BELT Up!
Belt up is an old but recognisable term that means different things to different people.
Working with senior leaders in an increasingly complex marketplace dominated by modern terminologies such as digitalisation and other meaningful management tools has, I believe from my research, the opportunity of detuning performance.
Let me explain a little further.
Performance in modern management terms is a mixture of belief, experience and expectation, combined with leadership and the team effect – in other words, BELT.
The concept behind the BELT process is worthy of some analysis, as it may be the very thing that reduces individual and team performance based on the following:
B = Belief:
It is true to say that whatever we believe in, we are right.
In other words, belief becomes our platform/feeling for performance. My question is, if our belief is the foundation for performance, can we only achieve in line with our belief systems?
Looking back to Roger Bannister's 4-minute mile, he challenged this paradigm, allowing others to believe that they, too, could achieve similarly.
Does this mean that a 3-minute mile, although unachieved at present, is impossible, and what would happen if we could alter the belief system artificially to believe that the impossible was possible?
Doing this requires input from management and the introduction of new psychological tools, thereby changing the belief system to match expectations.
This can only be achieved if expectation and experience are used as a new operational base rather than a ceiling.
E = Experience and Expectation:
We place a considerable amount of kudos on recruiting experienced managers and leaders.
I wonder if this experience, over a good number of years, associated with a belief system, creates its limiting paradigms. Having experience was thought to be of paramount importance.
Maybe the future, unlike sports organisations, may very well consist of managers as two separate entities.
Namely, one is responsible for technical support and application and the other is focused on attitudes, beliefs and mindset and is not limited in any way by their previous experiences.
L = Leadership:
Leaders need to be able to 'get out of their own way'.
They need to re-think, re-learn, and re-inspire their teams individually and collectively, think outside the box, and be curious and hungry for new psychological tools to maximise performance in this ever-changing world.
It is no longer good enough for leadership models to be recycled.
Often well out of date and supported through experience. Neither should leaders hide behind a multitude of training, development, and digitalisation to the detriment of their teams.
A new leadership model is dawning based upon the most up-to-date psychological development tools. However, this requires openness, honesty and a genuine wish to do things differently and in partnership with their team members.
Thinking the same, leading the same, and ultimately believing the same means the change process becomes amazingly stiff and stilted with the 'not invented here' mantra supported by previous experience.
T = Team:
Based on the above, and obviously, I am right (as it's part of my belief system), is that teams deserve better.
Teams deserve the expectation of new, interesting, and psychologically adept interventions and not the same recycled, overtrained, over-controlling methodologies which support the lowest common denominator.
So, it's time to BELT UP!
Expect more. Who knows, you and they might even believe it will lead to impossible/possible and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Good expectations.