COACHING FOR IMPROVED WORK PERFORMANCE
A person's physical work performance can be enormously enhanced or diminished by his physical, mental and emotional state
Most of us work in a team of individuals who have varying degrees of competence and commitment. While it is always uplifting to work with teammates who are both competent and committed, it can be a real drag when some team members under-perform.
When you boost an individual's capacity and capability, the team's work performance inevitably improves.You often hear people say : A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If so, It makes perfect sense for companies to help all the links in the chain to upgrade their , performance capacity — thus boosting individual and team performance, morale and ability.
And to do this, companies must realise that work performance and productivity are closely tied to each individual's physical energy, emotional engagement and mental clarity. On the issue of physical energy, many of the solutions are obvious. For example, a recharging nap during office hours can do wonders for an employee's flagging energy. But few organisations would adopt such a practice. "Unfortunately, it seems that we would rather project an illusion of productivity than admit that some of the cogs in the machinery would benefit from a break.What gets even less attention is the fact that mental/emotional health has a huge impact on individual and team performance. A recharging nap during office hours can do wonders for an employee's flagging energy.
For example, a disagreement with one's spouse or boss can have a devastating effect on personal productivity and work performance, as well as negatively affect a person's willingness and ability to collaborate with team mates.Some companies teach their associates to develop emotional intelligence. It's very wise to invest in developing practical emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) and adversity quotient (AQ) as well.It is estimated that about 80 per cent of work success is linked to EQ skills. For example, after an upset, individuals with high EQ/AQ are able to bounce back quickly, recover their motivation and re-focus on being productive. Work-life is about achieving results, and results are tho products of our decisions. If you want to produce good results, you need to make wise decisions — and for that you need a clear head and a calm heart."
In the United States, the HeartMath Institute teaches executives how to better manage their stress response. Its research confirms something many people intuitively know to be true." In an emotional upset, the heart sends disordered energy signals to the brain. Those discordant heart waves can interfere with the processing capacity of the brain to such an extent that an individual's reasoning capacity is strictly inhibited," he elaborates. In fact, a person under stress may enter a state of "temporary stupidity" — unable to focus, learn, remember or think clearly. You can forget about getting "out of the box" creative solutions from stressed out executives. It is time for organisations to devote real attention to teaching employees practical methods to clear the head and calm the heart. We can't escape from stress entirely, so we might as well just learn to live with it. Let's learn more about stress so we can find out how to live more joyfully and improve our work performance more effectively."
