Fulfilling Performance by the pool
A family conversation, a deck of cards, and a fresh metaphor for Fulfilling Performance
Image credit: Thomas-Suisse
Hello fellow Enablers,
I’ve just returned from visiting family in Virginia Beach. One of the highlights was reconnecting with my nephew Sam—after nine years—and meeting his fiancée Anna for the first time. Congratulations to Sam and Anna! They’re both super-bright and generous-hearted, and it was a joy to spend time with them.
Now, you might assume I gave them a break from Fulfilling Performance talk—this was a holiday, after all…
But this is a mission, and it seems to follow me wherever I go.
What doesn’t always follow me, though, is the gear I normally use to explain the framework—laptops, decks, cards, slides. I had my laptop, of course, but even I draw the line at cracking it open by the pool.
Instead, I got a little creative.
After Sam and Anna asked what I do, I gave them a brief overview—and they were genuinely curious. So one afternoon, out by the pool, I shared the Fulfilling Performance framework with them using… a standard deck of cards.
That morning, I’d had the idea:
Could each suit represent one of the four fundamentals of Fulfilling Performance?
So I sorted the deck into suits and placed each one face down on the table.
Then I asked Sam and Anna:
“What are some common sources of friction that stop people from bringing more of what they’ve got to what they do?”
As they offered examples—things like poor communication, unclear expectations, lack of support, or feeling disconnected from purpose—I silently removed a card from the corresponding suit.
If they mentioned confusion or mixed signals, I took a card from the Diamonds.
If it was about lacking tools or experience, I removed one from the Spades.
If it was to do with a toxic or unsupportive environment, it came from the Clubs.
And if they spoke about disinterest or lack of motivation, I pulled from the Hearts.
They didn’t know what the suits represented yet. I let that part build naturally.
When they’d covered a good mix of friction points, I turned over the top card from each remaining stack—the four aces.
Ace of Diamonds → Clarity: Diamonds are valued for their sharpness and brilliance. Here, they represent how clear we are about what we’re supposed to be doing and how we’re performing.
Ace of Spades → Capability: A spade is a tool, and in this case, it stands for all the tools we bring—our knowledge, skills, experience, mindset, and resources.
Ace of Clubs → Culture: Not a weapon, but a group. A club, in this sense, is a supportive environment. How are those around us helping—or hindering—our ability to perform?
Ace of Hearts → Purpose: This one’s the easiest. How much does it mean to us? Is our heart in it?
What I loved about this approach was how naturally it unfolded—how it built curiosity before delivering clarity. They were surprised I’d only come up with it that morning, and I could see it helped the framework land in a fresh, memorable way.
Just like the friction examples removed cards from each suit, real-life friction gradually depletes our fundamentals. The cards made that visible. And just like that, a simple deck of playing cards became a powerful teaching tool.
It reminded me again of the power of approaching a message from different angles—something I mentioned in last week’s post about repetition and resonance.
So if you’re looking for a way to remember the Four Fundamentals—or explain them to someone else—maybe this little metaphor will help:
Diamonds: Clarity.
Spades: Capability.
Clubs: Culture.
Hearts: Purpose.
If you think about the cards you’re holding as you face a current challenge, what’s in your hand right now?
To play this round well—
to perform at a high level—
you’ll need healthy quantities of Diamonds, Spades, Clubs, and Hearts.
Use the Four Diagnostic Questions to assess your hand.
Where are you well stacked?
And where might you be running low?
The Fulfilling Performance Hub
I’m planning a virtual session to connect leaders who are interested in enabling Fulfilling Performance for themselves and those they lead and care about.
If that sounds interesting and you’d like to be notified when I schedule it, just let me know and I’ll add you to the list.
CAREER-VIEW MIRROR #232
Side Mirror: Smarter than a smart phone
AI is impressive but so are humans.
Especially when we create the environments in which they can thrive.
Whilst AI dominates leaders' attention, let's remember we still have heaps of potential to better leverage our human intelligence and capability and in doing so to experience energising levels of personal fulfilment.
Fulfilling Performance is a vision and a framework that combines the latest thinking in performance psychology, the age old wisdom of questions and 35 years of real world corporate leadership experience.
It's simple to grasp and easy to apply.
Instead of leaving performance management to the leader it transforms it into a collaborative topic across the whole team and organisation.
Viewing themselves through its lens, individuals discover the fundamental factors they need to have in place to perform at a high level, continue to grow and experience energising fulfilment.
Equally importantly, they understand why they should lean in and play their part to enable it for themselves.
Leaders get clearer on how to enable Fulfilling Performance for themselves and those they lead and care about.
Between them they have an approach and a common language to work towards it together.
It's a game changing win:win.
The iPhone had a huge impact on how we lead our lives.
Fulfilling Performance has the potential to do the same for how we lead ourselves and those we care about, but with much more intentionality.
In this new Side Mirror episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, I explain how Fulfilling Performance mirrors (the best aspects of) our smart phones.
🎧 Listen now: Apple Podcasts / Online / Spotify
Check out the directory of all our guests and episodes on Instagram.
If you are as excited by the potential of humans as we seem increasingly to be about machines, have a listen. I'd love to hear what you take away.
“Go to people” need people to go to!
The Aquilae Academy: Guided peer mentoring and coaching for executives, senior leaders and business owners.
Running a business or holding a senior position in an organisation can be very rewarding. At the same time it can be challenging and even lonely.
There are certain topics we are either unable or uncomfortable to discuss with colleagues no matter how self aware and open we are.Sometimes it is just not appropriate to discuss an issue with a colleague. Maybe they are the issue!
Our partners and friends may want to listen and help but they may not have relevant experience or be completely independent.
The Aquilae Academy is for senior leaders and business owners who:
acknowledge that they can’t and don’t have to do it alone
value interdependence and
are looking to continue learning and growing with the support of a team of like minded peers
If this sounds like you, contact me and I’ll happily tell you more.
Thank you,
Andy
E: andy@aquilae.co.uk