OH! Magazine - Australian Version November 2015 | Page 24

GREG
SELLAR

WHEN SOFT VALUES
DRIVE HARD RESULTS: PART 1
From the boardroom to the gym, awareness of your thinking,
speaking and actions can be the difference between failure
and success. Greg Sellar explains.
eing aware and knowing your
place in the world is one of the
fundamental priorities for anyone wanting
success – it isn’t a magic bullet, but it is
the first step.

B

Self-awareness is about understanding
your own needs, desires, failings, habits,
and everything else that makes you tick.
By being more aware, you open up the
number of choices available to you in any
given situation. The more you know about
yourself, the better you are at adapting
life changes that suit your needs. It’s a
little more complex than the oversaturation of blogs citing the ‘Top 5 Tips
To Create Successful Leaders’, or the ‘10
Best Fat Loss Methods’, because – let’s
face it – if it were that easy, we’d all be
doing it. Also, if you don’t know who you
are, then you can’t expect to put any
advice you read, into practice.
I had a discussion recently where a friend
asked, ‘What is it you do at lifehack?’ In
explaining that I believed the individual
is key, he commented ‘Oh, so it’s quite a
soft approach then’. I had to pause for a
second, to ask myself why he might think
that; because from what I knew, being
aware enough to deal with your own
thoughts and actions was much harder
and more confronting than recognising a
simple skill deficit. I believed it more
challenging to look at yourself objectively
and assess emotions and habits, than to
eat up some self-help performance tips
on Facebook.

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NOVEMBER 2015 ( OH! MAGAZINE )

I found myself replying, ‘No, actually, it’s
quite the opposite. I find these supposed
“soft” values are where most people fall
down, because they’re focusing on the
wrong things. Focusing solely on “hard”
values around an outcome – in fitness
that might be measurements, reps and
heart rates; or in business think ROI,
bottom lines and profit margins – leads
people in authority to rule with an iron
fist. And often they’re too direct, arrogant
and, at times, even shaming. All of which
can lead to underperformance.
People who lack interpersonal skills
because they aren’t aware of how they’re
behaving, tend to be poor performers, not
only as trainers, but also as managers,
colleagues, partners and parents. In
other words, soft values drive hard
results.
In a study titled ‘What Predicts Success?’
a team at Cornell University produced
some very clear research results:
•

•

‘Bully’ traits that are often seen as
part of relationships and social
interactions were typically signs of
incompetence and lack of intellect.
Being
arrogant
or
impatient
correlated with low performance
results.
Poor interpersonal skills lead to

under-performance
in
most
functions. Those whose interpersonal
skill scores were low also scored
poorly on every single performance
dimension.
•

Success searches give short shrift to
‘self-awareness’,
which
should
actually be a top criterion. People
who are aware of their weaknesses
are often more capable of
surrounding themselves with those
who perform well in categories in
where they lack acumen.

When we improve our awareness, we give
ourselves greater choices in life.
Our choices can either be paralysing or
mobilising depending on our mindset
and ability to read situations.
It’s always amazing to me how two people
can read the same situations completely
differently, and it does go a long way to
explaining why we get conflict and
problems in the gym, at home or in the
workplace.
In our next installment we’ll continue
examining soft values and hard results,
as well as exploring a few tips to help you
become more aware. In the meantime
you can find out more about this topic
and other performance coaching tips
from www.teamlifehack.com

www.teamlifehack.com

( Performance Coaching )