Agility at the Speed of LifeTM
Emotional Agility and Peak Performance
Peak performance has been defined variously as the state of exceptional functioning, when an individual contributor or team experiences unity, wholeness and strength through focused attention to detail, lack of undue concern with outcome, and deep commitment to results.
Achieving peak performance requires actively coping with tension, accepting mistakes, taking corrective actions based on evidence rather than emotional state, and constantly assessing progress against objectives and making incremental adjustments.
The competitive nature of work, whether in business, emergency response, or sports, involves a wide range of emotions, to include anger, fear, hopelessness, and pride, all of which weigh on production. Peak performance is thus critical in every operating environment, and all work scenarios have the potential to negatively affect individual motivation, self-confidence, anxiety and concentration.
The foundation of peak performance is emotional agility. Research shows that enhanced levels of emotional intelligence positively impact leadership style choice, strategies to cope with frustration, and avoidance of burnout and post traumatic stress.
A key factor in peak performance is mental readiness, the ability to meet the demands of production, adapt successfully to risk and accomplish the objective. This includes the capacity to recognize and manage both real and perceived disruptions to performance, of which our emotions are often greater than their stimulants, and arguably more debilitating.
The bottom line is that every operating environment, whether corporate, tactical (first responder) or athletic, is ripe with potential distractions and is subject to constant changes in operating dynamics. Team members who are distracted by their emotions or the emotions of others are not able to activate their full cognitive capacity, thus lose task focus, make judgment errors, and internalize environmental stress that later manifests as trauma.