So that starts from scanning. So the problem is a lot of us get so caught up in the outcome, we try to analyse the outcome. Well, we haven’t gone through the steps, where is the source of the issue? So we backtrack, so we backtrack and scanning is first. I always get coaches, I was using basketball, netball, rugby, soccer, they’re scanning first for the behaviours as a coach, so my state needs to be good for me to scan. So it still goes for the same. So yes, we’re looking at that. Now, here’s where it’s a no. I’ve now spotted that it’s a scanning issue. So I believe it’s scanning issue, but I’m not going to tell them that. I’m going to say, can you work through the action review process for me? So then I’ll go, okay, so and if they’re really flustered, I go, let me help remind you, so how is your state? And they’re going, ooh, well I had lot on. So would you say exceptional, acceptable or unacceptable? Unacceptable? Okay, so do we need to go on? They go, no. Okay, so what can we do better next time? Do we need some tools? And there’s a bunch of tools we can help them with. And also we’ve got the role of free account peers support each other. Now, if the state’s good, then we go, okay, great, so share with me the data. So with an athlete, I go, okay, what did you see in here, but if it’s an accountant, I go, okay, share with me your data or a salesman, and they will say, okay, this is what I was working with. Now I’m listening and now I’m going, ah, they’ve missed something, so then I can go okay, if I could raise your awareness to this also, and just..that’s it, and then they go, ah! And you can say, okay, now move through the process. So straightaway, now looking at the options, they go, uhhh? And already they may go, I got it, boss, I got it. It’s this. I thought, well, great, but still work through it. And they go, right, now I know that, that gives me a different option, I would have gone for that definitely and this would have been the difference. So I think my execution was great, mistake was really good, but actually, it was a data issue, I should have looked there. Now I know next time, I’m just going to look for that as well. And it’s such a great, great job. So it’s player first, player last.
Al Fawcett 29:53
Exactly and again, I can see how that sort of flows all the way through, so they’re owning it, they’ve made the decision. Again, lots of coaches, lots of managers, lots of leaders think that, well, I’m helping them because I’m going to point out where I saw what they did wrong, or they go into coach mode and they go, so where do you think you went wrong? And they go, I don’t know. But at least by working through the process, you can help them to identify it within themselves without actually saying, woah, stop, let’s go back to that one, because I think you missed something there…you know, and again, there are still elegant ways that you can do that without it being, no, no, no, you’ve moved on too far, because you’ve missed something at the start, and it’s actually that’s where your problem was. There’s this perception that coaching can be…it’s a long winded, I am a manager, I haven’t got time to do this, I just need to tell them, it’s just quicker and easier. But actually, over the long term, all that happens is they throw their hands up and go, don’t make this a guessing game boss, just tell me what I need to do. And then you’ve created a pattern of behaviour, that, it can never be my fault. It can never be anything to do with me, because I’m just doing what you tell me to do.
Mark Bennett 31:00
Yeah, and it’s understanding, there’s a transition of change that we need to take people through. So we need to be patient, we need to be relentless, but we need to understand, right I’ve baselined where that person is, and it can be different, it can be different elements. Normally, they’ll fit somewhere in the action review process. And that might be a knowledge or understanding or skill thing as well, which can fit into the execution part, the data finding, the understanding will be in the variable part. So it’s allowing you, you put your intervention in there, but you’re continually patient, but because you’re giving them a framework and said, okay, next time, every time, just go through this process. And you know, next time we come up really interested in your review of how you’re doing so then what we do is this, this is another element that is massive, we’re now scanning for any positive shifts in that person’s behaviour, any component, then we make sure, not just generalise, ‘I think you’re doing so much better’ waffle, like the old series back in the 70s, you’re doing very well in the shop, I don’t know if remember, it was years ago, British sitcom, the old guy comes out, the boss, ‘you’re doing very well’ and then wanders off again. Thanks. It’s different than that. What we’re saying is now says, right, Billy, can I just have a catch up with you and says, can you just review how you’re doing, and we just get them to go through that. And a lot of people, they don’t like bigging themselves up, so they might go, oh yeah, I think I’m doing okay, I still need to improve. You’ll say well, now, this is where the light and shade you spoke about with coaching. It’s not just about asking questions, it’s knowing where to sit in. So this would be an example of going, I just want to share with you, this is what I’ve noticed, your ability to be aware and manage your state is 10 times better than it was two weeks ago, that’s you showing a commitment to change, I’m seeing a massive improvement on that. So keep going. It’s awesome. Now that type is specific, it’s putting a name on it, it’s recognising that the return on their investment, and the return on their effort. And that is where the buzz comes from for that person, the outcome may still be the same. But you know where they need to get to and you know they’ve just improved the facilitator, which will get them there, and you’re making sure they know you’ve recognised it.
