The last week has been educational in a number of ways. I have just been helping my son who is about to commence a selection course in order to become an officer in the British Army. He has been practising a number of skills that he will require to master if he is to pass each stage of the selection process.
I have been discussing many leadership problems with him and working through the type of exercises he will have to deal with. He has been exemplary in giving straightforward and simple answers that would work and provide clarity for his team. The old adage of keeping things simple is very apt. It has also been refreshing in looking at psychometric problems, analytical planning exercises, and looking at interview technique. I tried one of the problems and had to refresh myself on the correct strategies to cut through the information and get to the crux of the problem.
Selection of the correct individual and team is still one of the most important parts of any organisations functions. If you do not start with the correct person/people you will always perform at a less than optimal level. The selection process should not be designed to find someone who is perfect or has all the correct skills at this moment in time but should certainly find someone who has the correct attitude and base level skills. Their development thereafter is the most important element.
I have recently been asked to give a presentation on what makes an expert: I am still thinking about this but a few of my thoughts are as follows: Becoming an expert
- Practice, practice, practice
- What kind of practice is needed?
- Development of perceptual skills
- Development of motor skills
- Familiarity with problems in a domain
- Diagnosing problems
- Fixing problems
- Some problems only arise in rare cases, so expertise – may take a while to develop – Learning what you do and do not know
- Expertise: 10 years to develop (Gardner).
These are just a few points I have been considering but to be an expert in a domain is one thing, how do you take the confidence you have as an expert in one field to another? Adaptability/Flexible/freedom of thought/strong views weakly held. If you are going to be an expert in only one field you can find yourself in a precarious position when all of a sudden you are out of date in your thinking or your technical skills are not up to standard or your tactical application of the skill is not as good as it once was. Nature is very unfair to those that do not evolve their thinking/attitude/skill levels. If according to the theory that the average number of jobs a young person will do by the age of 38 will be 14. It pays to have transferable skills
The skills my son has currently been learning are wide ranging and cover the following skills sets: physical mastery, numerical awareness, spatial awareness, interpersonal and Intrapersonal skills. With these skills in place you find that a person is able to master key life skills and become an expert in many different fields of activity.
My world this past two weeks has bounced between setting up an operations room in the Middle East to working alongside Olympic coaches, Cricket coaches, footballers and a number of executives. I am very fortunate to not only help some of these people uncover their talent but to be able to use their energy, passion and expertise to understand what elite performance is. I should on occasion pay them back some of their fee as I learn so much from them.
My fitness training has been going very well of late. I have been using a heart rate monitor to ensure I maintain a certain standard and it does not lie, I know what I have done each day/week/month. I am also looking forward to the boxing match in the summer which I have signed up to.
I have also just found out that my son has passed the first phase of his selection process so I am very proud of him. He won the assault course test in a very fast time. I was reminded by my daughter that he should win this as I practicedall of them in that ty pe of event from the age of 2. Well it just goes to show that practice does give you an edge.
I was also reminded the other day that four fundamental areas for success are always going to be your ability to visualise what you want, how you are going to achieve it, do you have positive self talk, what are your goals, how do you relax and keep centred? These four elements are the root elements for all mental toughness programmes. The programme I am currently working on looks at each of these issues, I will give an update on my thoughts once I have concluded them. I am looking forward to the next couple of days. I am delivering a workshop on elite performance as well as having the opportunity to listen to a number of other workshops. I will keep you updated on what occurs in these workshops over the next couple of days.
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