In 2010 Pull A Personal Best

What works in one area of life quite often can be repeated to good effect in another.

I like sport, in particular swimming, biking and running. I throw them all together and compete in Triathlons. As part of my first Tri in 2008, I bought ‘Triathlons for Beginners’. I studied the advice given regarding equipment, Training, race day and all the bits in between.

I travelled through the various stages of learning from being blissfully ignorant to shock. The amount of work required to get myself ready for the main day was more than I had thought. I began to realise that if I wanted to really do my best I needed to have a plan. I needed to understand what exactly I wanted to achieve. Did I want to smash records or just complete the race?

In business do we want to just complete the race or break records?

To answer this question you need to research the market. Gain a clear understanding of what your ‘Sport’ involves.

You need to understand what you hope to achieve from everything you do and how that helps you achieve the end goal you have set. When looking to compete in a sport it is a massive advantage to have thought through in detail what this will involve. If I am going to compete in a Sprint Distance Triathlon I need to consider:

The devil is in the detail. In a Tri you win or lose a race in the ‘transitions’.

People who look at the detail, plan and then practice these stages, cut valuable seconds, sometimes minutes off their time. This is the difference between winning and coming second or third.

I set about planning my training programme so I am not only in the peak of fitness on the day of the race. But I have the skills to complete each stage too. This meant matching my training to the stages of the race. Ok, so how is this relevant to business? In business know your ‘game’. Knowing what skills are involved and where your organisation needs these skills is ‘talent management’. Asking yourself what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it by is setting a ‘mission’. Asking yourself what ‘WE’ need to do to achieve each of these goals is setting your ‘objectives’.

Plan, plan, plan. Do, do, do. Review, review, review your stats until you achieve each of your objectives. This will drive you to achieve your mission!

During training I review my achievements after each session. Did I run as far as I needed to? Did I swim for as long as I needed to? If not, why not? If I did, I record what helped me to achieve the objective. Then I know what to repeat for next time. If not why not? I might not have eaten the right foods that day so I did not have the energy. I review my diet and eat better foods. I might not have slept well. I make sure I get enough sleep in the months that I am training up for a race.

For me, the most exhilarating thing about sport is when on the day I perform and ‘pull a personal best’ out of the bag. This is when all my hard work comes to fruition. I know that when my muscles are screaming and my lungs are burning it is all worth it because I have achieved something I have never achieved before.

I have worked with businesses that constantly ‘Pull a personal best’ and that recognise and reward these achievements. It means more. It means the team has worked together, it means plans, efforts and achievements are much greater!

See you on the track!

QED Consulting and I wish you the best of luck in the race for 2010!