Do you allow yourself to be bogged down in petty things? If you find yourself wasting time on office politics or personal gossip, or if you are always dashing from one task or person to another, you won’t have the energy to play at the top level. There are several things you can do to keep yourself focused on winning.
The first ingredient is- Be transparent: Organize your life around transparency. It will allow you to stop playing a guessing game with yourself and others around you, which can take up a lot of unnecessary energy. If you are not being transparent, you encourage others to not be transparent and resort to “corridor” talk and even back-biting. This is not an environment you want to be part of because it is counterproductive. Transparency, on the other hand, encourages others to be transparent too. If there is a sensitive challenge you are grappling with, share that challenge appropriately. You will find that others will be feeling the same tension. By sharing it, you will have eased the tension for you and others around you. It is not easy to be transparent, especially if you believe that transparency does not work. However, once you experience the value of transparency, you will not want to go back to your old ways. Transparency takes your discussions to the next level.