The Four Fundamental Factors that contribute to Fulfilling Performance.

A brief personal update followed by a deeper dive into the Fulfilling Performance Framework.

Hello fellow Enablers,

Thanks for opening this post. If it’s your first time dipping in, and you’re looking for context, check out my first posts and the About page, which explain what I am looking to do here.

Why we have checklists.

I’ve just come back from a few days on the coast in Dorset. I wanted to see how I found writing away from my office. I’ll share more on this at a later date.

We were staying literally a few metres from the sea in Dora, our little caravan.

It was our 11th trip away since we got her 18 months ago. Every time we go we learn some lessons…

Trip number 10 was at Christmas. It was the first time we’d spent the holidays without either of our two grown up kids so we decided to do something completely different and spend it in Dora. We had a very cosy time and even managed to cook a full Christmas dinner.

Our lesson from that trip was that when you combine a caravan awning with gusts of wind up to 55mph the noise and buffeting resembles trying to sleep on a plane flying through turbulence.

This time, seeing a similar weather forecast, we stowed the awning the day before and had a much better night’s sleep.

Unfortunately, in our smug state the following morning, as we congratulated ourselves on having a better night’s sleep and a dry awning already packed away, we drained the water system without turning off the heater, which doesn’t do it any good at all.

As I said, every time we go, we learn some lessons. We have checklists for a reason!

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Recognising handbrakes that prevent Fulfilling Performance

In a previous post on The Fulfilling Performance Paradigm, I invited you to imagine we could see, thanks to a percentage floating over their head, how much of a person’s current capability was NOT being applied at any given time.

Enabling Fulfilling Performance is all about removing handbrakes so that an individual can perform at a higher level and experience increased fulfilment from doing so.

To do that requires us to identify what is preventing each person from bringing more of what they already have to what they are doing.

Enablers of Fulfilling Performance recognise that an individual’s performance depends on more than just how good they are at something and how hard they work.

In that post, I asked you to consider what might be going through the minds of the people in the photo. I imagine, if we could read their minds, we’d see thoughts like:

I’m not sure what I am supposed to be doing…

I don’t get why we’re doing this

My team mate isn’t pulling his weight

I just had a row with my partner

I’m new to this and I don’t know how well I’m doing

My boss doesn’t like me

I’m in the wrong job

… [I’m sure you can think of others]

These are not highly sophisticated revelations that I am sharing with you but I think you’ll agree that, if a person is thinking one or more of these thoughts, they are evidence of something at play that is most likely acting as a handbrake to their performance.

Introducing the four fundamental factors that, combined with effort, contribute to Fulfilling Performance.

There are countless handbrakes like the ones I mention and the ones you have identified yourself. Some are unknown to all but the person impacted. Others affect teams, families and / or whole departments and organisations. Acknowledged or not, they exert varying degrees of retardation on performance and hence fulfilment.

The good news is that, for all that complexity and potential lack of visibility, in the world of Fulfilling Performance, whatever handbrakes there are fall neatly into one of four categories:

• Clarity

• Capability

• Culture

• Purpose

These are the four fundamental factors that, combined with effort, contribute to Fulfilling Performance.

At this stage of our journey together these are single word labels that are taking a lot of strain. Each one of them will mean something to you but that may differ from what they mean to me or anyone else.

By engaging Purpose, aligning Culture, creating Clarity, and developing Capability, we enable Fulfilling Performance.

They work well in our mission statement and speak volumes to those of us who work in Fulfilling Performance but, if you are seeing them for the first time in this context, I wouldn’t expect you to necessarily be able to do much with them.

That will all change next week when I’ll give you our “Four Diagnostic Questions”.

Asking someone to answer a well worded question increases our ability to align their focus with ours. It’s a great way to make sure we are on the same page.

The Four Diagnostic Questions serve to define these fundamental factors specifically for enablers of Fulfilling Performance. They lead us to a common understanding of what the labels mean.

More than that though, they are highly practical and will able you to further grasp the framework and immediately apply it to benefit yourself and those you lead and care about.

As always I look forward with eager anticipation to any comments or questions you may wish to share below.

Thank you,

Andy