Al Fawcett 32:57
My immediate response to that is, and that helps that sustaining that change, because you’re putting a spotlight on something, so there’s that age old a one minute manager principle of, catch them doing something right. But that’s not just, as you said, a glib sort of, oh, well done. What you did there was, you created an environment where I now feel good about myself about something and I have a desire to stick at it. Because again, I think that there’s…it’s very easy to do these quick interventions and tell somebody they’re doing well or whatever, or point out what they need to work on. And we get a spike in performance, and then it just drifts back down to where it was before, back to that baseline of acceptability, because the spotlights not on it. Am I actually making a difference? They’re actually improving, but they don’t see it in themselves. So sometimes it’s easy to just give up on it, I suppose.
Mark Bennett 33:49
Yeah. And it’s also understanding that they may not yet be of the measure accurately. So they still may be measuring their success based on outcome. And they’re not yet understanding, actually, before you get a transition of outcome. Actually, there might be a lot of little changes in your behaviour, before you see the consistent shift in outcome. So me as I’m managing it, and a coach, needs to be mindful of that. And they, if they’re not mindful of it, I need to raise their awareness to it. But I’m still using player first, player last, I’m still specific, you know, how you think you’re doing? So I’m always…because I want to get to a point where they can accurately self evaluate themselves, and give themselves a pat on the back and understand where they’re unacceptable and change it live without the need for someone else. But going back to what you just said there is, I think, and this is it, just in my experience, I could be totally wrong, I just could have been unlucky, but in…when I’ve worked in schools when I’ve worked in colleges, universities, in sport from grassroots through to Olympic level, International pro sports and in business, the challenge is is most external consultants and trainers don’t use effective adherence processes. And the problem is, they’ll evaluate their delivery based on an inval, not an exval. So what I mean by that is, someone will come in and consultant, very motivational, say all the great things, put slides on, share strategies, and everyone will walk out the room buzzing and going, can you just fill out this questionnaire and go, 10 out of 10, most life transformational thing I’ve ever heard, unbelievable. And then within three weeks time, they’re doing exactly what they did before, no change in behaviour, no sustainable embedded change. So my interventions are all six months long, at least. So I work with a corporate company, I establish their baseline, I win their hearts and minds. And then there’s this journey. So I’m doing one now in particular, and obviously because of the present global climate, I can’t meet most of them, so we have zooms every single week, and I’ve got them in the different groups, but they’re all over the world, it’s a global company. And I share, win the hearts and minds, we’re using teams, they’ve got their support groups, they’ve got buddy systems of three, they use the action review process, they share what their focus is for the week, they share hot/cold reviews on how little experiences are in the teams. Each week they review first, they all come on to the zoom, different groups up to 10. Okay, each person goes first, they share, right, this was my week, this is what I said I was gonna do, this is what I know, this is what I struggle with, this is what I need help on. But because we’ve got the teams and the groups of the three buddies, actually they’re helping each other be successful, even before the zooms and we keep building, building, building, new information, embed it right, we’re ready the next step, and we’re ready for the blips, we’re ready for the regressions, we’re ready for the people to go, I’m too busy, I haven’t put myself in the teams. I haven’t committed to the things I’ve said, that’s fine. But we speak about that, we don’t get wound up. That’s my job as an external to support the change. Let’s speak about that. What prevented you from being successful? What interventions and strategies can we put in place to help you be successful next time? How can we all help? We set it up, okay, we’re ready when we’re ready, guys, we won’t cover anything new today. Let’s deal with this. We’ve got each other and we keep moving. And they’ll realise then, oh my god, this is transformational. This isn’t a chat. This is about really embedding change. And within three, four months, you’re seeing the language, the state, the way they communicate, the clarity of meetings start to become more and more natural. But me as an external, I’m always looking for two things. I’m ready for the regressions. And I’m okay with it, because we’re humans, but I’m not taking responsibility from them. And I’m always aiming to make myself redundant. So how can I build the mentors within. I call them ninjas. And I do ninja mastery, the mentors inside that may not be hierarchal that are great influences, how can they take this on, so when I leave, there’s still some accountability and support within the buddies group, they’re still living it. So that’s when you realise, if we really want change, we’re humans. It takes time, it takes us time with real fundamental support and people. And we have to recognise, I think it’s showing up even more now with the issue within the world, we need to recognise, we can’t just focus on performance, we need to focus on wellness and people because wellness and people drive performance.
