The lesson title suggests another factor at play too. Think about it. What did Raghuvir’s actions serve to do for the team when it came to their recovery?
Take the lesson and examine the facts.
Titanic Parable Debrief – Environment
Thus far, you have seen how three of the big five traits, namely Openness, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are intimately related to high achievement through managing self and people. In this lesson, we’re going to examine another factor that is crucial for high achievement, which although not part of the big-five model, is no less critical for high achievement to occur.
Agreeableness, as you saw played a huge role in Raghuvir Yadav’s turnaround of the Hyderabad Titans. He was able to establish trust all round, was selfless, straightforward with everyone in his dealings with them, and modest too. All signature traits of Agreeableness, as you know.
Was there something else at play too? What did Raghuvir’s actions serve to do for the team when it came to their recovery? Let’s examine the facts:
1. He focused on progress, not the problem: From the very outset, when he first came to the team, Raghuvir chose not to dwell on what happened in the past, or the failures the team suffered. He chose instead to direct the team’s focus on the future, and In the first three months, Raghuvir worked with each team member to improve their efficiency inspite of their self-doubt, and constantly pointed out the improvement he saw them make. When the team was faced with setbacks in Rakesh leaving and Gopal being incarcerated, Raghuvir didn’t wallow in misery and dread. Instead he was straightforward about expected hardships and encouraged everyone to keep moving forward.
2. He encouraged suggestions for improvement: Once he steered the team into a positive mindset, Raghuvir encouraged his team to give each other developmental feedback, especially technical inputs on how people could improve. The team was encouraged to view developmental videos by themselves and experiment on techniques to improve self. Only, they had to share with the coaches as to what this improvement targeted was.
3. Raghuvir celebrated intelligent risk-taking: Raghuvir encouraged experimentation with changes in team formations and individual playing techniques. If the results from these experiments were encouraging, those strategies were retained. In a critical match, Raghuvir stepped back and let the players coach themselves in a game against their arch-rivals. The Titans won hands down. It must be noted that Raghuvir did this only once the team had stated winning, not before.
The three behaviours Raghuvir exhibited, namely focusing on progress – not problems, encouraging suggestions for improvement and intelligent risk taking having everything to do with creating an environment conducive for high achievement.
And research validates Raghuvir’s strategy. There is scientific evidence to show that there is a correlation between an amenable work environment and high achievement – alongside managing self and managing people well, of course.
A new study by Stanford psychologist Paul O’Keefe, Adar Ben-Eliyahu of the University of Pittsburgh and Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia of Duke University suggests that the way we design our working and learning environments can profoundly affect people’s motivation for achieving important tasks.
It has been observed that wherever the environment…
- Is oriented on progress and future possibilities, as opposed to past problems
- Encourages suggestions for improvement, as opposed to suppressing them
- Celebrates intelligent risk taking, instead of punishing it
…high achievers thrive and high achievement finds strong roots.
Failing this, even if the other behaviour traits are in place, an individual’s potential of high achievement will be significantly limited by the complications that come with a problem-focussed, overly competitive environment.
We’ll bring all of this together for you in a comprehensive overview in the next lesson
For now, please scroll down and take the quiz.
