Innovation and the Performance Paradox

Today, my article on “The Performance Paradox: When Less is More” was published by the American Management Association.

You may recall that I introduced this concept in a blog entry last month.

What is the Performance Paradox?

The more fixated on your goal you become, the greater your chance of success, right? Yes, but only to a certain extent. It turns out that when people are too fixated on the future, their creativity and overall performance actually diminish.

Read the entire Performance Paradox article on the AMA website.

How to Perform at Optimal Levels

In the early 1900s, Robert Yerkes and J. D. Dodson developed the aptly named Yerkes-Dodson Law. The premise is that performance increases relative to motivation (they call it “arousal”) only to a point, after which performance drops. It is typically drawn as an inverted U-shaped curve.

You will notice that I superimposed three “goal” concepts on this graph to give you a sense of how they (roughly) relate.

If you are goal-less, you have no sense of direction and no motivation. Therefore, your performance is low. This is not surprising.

As your motivation increases, your performance increases. Being goal-free – having a sense of direction and purpose, without specific deadlines and limitations – can increase performance…to a point.

Then, as you become goal-driven, performance paradoxically decreases. Goals increase stress and focus you on the future rather than the present.

This phenomenon has been documented in numerous places throughout this blog. Race-car pit crews who increase performance when they are not worried about the stop watch. Students who perform better on exams when they are not as focused on grades. Sales people who sell more when they are not driven by sales targets.

Yerkes and Dodson suggest that different types of tasks require different levels of arousal (to use their word). To improve concentration, intellectually challenging tasks require lower levels of arousal for optimal performance while physically demanding tasks require higher levels. This may explains why professional athletes tend to be more goal-driven. However, even then, goals can limit performance. Listen to my interview with Dr. Doug Gardner, former sports psychology consultant to the Boston Red Sox.

Goal-Free Living is NOT about eliminating your goals. You can have goals and still perform at optimal levels. They key is to have the RIGHT goals (ones that “pull” you forward and don’t create stress) and be PRESENT to what you are doing (being detached from the desired outcomes).

Do you have examples of where you performed at optimal levels by freeing yourself from the stranglehold of rigid goals?

Go 95%; Achieve Optimal Performance

I just read a blog entry on CanOWorms that discusses the concept of 95% perfection. The general idea is that in sports, we achieve optimal performance when we put 95% effort into what we do. My own experiences — personal and professional — support this premise.

A few years ago, I worked with a Formula One team (auto racing). Their pit crews have long been admired for their ability to fuel a car, change the tires (back before rule changes that disallowed tire changes during refueling), and do the required maintenance in a matter of seconds. There are 19 people in a pit crew. To find the optimal configuration of the team, they move each of the crew members around until they get the best combination. And then they practice more. All of this is under while being measured with a stop watch. Eventually the team can go no faster; they hit a performance plateau no matter how hard they try. Once, as an experiment, the pit crew members were told that they were NOT going to be timed; that they should just go as fast as possible without going full out (95%?). The result? The pit crew shaved several tenths of a second off their best time – although pit crew members “felt” that they went slower.

When we remove the time pressures of traditional goals and the mental pressure to go full out (100%), our efforts flow more effortlessly and we perform at optimum levels. Whether it be in sports or in life, when we play, have fun, and allow life to unfold naturally – rather than forcing it – we operate at a higher level of performance AND do it with greater ease.