Al Fawcett 37:56
Yeah, there’s a simple principle here of, understand the need behind the behaviour. So you know, people will act out in certain ways. And as a result of that, we can either sort of look at the behaviour and go, well, that’s unacceptable. But actually sometimes it’s just trying to understand, so what’s driven that? What’s going on in their world? And again, sometimes, you know, when we’re having these conversations, this all sounds all lovely, and theoretical, and whatever. But it’s the practical application of it. It’s about really, genuinely applying principles that help people to make this transformation and stick with it. And the thing you said about time, which is fascinating, is you often talk about the change curve, and you understand that people will go through this cycle of change. And some people can move through it faster than others, because their situation, their circumstances, whatever, they might be just ready for it. But the bit that’s really fascinating to me is when you see a manager or a leader who, a change is, let’s say, enforced upon them, something is changing, and they have to learn to deal with it. And they get emotional and off, they go on this sort of rant and take some time to deal with it, whether it’s minutes, days, hours, weeks, and then it comes to the time where they have to roll that out to everybody else. And they roll it out to their team. And they share this change. And a number of things can happen in this situation. Everybody in the team starts to throw their toys out of the pram and go through this emotional upheaval. And the manager forgets that they’ve just spent the last two weeks not being able to adjust to that and goes, come on guys, we just need to suck it up and get on with it and, and whatever and doesn’t allow them that same experience. Is that going back to your process again of managing state, understanding the data and using that principle to not just do it for yourself, but then allowing others to go through that as well.
Mark Bennett 39:40
Yeah, there’s a huge elements to that. So, you might need to remind me because there’s so many but I’ll cover the one that’s on the top of my head now. There’s a level of layering and what I mean by layering is that anyone starting new and, irrelevant of who they are, it’s the same. So it’s a bit like if you were to go on stage and you’re on Broadway and it’s the 1,000th time you’ve done that stage delivery, for that person in the audience it’s their first time. So it’s a mindset of understanding that, but also understanding, anyone that comes in, they need to see the value of why we’re doing it before we start upskilling any knowledge or skills, and the value isn’t something we tell them, a value is something they’ve got to tell us. So they don’t need to like it, they just need to see the value in it. So if I’m going to use an example of football, for example, soccer, now if I’m a coach, I’ve now recognised that we need to change the way we’re doing transition defence for an example. Now I could go, right okay, guys, I’ve noticed these on a video, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a different transition defence, and I believe this will help prevent us conceding goals. And then off we go. And everyone’s nodding. Any questions? No. And off we go. Now we might have 50% of them going, yeah, great, I love coach, coach knows, and we got the other 50% thinking, why the hell are we doing this? We don’t need to do this. So if we now shift that and the coach says, right, okay, let’s just I want you guys to review our transition defence. And when we get to a better level, we don’t even say transition defence, just review that match for us. Pick up the trends, what we do consistently well. What we do every time, sometimes and never, and exceptional, unacceptable and acceptable. And then they will pick up through transition, we would say to the ones, I want to review our transition defence, and pick up what you see every time, sometimes, never. And now they share with us and go well, actually with these type teams were every time, with these type teams, the pressure is high. Highest skill, accurate long kicks, were never, they always get through us in the game, we concede at least one. So you can say, okay, so what if I could come up and we could share a way where we can improve that? What impact would that have on us within games, particularly with the teams you’ve highlighted, and they go, oh, it would make a huge difference to us. Okay, so let me share with you now, this is going to be challenging, because we’re gonna have to start doing things we haven’t done before. But do we all see the value of why we’re going to do it? Yes, coach. Okay, let’s go. Now that interaction, now it won’t solve everything, we’re still going to have conflict, etc., and it’s not gonna be there every time, but what we’re saying to everybody is, I need you to let me know why we’re doing this. Not me let you know. And that’s part of coaching craft, right? So going back to the second point – that was only one point, by the way – is then, that is a skill in itself. So I can do that, because I’ve spent 30 years fine tuning my craft with many different organisations. But asking a manager that spent a week or a day or a two week course to then do that with other people is an unfair ask, because it’s a skill. So what I always do is, I develop the people of influence. And I do that, then once we get it moving, and they become more skilled and embedded in it, then we link up what I call the rule of three, where people help others be the best they can be. And then all I do is I step in, and sometimes they go, Mark, we’ve got a fresh bunch of people, I just do the initial bit, the win the hearts and minds, and then everyone else takes over. So it’s a way of understanding, is we could say, so yes, I want to make your redundant, but I also understand, unless you’re doing this every single day, unless a manager does this every single day, he will get skilled fade, she will get skill fade. And actually, she or he won’t be skillful straightaway, so why not set yourself up for success. So you’ll be effective at bringing it alive and keeping it alive but the things that take a bit more skill, just bring the external to do and and go, right, let’s set them up for you better, and then you move it. And if you think about education, you think about business, you think about, you know, sport, there’s some times when we go, I’m not skilled enough because I don’t do it often enough for me to do the best job. So I’ll just get someone else in to do that. Thank you, then I’ll take over. And it’s understanding what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, the amount of time you need to invest to become good at it, and then say to yourself, do I have that time? No. Okay, what’s the best solution for that? So we’re then back to using the action review process in a way to validate your decision making for the choices you’re going to make, even on interventions. So we’re back to common language again.
