Raising the bar

This year we have talked a lot about celebration as part of our 20^th anniversary. You might be familiar with the Juniper phrase: ‘even better if’. As we explored earlier this year, it’s vital to celebrate both big and small wins, but then how do we motivate ourselves and support our colleagues to raise the bar and step out of our comfort zone to achieve more individually or as a team, next time? Here are our top Juniper tips.

• Reflect quietly on the process and then discuss. If you follow the ‘Success, Learn, Change’ formula, there will always be learnings to take on board and achieve an even better result, next time. Even if you did an excellent job the first time. Following some careful consideration on your own, holding an open conversation with a peer or team members will encourage insights and points of view you may not have yet considered. As Peter Drucker (the Austrian-American management consultant) said: “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection, will come even more effective action.”
• Aim high and be passionate. In order to improve on your performance, you need to confidently aim high. Take bold steps to push yourself beyond your comfort zone, learn from it (both the good and bad) and create the possibility of achieving a higher level of success. For example, if you are authentic in yourself and passionate about your work, when you reach out to that contact who is top of your ‘wish list’, they just might take notice. To understand more about this theory of raising the bar, read this article in the Harvard Business Review.
• Coachability. It may be cliché, but every day is a school day and there are always learnings to be had whether you are the MD of your company or an intern on your first day. If you remain open-minded to learning, there are constant strategies at your fingertips that could improve your performance.
• Self-awareness and of others. We recently looked at the importance of knowing and playing to your strengths plus celebrating your differences, in order to grow both independently and as a team. Learning from the diversity within your work team will stretch your knowledge and help push your boundaries. In turn, by understanding what you do best and harnessing that insight, the team benefits from this new learning.
• Have a growth mindset. Some of us will have heard the phrase frequently in the context of our children’s learning, but people of any age can harness this approach in a business (and life) context. To find out if you have a fixed or growth mindset, and how to improve your skills at all levels, read this Harvard Business Review article.
• Define a plan and stick to it. Set yourself some clear goals, both short and long term, in order to achieve those challenges beyond your comfort zone. Agree these intentions with yourself, your line manager, and communicate your objectives with your colleagues for some accountability and support along the way.
• Focus on both the big and small picture. Don’t get bogged down in the detail. Do take note of small learnings but also try to take an objective view of the whole. This is a skill we can all develop. One study shows that ‘entrepreneurs are 30-48% more likely to think in broad terms than the rest of us’. If you try to work out some details that you could improve on as well as the bigger picture, when combined, you could create a super polished result, plus tap into some innovative ideas.

Raising the bar is achievable for all of us when we have the right mindset and take time to reflect on our achievements and the processes involved. When we consider the ‘even better if’, we can celebrate our success and set new goals at the same time. Aim big, make a plan and communicate your objectives with your colleagues. And finally, a quote from Richard Branson: “If you aim higher than you expect, you could reach higher than you dreamed”.