Collateral Damage 9-1-1: The Solution

In my last blog post, I showed you why traditional fixes like performance counseling, 360 assessments, training sessions and performance coaching are seldom effective in permanently fixing top performer collateral damage. Today, we’re going to look at what does work.

Here’s a snapshot of the process I use with Type A top performers who want to achieve big results without creating collateral damage.

Step 1: Identify your unconscious mindsets that are responsible for your success, as well as, your collateral damage.

By working backwards from your success and your collateral damage, you can identify the mindsets in which both originate and are deeply rooted.

Step 2: Pinpoint the invisible wrinkles in your mental filters that are causing the collateral damage.

Think about this like identifying the hidden potholes in your race track. If you hit a pothole at a high rate of speed, you can careen out of control, crash and burn. If you see the pothole ahead of time, you simply drive around it, hence avoiding the collateral damage.

Step 3: Teach you to think about how you think. This advanced skill is called meta-cognition. The vast majority of our thought processes tend to be automatic. By learning meta-cognition, you no longer operate on auto-pilot. You take the power and controls back so you make the best decisions for each unique situation rather than relying upon your brain’s habitual reactions.

Step 4: Coach you to restructure your thinking to skillfully prune out the collateral damage while simultaneously improving your problem-solving skills, analytical thinking and executive presence.

Collateral damage saps success. By cutting away the collateral damage while also learning to strategically think about how you are thinking, you create a 1+1=3. You achieve even greater levels of success with much less effort.

Stopping collateral damage- once and for all – doesn’t have to be a long and hard process. You just have to go about it the right way.

But, before you can fix collateral damage, you’ve got to see it. As long as collateral damage goes undetected, you are blissfully headed to a date with infamy.

Stay tuned for a checklist to help you identify if you are at risk for creating collateral damage.