Al Fawcett 44:00
Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. And again, the reason I think is fantastic is because I’ve seen far too often when you’re chatting away to somebody in a business and they go, I’m really into personal development, me, I’m keen to get better, and all the rest of you go, great, so let’s set up a personal development programme for you. And they go, oh, I haven’t got time for that. So that’s quite interesting. But then the next thing they do is they turn up on a one day or a two day course, and they’re given all this information, they take it on board, they do exactly what you just said, this is brilliant, I’ve got pages and pages of notes here. And then they get back to their day job and they go, I’ll get round to that, when I’ve got time. Because at the moment, I’ve just got a firefight all this stuff. And the other bit is that they don’t want to try it until they’re in the perfect scenario. So all of a sudden, they never find that perfect scenario, and it’s gone. Or you get the other extreme where they come back and the first thing they do is try all of these techniques on everybody they meet and they turn around and say, you’ve been on a course, haven’t you? It’s alright, we’ll give it a couple of days, we’ll knock it out of here. And it becomes that thing. I made the reference to culture earlier, if you want to change culture, it’s got to become an embedded way of behaviours. Rather than it just being a, we’re an innovative culture, or we’re entertaining culture, or we’re an engaging culture. Well, no, the culture is what we see and feel and experience all the way through. So there’s lots of fantastic stuff there. And I love that principle of once again, applying that let’s get the individuals around it to own it, and drive it. And if it’s not something they can own, at this point in time, find somebody who can, whether it’s a nominated person within the business who has that skill set and will enhance that, and part of their role ongoing, rather than it being every manager needs this in their toolbox, even though they never use it. So how do you create an environment where…you’ll often find that, as we said that there’s a bunch of individuals and we deal with the individual, but they are part of a team. And there’s a difference between being part of a team that’s actually working together based on different skill sets, different knowledge, different competencies, different confidences and different things, and that still being a high performing team. We often hear about team building, and I get called many times on, hey, could you come and do some team building sessions? And it’s that thing of like, well, let me just define what you mean by that. Do you want team building, team bonding or a jolly? But how do you create this scenario, where, for example, your buddy system with three people, is that creating an environment where there’s a trust and a safety of, I can provide you with feedback, or I can help you to observe in yourself, even though I might not have that skill set myself, I’m in a position, for one of a better phrase, to call you out on it.
