In today’s fast based business environment, individual performance is so much more than just doing your day job. It’s about continually being stretched and challenged to deliver more, better and faster – or so it seems. One of the fastest ways to accelerate performance is through modeling. Modeling is about achieving an outcome by studying how someone else goes about it.
Modeling is more than learning the actions and behaviours
Knowing how to model successful people who have achieved the goals you are setting for yourself is a smart strategy to have in your toolkit. One of the easiest mistakes though is to model someone by only focusing on what they’ve done to achieve success, believing that replicating the same actions will achieve the same or similar success. This thinking is flawed.
I meet up with a woman yesterday who’s achieving great success running her own coaching business. She’s on track to reach $1M this year. Over coffee, we touched on her journey, it’s up and down’s, and some of the things she’s done in order to reach this financial milestone. As we were talking, I was aware I focused on ‘what she did’ to reach this success, and in reflection, my focus was well-intended but I fell into the same trap others do. Here’s the trap.
Effective modelling involves building a 4 dimensional view of someone
Knowing what she did is only a piece of the puzzle. It’s the starting point. We need to move beyond that, to see a full four dimensional perspective of them. We need to see this picture before we can begin to model.
Modelling someone to see the full picture involves studying:
What their thinking is, including:
– Their values and beliefs
– Their goals and purpose (the ‘why’ of what their success will give them)
– Their standards (where do they hold the line on what, no matter what)
– Their rituals (the habits they develop to structure time and energy on doing the things they do)
– Their attitudes – on what they do, and life in general.
How they structure their actions, including:
– What they focus on (which will be a function of the results they get)
– How they make decisions (eg: how they build and maintain ‘core’ and when time, expand on ‘core’). What they consider and how they evaluate choice.
– What benchmarks they have to check their progress to know if they are on track or not.
What they do, including:
– The actions they take
– The sequence they follow to focus their actions
– How they measure actions and results
– The criteria to know how to adjust actions and what to adjust when required
Who they involve, including:
– Who they have on their ‘A’ team
– What they expect of others who are supporting them
– The company they keep – who they associate with and hang out with.
Modelling is so much more than knowing and doing what they did. It involves understanding the perspective(s) they have, how their thinking is shaped, and the relationship they have with themselves as just a few of the factors at play. Creating success is based on all four of the above dimensions. All four areas of impact must be functioning effectively to shape the results we can achieve. So modelling someone else must involve all four of these areas as well. Asking quality questions is the best way to build a 4 dimensional picture of the person you want to model.
In summary, knowing the actions, without understanding the thinking behind is not that useful. Here’s an example: creating success often means building great relationships. When we model effectively, we find out the difference that made the difference. The fact that they strived to be interested more than be interesting, that they put someone else’s needs ahead of their own, that they were obsessed about making them feel valued, and they took the time to understand how they could be valuable – it’s an ‘attitude’ to be that way, over and above completing a list of tasks. If creating success was just about a list of tasks, then we’d all be successful wouldn’t we! By understanding this ‘full picture’ we can see what’s actually needed to succeed – and this is how to model someone effectively.
Conclusion
Modelling is a fantastic way to accelerate results and success, IF someone has the willingness, commitment and ability to learn all four dimensions of the person they are modelling.
