Where is The Key to Performance?

An old man was walking home late one night when he saw a friend on his knees under a street light, searching for something. “What are you doing?” He asked his friend. “I dropped the key to my house.” “I’ll help you look.” After a few minutes of frustrated searching, the old man asked, “Where exactly were you when you dropped the key?” His friend pointed toward the darkness. “Over there.” “Then why are you looking for it here?” “Because this is where the light is.”
This Sufi parable illustrates the rational and approach that is all too common among organizations and people: Many search in vain in the same familiar, comfortable areas but can’t ever seem to find the key to improved performance. The search itself makes sense. However, searching for the key to performance where it is familiar and easy is a bridge to nowhere.

Improving performance matters and it ultimately comes down to actions taken by individuals. Unless people’s actions shift, new strategies will fail, needed cultural transformations will go unrealized, and new technologies won’t deliver on their goals. On the personal side, unless we alter our actions, we’ll never keep our New Year’s resolution, improve our family life or enhance our finances. Without performance elevation, most efforts eventually fail.

Once found, the key to performance will allow you to alter your actions, and work with others to alter theirs, to take performance to a new level.