Mark Bennett 46:48
There’s a timing element to it. My goal, which has been my toughest journey over the decades is to get this simple. Provide simple tools, so people can understand it, they know what it looks like, they can bring it alive. So the buddy system won’t work straight away, you’ve got to know when to put it in. So I really have to manage that through the teams myself, or I mean, all the groups and the zoom catch ups or face to face when we’re allowed to do that. So we started simple, the simple thing is, establish your own baseline. So let’s look at that in a corporate sector, the corporate sector would be if I’m running a meeting, we record the meeting. So they literally…and your whole aim for you is to, I do what I call hot and cold reviews. So we’re recording the meeting that can be a zoom recording or it could be just a sound if it’s you know, in those meetings, and before you’ve stopped record, even if everyone’s left, you then do a hot review and the hot review is, self. How are you? How was your state? How was your listening? How are you interacting? Did you achieve the success you said it was beginning? Just that. And then the second question is, how are others? And you just verbalise that straightaway. So you’re in the heat of the moment, it’s emotional, then you do what I call a cold review. So you’ll listen back then to the recording, and you’ll keep focused on you yourself, how you interacted, etc, same principles. And then looking at that, then you do exactly the same again, you record now your cold review. After listening to myself, I was 100% accurate on this. I wasn’t on this. I wasn’t on this. I wasn’t on this. So now what we’re doing is we’re getting people to be more self aware of what they think they’re doing and what they are. So my first stage of interventions, that’s early stage, I share with them the hot and cold review, how to do it, we agree how often we’re going to do it. So initially, I go, just do one a week, and we share it in teams. So we just share and I ask people and, some are already scared of this initially, just like on teams or Slack or WhatsApp, whichever organisation working with, just press record, and talk it, don’t type it. Now there’s a few things with that. If you’re talking it, you don’t have to second guess your typing, and you get the emotions with it. So really good for the hot and cold reviews. And we share that in the teams then the next week, we just review that. And if they haven’t done it, guess what? We don’t move on. We go, okay, so what’s prevented you? Remind me of the value to this, why are we doing this? Okay, so what can you set up success next week? It may be then that I have to use me and go, okay, so let’s…what we do is we then fine tune it. So we’ve given them an opening. There’s judgement, this is all judgement by the way. We’ve given them an opening and they decide when to do it. People havem someone hasn’t. Okay, now I tighten up. So I tighten up maybe, okay, great, so I know you wanted to so what prevented you? Mark, I just forgot about it. Okay, so how can we come up with a strategy this week to be successful? And it may be that I make suggestions if they can’t get it, or others make suggestions, but it’s so…the common one is, oh, so let’s get it in the timetable. Lets target a meeting, put it in your phone, little alarm. Off we go. And then to help you, do you want me to send you a little text an hour before just to remind you? Because we’re all setting ourselves up for success here. And then, okay, so how long before you’re going to drop that into teams? I’m going to do that by Tuesday at five, Mark. What if you don’t do it by five? What do you want me to do? They tell me. So now they’re giving me permission to hold them accountable. I’m not telling them. So that’s just one example of how we work through the interventions. Then we move to the next step. And there’s like layers we go through. And it may…generally, it takes two months before we go into the buddies, but by doing the hot/cold reviews and then we get people to give feedback, so everyone’s got a thumb up when someone’s done it or give a positive feedback, any observations in teams, so we’re now getting them to interact. Then we drop them into the teams of three and the team of three, initially, we say, two things here, when someone shares their actions for the week, which we’ll do every week, after I’ve done the zoom, you just highlight your team of three, screenshot it, and your aim is to help them be successful that week. So what would that look like to you? The second one is, you have one, and it could be 20 minutes, but you have one formal get together, whether that’s zoom if someone’s in a different country, or face to face, and you just discuss wellness, the three of you just meet and you just share wellness, share about you as a person, the challenges you’ve got, and just do that. And what you’ll find is that it generally takes three to four meets of that wellness meet, I call that wellness buddies, before they start opening up, and all of a sudden, now it becomes enrichment. Then what we do after four or five weeks, we switch the buddies, so they have different people, and you’ll find in the business I’m working with now is people have been working at that organisation for 10 years, and they’re six months into this intervention now and the say, Mark, there’s people I thought I knew for 10 years, I now know them, our quality of rapport, how we communicate is so much better. People are walking past offices now and just checking in, scanning behaviour. They’re looking a bit down, how are you doing Sheila? And then we’ve got other tools we use, the rule of three, the three A’s etc., to help the acceptance. So there’s a layering system, the aim is to keep it simple. And my judgement is, they’re ready when they’re ready. So once we move it, we move it, we move it, and if they’re not ready, we deal with ‘why not’, we deal with the barriers and we move on again. And that’s the process, so it is the craft, the light and shade of coaching, not just go, this week, we’re going to do this, this week, we’re going to do this, this week, we’re going to do this.
