that I thought might be worth knowing or
sharing that might help others in
pursuit of being the best they can be
I knew immediately what I wanted to talk
about if I were to tell you that there
is a a mindset a way of thinking that
shows up time and time and time again in
the highest performing teams in
businesses and organizations and that
this mindset underpins our ability to be
the best that we can be however we
define that for ourselves in any given
situation I’m guessing you might quite
like to know what it is but first a
personal story I think I have always
been the sort of person who believes
that you can achieve anything you want
to achieve if you just put your mind to
it and by way of an example I discovered
nightclubs and boys at around the same
time as I started studying for my
a-levels not a good combination
I say studying with the Loosli sense of
the word because I had about this much
interest in math economics and French
and consequently didn’t really attend
many lessons at all and those those
lessons that I did attend I largely
spent with the earpiece of a Sony
Walkman cassette player plugged into one
ear pretended to listen to the economics
teacher with the other but about three
weeks before my a level exams I decided
that I might quite like to go to
university freshers week and freedom
being the too enticing factors so with
the mindset that you could achieve
anything you want to if you just put
your mind to it safely under my arm I
set about learning two years of
curriculum in three weeks now much to my
parents surprise of my teachers
indignation I actually got the grades
that I needed to get to university and
off I skipped to fresh this week and
freedom this this mindset that you can
be anything you want to be if you just
put your put your mind to it has tent
has led me to a career in performance
improvement helping organizations help
their people be the best that they can
be in any given situation and over the
25 years of doing this I’ve met some
really interesting people and work with
some really interesting and very famous
organizations actually but the idea that
mindset has a massive impact on
performance really came into sharp focus
when I was working with quite a large
team of say
people now this team of salespeople had
a quite a unique job so if you think
about in today’s economy two clicks on
Google and you can literally get any
package you want delivered to your door
seemingly within an hour these days
these salespeople had a very different
job they were selling quite high-value
products inside a customer’s home this
is a unique experience in today’s
economy and there were 500 of them all
over the country selling inside
customers homes and the sales leader in
charge understandably wanted to drive up
sales performance
who wouldn’t when you were sales leader
and he had quite an interesting group of
salespeople working for him he had what
we call a very wide performance
distribution and what that means is at
this end of the spectrum he had a
percentage very small percentage of
really low performers in the middle he
had quite an abundance of average
performers all operating around the
middle at the top end he had these six
outliers if you like these six high
performers that were outperforming
everybody else in the group and he
understandably wanted to know why what
did these six performers have that
everybody else didn’t have was it some
unique sales capability that they
developed over time or were they just
blessed with that gift of the gab that
only certain salespeople have so we set
about trying to find out what it was so
we took these six high performers and we
put them through simulations we
interviewed them we assessed every
aspect of their performance to try to
work out what was it that they were
doing that other people weren’t and it
was quite interesting this is a
representation of what they roughly
looked like these six high performers
didn’t have an awful lot in common at
all they were all bringing an incredibly
different and unique way of selling into
customers homes yet everything from the
nice guys with a problem-solver the
research all incredibly different but
the one thing that they did have in
common other than all being men but
there wasn’t they did have in common was
their mindset now it’s hardly an atoms
splitting discovery that mindset impacts
on performance in fact two clicks on
Google and you’ll get 29 related
articles relating to the subject so
wasn’t the discovery the discovery was
this they had an incredibly similar way
of thinking now while their peers and
colleagues were all operating down here
so wallowing in the limiting belief if
the jobs too hard I can never do it or
making excuses it’s much easier to sell
to the Welsh than it is to the Scottish
somebody actually said that to me um or
blaming others I’d be amazing if my
manager was better or waiting and hoping
for the magic wand of success to tap
them on the head in the middle of the
night the other six high performers were
actively operating above the dotted line
they were taking responsibility for
their performance and taking action off
their own bat every single day to
improve history examples one of them
said to me that after every single
appointment he would drive his car
around the corner and he would sit in
there and he would go through every
element of the conversation that he just
had working out what had gone well and
what had gone badly and making a change
in the moment so the very next
conversation would be different another
one said to me that he was worried about
his technical knowledge and in the
absence of any good training materials
for the company he worked for
um he used to go online in his own time
