How To Improve Your Performance At Work Or In Your Business?

How are you performing in your role? Are there areas where you could improve your performance? You may want to expand and grow your business, to develop and implement the business strategy and plans, to increase profitability and to achieve other business goals and objectives. However if you are not performing well in your role at work your company may not achieve its goals and objectives.

Here are some areas of your own personal performance at work or in your business that you may need to improve in order to ensure the success of the business:

Communication and relationships. By improving your relationships and your communication with others at work or in your business whether this be with colleagues, staff, shareholders, suppliers or customers you will be more successful in your role and your company will be more successful. Your relationships and communication can be improved in many ways including being clear and concise, using the most appropriate form of communication, increasing your awareness of others, understanding the impact you have on others, giving people your time, actively listening and asking open questions, thinking before replying, being open, honest, polite and respectful and considering your body language during conversations.

Confidence. If you have low self confidence you may avoid taking risks and stretching yourself and the business which may result in you struggling to achieve the business goals. Work on building your confidence by considering what you have achieved, learning from the past, working with positive people, imagining success, being well prepared and taking manageable risks.

Keeping things in perspective. If you can keep things in perspective you will increase the chance of your business succeeding. Keep things in perspective by stepping back from the day to day and considering the bigger picture, thinking rationally, looking for the learning in each situation and expecting the unexpected.

Time management and keeping focused. Effective time management and keeping focused on your business goals and objectives are key to a successful business at all levels in your organisation. Consider how to improve your time management, stop procrastinating, delegate and outsource more and effectively, keep focused and prioritise your strategy, plans and workload to achieve the business goals and objectives.

Mind management. If you are in a poor state of mind you will find that your performance suffers which will have a knock on effect on the business, whereas when you are in a good state of mind your performance will be much better and your business will thrive. Consider and notice your state of mind and how it impacts your performance, adopt strategies to change your state of mind, focus on what is in your control, think positively and take action and keep focused.

Decision making. Decision making is a critical part of running and working in a business. There are many types of business decisions that need to be made at all levels of a business ranging from short term operational decisions to the longer term strategic decisions that will impact the future of the company. Improve your decision making by using relevant and accurate information, accessing your knowledge & experience, consulting others, good analysis, being creative, considering different options, implications and risks, validating your assumptions, being decisive and taking decisions in a timely manner.

Thinking. The way you think can cause you to make inaccurate assessments of your experiences, to get the wrong end of the stick, to jump to conclusions, to think the worst, to distort the facts and it can get in the way of your decision making and the achievement of your business goals. Where your thinking is unhelpful consider changing the way you think and create space in your day to step back and think about your business and your own performance at work.

Values. Your values describe what is important to you. Where your values are aligned with your work or business you will find that they support and energise your work and enable you to achieve your business goals and objectives. Good leaders are usually very self aware, have a strong sense of their values and act from an explicit understanding of their values. Where a leader has a lack of awareness of their values their leadership may be inconsistent and erratic, with their decision making difficult to understand. Consider your own values and how they may be influencing you at work and the potential impact on the business as a whole.

Stress management. How you handle stress at work or in your business has a big impact on the success of your business and whether you achieve your business goals. Take a look at our online stress management course which will support you to reduce your current stress, to manage stress positively going forward and to build your resilience to stress over time.

Resilience. Resilience can be defined as your ability to recover quickly and positively from setbacks, adapt well to change and keep going in the face of adversity. Research has shown that a person's level of resilience is a key determining factor in business success. It also determines how you react and behave when faced with stressful situations and periods of significant change. Work on becoming more resilient by taking our online stress management course and you will be better able to cope in the future.

Hopefully the above tips and ideas will help you to think about your own personal performance at work or in your business and how you may want to improve your performance.

Author: Liz Makin
Published: June 2017

Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.

Please email Liz@makinithappen.co.uk to arrange a FREE consultation session to discuss our business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services for business owners, directors, managers and professionals.