Al Fawcett 51:55
I think that’s brilliant. Because again, I see it so often that situation of, okay, so have you done what you said you’re gonna do? No. Okay, right. Well, we’re gonna have to move on, because we’ve got a lot to cover today. But can you make sure you’ve done it next week? You know, I’ve seen people write action plans and development plans with people. And when I sit down and say, can I have a look at the quality of it? One, some of the language and the quality of the actions and the approach to it is interesting. But also what I often see is the milestone dates have just been crossed out and changed to well, another month. So why are the dates changed? Oh, he didn’t get it done in time. So I just extended it for another month. Okay, but why did he not get it done? There’s no analysis of it. It’s just, we’ll just keep moving the milestone. So I think there’s some some really fantastic stuff in there. And that creating that environment where their aim is to help the others to be successful. And thereby, one, they’re getting to other people doing the same for them. But they’re doing it themselves as well, they got to do that self awareness, self analysis piece, and am I in the right state to do this? You know, have I put myself in the right state to help somebody else? Am I open to the feedback that I’m getting? Why did I respond in that certain way? I think there’s so much that can get unpicked with this. But I also like that fact that your interventions are all about going in, working with an organisation to actually create that adherence and that sustainable change, as opposed to just being, as I mentioned earlier, that management intervention where you get an endorphin spike and a focused performance improvement, that then drops back to the previous baseline again. I think that’s really key. It’s really fascinating, because some of what you’re saying there is very aligned to my narrative consultancy approach, we’re very similar where the recorded approach of, right we do it in the moment, but let’s review some of the elements of that afterwards. I think that’s really fascinating. Okay, so the final question, I suppose, is that one of the things that you’ve seemed to have talked about all the way through is the fact that you do this self analysis piece and self awareness piece, and you’ve progressed over time, and some of it is has come through trial and error and failure, and you sort of said, the light and shade elements, but it’d be very easy to think, well, I’ve got this process now, I know that it works, so I’ve cracked it and sort of sit back and just let that go. So what do you do to continue to focus on your own personal performance development?
Mark Bennett 54:15
Well I use the system, is the simple answer. I use the action review process. You know, I’ve got a recognition that the world is changing. And we’ve got a great example of that recently, you know, everything’s moved to the internet now. The world is changing, humans are changing and how they’re dealing with the world, a lot of it negative, some of it positive, but we’re still human beings, we still, you know, have self image, self esteem. We still know that if our wellness is poor, it influences us. So you know, I’ve been through dark times myself with my own depression, etc., over the years. And I think one of the things we got to recognise is when we’re looking at someone, don’t look at their present behaviour, and think that’s them. Their present behaviour is influenced by their interpretation of the past and interpretation of the situation. And maybe they haven’t been given the tools to help them be a different person or a better person than themselves. So I still know there’s stuff that I can learn. I still know that with the world changing, I’ve got to continue to challenge my stuff to know, okay, what can I do to make that easier? And I’m picking up best practice all over the place, I’ll do a different intervention, there’ll be something and I’ll go, oh, l’ll just suddenly adjust that. I record all my deliveries and I watch my own deliveries back to review, what did I nail there? What can I do differently? The slides will always adjust. So if I stopped doing that, one, I’d be bored. And secondly, I wouldn’t be living my own principles. And if you speak to anyone that knows me, that the one thing they’ll say is, I live by the principles I share. And I think that’s so important for anybody.
Al Fawcett 55:43
Fantastic. Listen, Mark, all that’s left for me to say is, thank you ever so much for today, I’ve taken a myriad of notes here. There’s certain things that I’m definitely going to be applying. And once again, all that’s left for me to say is, thank you very much for your time.
Mark Bennett 55:55
Oh, it was a pleasure, I hope someone’s picked something up that would stimulate more research into awareness of things, how we can get better, but it’s always recognising what you’re already doing well, and how you can repeat that, which is a key thing sometimes.
Al Fawcett 56:08
So once again, a very big thank you to Mark for sharing his story and his approach to maximising performance potential. I really enjoyed that conversation and I took a lot from it. Things like the importance of self awareness, managing your state, and ensuring you’re in an effective state for the specific requirement and intervention. And then clarification of what is acceptable, unacceptable and exceptional. And the ownership and responsibility of this, using the player first, player last approach. But this isn’t about what I took from it, it’s about what you got from it. I’d love to know what you think and what you tried and applied from these conversations, you can reach out to me on the various social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, via the website, infinitepie.co.uk. You can even email me using ipt@infinitepie.co.uk. If you want to know more about Mark and his performance development system, you can check out his website, pdscoaching.com and find him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I’ll put all the links in the show notes so you can reach out and let him know what you think or any questions that you have. And of course, you can tell him what you thought of this conversation. Okay, so as always, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to listen to these conversations. It really means a lot to me, and I hope it’s helping you to. So have a great one. Now go and do stuff that matters.