and download technical specifications of
product and learn it overnight so that
he’d be better the next day and another
guy told me about what they all used to
call rubbish appointments that was very
widely well known in the team that there
were certain customers that it was
really hard to sell to they called him
the rubbish appointments and these six
high performers they used to use those
rubbish appointments as an opportunity
to practice a different art to practice
a new way of of selling to customers and
so they would always show up to those
appointments while the rest of the sales
force used to say that they never used
to shop to this because they weren’t
worth attending and guess what the six
high performers were actually converting
one in ten of those customers now isn’t
these six just these six high performers
that operate like this in every team in
every business in every organisation
there are people who think down here and
people who think up there and it doesn’t
take n Stein to work out who the high
performers are going to be just put them
in a room and
listen to the way that they talk to each
other and you can hear who the hyper
forms are going to be without you’re
looking at an Excel spreadsheet now I
could be accused of grossly
oversimplifying the link between mindset
behavior and performance and you might
be right
there are Suede’s of research and
evidence out there that basically make
the link between mindset and performance
but the thing is and it’s all good and
it’s all true and it’s all right there’s
everything from the nature-nurture
argument through cognitive behavior
therapy oh right the way through to
neuroscience and it’s all good but when
you’ve got five minutes to persuade
somebody in the moment to think
differently to see a different way and
to take a different action I don’t know
anything better than this cheek little
ladder to help somebody to see a
different way of being now once you
share this with people it becomes
incredibly sticky it gets its own legs
when she when she shared it with a group
of people I was working with some
managers up in rather room up north and
one of the managers came to me after
we’ve done a session and she said how
love this Sally she’s how love this
ladder is brilliant when I get with T on
a team meeting and we’re all sat round
and where we’re getting a little bit
negative and a little bit cynical and
we’re struggling to come up with answers
I just get the ladder out and I point at
it and everybody changes direction in
the room seemingly you only de ladder in
a finger in order to get people to
change behavior the ladder also seemed
really has no no hierarchy I was walking
through a business and there was a PA
sat behind a glass window and somebody
who looked a lot more senior than her
walked into the room and he started just
to kiting like this is always having a
rant about something and the PA just
looked at him pointer that ladder behind
her head looked back at him anyway and
thus proving the point that you know in
that moment in time somebody very junior
could hold somebody very senior to
account in that moment without even
needing any words this little ladder is
also incredibly memorable I was on the
phone to somebody the other day who were
who I didn’t think that I knew but he
started the conversation by saying
actually Sally we’ve met before
I was at an event that you were running
where you were sharing you were sharing
something about mindset you’re the
ladder lady and there we go
25 years of performance improvement all
classed into two words ladder lady
brilliant now of course it’s not just
for business the the ladder is for life
as well and I would hazard a guess that
every single person in this room has got
something that they would like to change
something that they would like to be
different I don’t know maybe you’d like
to get fitter or maybe you would like to
improve a relationship or maybe you’d
like to take on a new challenge or set
yourself a new goal or pursue a new
dream whatever it is that you’d like to
do and I don’t believe for a minute that
any of us set out to fail if I were to
ask everybody in this room put your
hands up if you’re low on accountability
put your hand up if you don’t like to
take responsibility nobody’s going to
put their hand up because none of us
really believe that we’re like that but
I do think that we have a habit of
getting a little bit stuck from time to
time we will all operate on the bottom
rungs and we’ll go down there every now
and again and I think some of us maybe
could think of people who like to live
down there can everybody think of people
who live on the bottom rungs of the
ladder we call them the mood Hooper’s
these are the people in society who will
love to live on the bottom rungs they
love to wallow in their own self-pity of
their existence they love to blame
everybody else for the story state of
their lives and they love to drag us all
down there with them and I’m alright
with that as long as we accept one thing
while we’re on the bottom rungs of that
ladder nothing changes nothing changes
while we would while we’re down there we
don’t set out to pursue new challenges
while we’re telling ourselves I could
never do that
we don’t set ourselves new goals while
telling ourselves haven’t got the time
we don’t make new relationships when
we’re telling ourselves actually it’s
everybody else’s fault and we definitely
don’t try to build a new world while
we’re telling ourselves it’s somebody
else’s problem so each and every one of
us needs to make the choice to move
above the line if we actually want
something to change and I believe it’s
these little eight wrongs that allow us
