More than support, you may also need active help. Decide which people with what skills you will need, engage their help, and give them the leadership that will get the best from them. This will be our agenda for Chapter 5.
Power Switch: Leadership
Chapter 6: Conduct: Get the Best From Yourself
The ways that you think and act will determine how effective you are in your choices, your productivity and in the way people regard you. This is all about your conduct.
Power Switch: Conduct
Chapter 7: Perception: Be Prepared for the Unexpected
Shift happens: are you able to anticipate it by reading people, seeing around corners and spotting risks? This is a matter of your perception.
Power Switch: Perception
Chapter 8: Resilience: Handle the Unexpected
Whether you spotted it or not, when shift happens, how will you respond to events? If you can keep going in the face of adversity, dealing with the challenges you encounter and keeping a feeling of calm and control, that's resilience.
Power Switch: Resilience
Chapter 9: Growth: Know When and Where to Stop
Of course, you need to know when to stop, but you must also know where to stop, so that your Powerhouse performance is a springboard for your next compelling cause. This demands the ability to grow with each experience.
Power Switch: Growth
In the final chapter, I will show you how to extend your Powerhouse capabilities to help the whole of your organization to become a Powerhouse Organization.
Chapter 10: Culture: Create a Powerhouse Organization
Can you take what you have learned and start to transform the whole organization around you? Wouldn't that be great? If you want to apply the Powerhouse principles strategically, to create a true Powerhouse culture, Chapter 10 will give you the places to start.
Organizational Power Switch: Culture
Each switch represents a capability that you can increase with learning and practice. As you turn all of the switches up to maximum, you will become a Powerhouse.
Ten switch console
Becoming a Powerhouse requires a combination of mental attitude and a practical approach that balances different perspectives, focuses ruthlessly, yet remains adaptable in the face of changing circumstances. This requires a combination of efficiency, rigour and a survival edge. This is worthwhile, but not easy. Two things will help:
1. doing the right thing for you, and
2. being fit for Powerhouse performance.
1. Doing the Right Thing for You
Being a Powerhouse will come to you far more easily when you enjoy what you are doing, and are doing something you are good at. You choose the work that brings you joy, and the key lies at the intersection of:
• The things you love to do.
• The things you are good at.
• The things you like best about work.
Ten switch consoleThe key to the work that brings you joy
One of the main reasons we fail to achieve what we set out to do is not being clear enough about exactly what the outcome will look like if we do the right things. Always start by asking yourself: ‘what will success look like?’ So your first step is to define what you want to achieve with clarity and precision, defining success and being clear what it is for.
• What is most important about your job?
• Who does your work serve?
• What is your job really about?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What is your answer to ‘why'?
2. Get Fit for Powerhouse Performance
Fitter, healthier people perform better. Don't think that you can swallow this book whole and get instant results. You need to invest time, energy and perseverance. You also need to be fit for a Powerhouse lifestyle, investing in good rest, regular exercise and excellent nutrition.
Powerhouse performance rests on willpower. Modern research shows that this requires energy and as we go through the day willpower depletes, just as the batteries in your phone deplete. So to avoid your brain becoming mushy and your physical strength draining away, it is essential to make re-charging your energy levels a critical activity.
Good Rest
It is not just enough to go home at the end of the day. Make rest and relaxation a priority. Allow time for socializing, for laughing, for relaxing and, vitally, for sleep. Many people with a Powerhouse mind-set will find it hard to switch off at the end of the day. So take your sleep seriously: not by worrying about it, but by setting up the conditions for good sleep. Gradually wind down towards the end of your waking day, dim the lights, engage in more relaxing activities and refrain from stimulant drugs like caffeine (which makes sleeping more difficult) and alcohol (which may make you sleepy, but disrupts your sleep). Have your bed in a cool room with fresh air and, if necessary, write down anything that is on your mind before turning out the light.
Regular Exercise
A regular, moderate exercise regime will increase your resilience and give you a greater capacity for physical and mental effort. You may feel it will take up time in your day, but the amount of effective and productive time it will give you back makes short bouts of exercise an excellent investment. It is no coincidence that most of businesses' most successful and most effective people make time for half an hour of exercise during each working day.
Excellent Nutrition
A rushed meal of junk food at your desk is the cliché of modern office life. On the other hand, I hope I have already made the case for fresh air, exercise and a break – possibly some socializing. If you are going to work effectively and exercise too, your body will need good fuel to power it. Choose your food wisely and have things like nuts and fruit as your regular snacks.
Powerhouse is a freestanding book with everything you need to become … a Powerhouse. But if you want a few extras, like templates for some of the tools, and maybe a few videos with key ideas, then take a look at the Powerhouse website, at www.beapowerhouse.co.uk.
Chapter 1
Self-Control
Choose to Do the Right Things
The problem is busyness without doing the business; of getting to the end of the day having done lots and achieved nothing. It's easy to do and often happens when you become seduced by easy, absorbing, but unimportant tasks. To become a Powerhouse, you must refine your clarity of purpose to focus your energy on what matters. This means choosing the right things to do and having the self-control to set other things aside.
When I was a student, we would often drive into the Devon countryside, looking for a pub to spend a pleasant afternoon in. It was on one of the very last of these outings, shortly before my friends and I were due to graduate and start our working lives, that we took a turn between two high hedges and found ourselves on an un-made road – little more than a farm track. As we drove along it, the surface got worse, and then we saw a hand-painted sign, doubtless put up by a local farmer. The sign read:‘Choose your rut carefully – you're going to be in it for a long time.’
Focused