Can you recognise performance blocking behaviour within your workforce? Is it easily identifiable in yourself? Do you want to develop the winning behaviours required to realise not only your own performance goals, but that of your team? While we know that certain actions accelerate performance, there are those that sustain performance and there are those that block performance. Let’s take a look at the differences and how leading with a clear focused vision and positive mindset in alignment with your personal and professional aspirations, will build commitment and ultimately add greater value to your business.

Behaviour that accelerates performance

Effective behaviours that support an acceleration in performance focus on clarifying objectives, strengthening internal and external relationships and driving a clear vision. Deploying the skills, ideas and energy of your team while taking the initiative and not managing but rather, leading your workforce will motivate everyone to reach for incremental improvement.

Behaviour that sustains performance

Performance sustaining behaviour is focused on tracking performance, ensuring the consistency and stability of processes and heightened attention to detail. Behaviour that sustains performance improves efficiencies and is centred on implementation.

Behaviour that blocks performance

Performance blocking behaviour is a destructive practice, however, not always intentional, it is a reflexive reaction. When an individual is threatened, anxious, overlooked or frustrated they will engage in a series of behaviours such as, responsibility avoidance, conflict avoidance and defensive aggressive behaviour. Let’s expand on these behaviour traits.

Responsibility avoidance

  • A full time occupation, an individual who projects an image of being busy and involved without actually being busy or involved is effectively avoiding responsibility. Team members who assiduously avoid responsibility and accountability are skilled in creating a negative environment for fellow team members. They create heightened anxiety, levels of frustration, anger and an influential loss of productivity.

 

Conflict avoidance

  • Translating into an inability to make decisions or express views, team members who avoid conflict tend to waste a lot of energy and productivity by trying to avoid contentious situations. Conflict avoidance produces a ripple effect as the frustration and irritation of fellow team members grows and further impacts the working environment. Individuals who participate in conflict avoidance leave decision making to others, using it as an excuse to avoid negative feedback.

 

Defensive aggressive behaviour

  • Research by Professor Charlotte Rayner indicates that 25% of the people who are targeted by this type of behaviour leave their jobs, around 20% of those who play witness also quit. Defensive aggressive behaviour is the most damaging of all performance blocking behaviours, often manifesting as targeted sarcasm, dominance and intimidation. This bullying behaviour is used to demean and belittle others while undermining another’s self-confidence. Defensive aggressive behaviour is shown to have a five times greater effect on mood than positive interactions, this equates to one instance of such behaviour negating five positive actions!

 

So how do you improve performance and create organisational change? Dr. Robin Stuart-Kotze an authority on behavioural profiling and the creator of Behavioural Science Systems states that definitive scientific research shows that less than 10% of the variance in a person’s behaviour is explained by personality. Behaviour is the actions you take and the decisions you make. You can control these things; you can decide what to do and when to do it. You can see these things, and you can measure them. And because you can decide what to do in any situation you can determine, control and most importantly, improve, your performance. In fact, performance is all about doing the right thing at the right time.

Leadership is about improving people’s performance and performance is judged by results. Therefore leadership must be judged by results. For personal consultation and the tools to improve the performance of your team call Tony Farugia of Headspace Behavioural Science on 0458 888 756 or email: info@headspacebehaviouralscience.com.au for consultation.