to do that to reflect our way of
thinking like a prism in front of us to
start to make decisions about the kinds
of choices and the kinds of changes that
we want to make
now this little ladder is that simple it
even works with kids I’ve got a
confession to make have three children
that’s not the confession I have I have
one of these ladders on my fridge at
home and that’s the confession I’m a
parent and I want to instill the values
and the virtues of accountability into
my children as early as possible without
ramming it down their throats and I’m
not sure I always achieve that balance
but when my daughter was eight years old
she came home from school and and she’d
had a bit of a falling out with one of
her friends and she was telling me all
about this and she said that one of her
friends had called her names and
encouraged other girls to also get
involved and she was understandably a
little bit upset wouldn’t we all be so
when I got the ladder off the fridge and
I was just talking to her about what
part she might have played in the
episode and she was you know quite
clearly reluctant to put any of the
blame at her own two feet so we carried
on the conversation for some time I mean
we were going round and round in circles
and I eventually just said to her
pointed to the top rung what do you want
to happen here do you want to be friends
with this girl is that what you want to
just said yeah of course I do I said
brilliant why don’t you take
responsibility go to school tomorrow and
say you’re sorry and you want to make up
and you want to be friends and she
looked at me and she said why would I do
that it was all her fault and the thing
is this in every relationship in our
lives there are always two perspectives
right always two ways of looking at a
situation and I wonder how many of us is
sitting waiting and hoping that somebody
else will make the first move how many
of us are waiting for somebody else to
apologize because
we have a view that it’s all their fault
and how many relationships while we’re
waiting are disintegrating and
evaporating right in front of us because
we’ve reached this stalemate of not
doing something about once you’ve got
this way of thinking it becomes
impossible really to to not see
everything through this lens which can
be a little bit irritating from time to
time but this is how you start to see
things and I was on LinkedIn the other
day and there was a post that really
struck me it was by a chap called fours
car now I don’t know fours car at all
but his post really struck me he started
off by saying this at the age of 11 I
decided to be a barrister my problem was
but I knew no one in the law now how
many of us might have stopped right
there it’s not my jurisdiction it’s not
where I come from I haven’t got enough
connections I’ve not got enough
experience
not for Scarn he went on to write by 16
I plucked up the courage to visit a
court I was very intimidated by the ye
oldie worldy of oak panelling posh
accents Potter suits intensive syllable
words but it was that one step of
accountability that changed the course
of his life forever as he was leaving
the building a senior barrister came up
to him and said if you ever want any
help just give me a call and he did and
the senior barrister mentored him right
up until the age of 23 where he helped
him to get a job and forth Carmen goes
on to write that in that moment he
decided that he would pay it forward and
he since helped 200 students make their
way into law as well so it seems that
accountability isn’t just in pursuit of
our own views but we can also use it to
help others in pursuit of theirs as well
now I don’t expect for a minute that
fours Khan is walking around the
universe with an accountability ladder
hanging out of his back pocket much as
that would be lovely for me because some
people just have the ability to wake up
every morning and make a choice to be
accountable for their actions but I do
think it takes all of us to be able to
look at ourselves in the mirror every
day and be able to say to ourselves
everything that happens to me today is
all my fault
now you might say well I on a minute all
my fault is everything that happens to
me all my fault
because there are lots of things I agree
that happened to
that are outside of our control things
that we can’t choose or change things
that just happen to us but I believe
through my experience of my work that
this little ladder can even help us to
be accountable and to be the best we can
be even in the face of adversity I was
working with a lady a few years ago and
she had been living with cancer for many
years when I met her and during the
course of the time that I was working
with her she learned that the cancer had
become terminal and she said to me not
just because of the ladder but she said
to me during our time working together
that she’s come to realize that even
though she couldn’t control the outcome
she could certainly control the person
that she wanted to be and the legacy
that she wanted to leave during the time
that she was alive to conclude my idea
my firm belief my passion is this I
believe that we all have the ability to
either operate down here or operate up
there and I believe that we can all make
a choice to achieve whatever we want to
achieve to be whoever you want to be
whether that’s whether you define that
as passing a-level exams or whether it’s
in pursuit of a new career or whether
it’s in the pursuit of success at work
or whether it’s in pursuit of building
relationships or getting a job in law I
believe that any of us can choose to
achieve anything we put our minds to but
it all starts with one little question
where am I on the ladder [Applause]