Are Your People Submerged In Their Comfort Zone?

“Prince Rabadash’s army lay close behind them, Anvard ahead. If they did not reach Anvard before Rabadash and his horde, their journey, their entire lives, would have been wasted. The horses, Bree and Hwin (both of whom could, of course, talk) galloped. Certainly both horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could do; which is not quite the same thing. But a lion appeared out of nowhere and with the spur of terror; Bree now discovered that he had not really been going as fast, not quite as fast, as he could”.

This extract is of course taken from The Chronicles of Narnia, that fount of a million, simple and usually overlooked truths and it illustrates perfectly what it takes for some of us to be steered out of our comfort zone.

Perhaps of all the temptations we meet in life, money, power, sex, alcohol, drugs and fame, the subtlest of all is the comfort zone, that invitation to settle for less, to go for content when the stresses of over achievement beckon. The way that takes you out of the comfort zone is the route less travelled by. Most of us when we come to that place where the two paths divide prefer the one that leads to safety, to warmth and to comfort.

Both in sport and in business, I have witnessed countless companies, friends, colleagues and team-mates that underachieved, despite having far superior skills and talents when compared to others who have made it to the top. The reasons have always been the same, fear of leaving the comfort zone and entering into the unknown, the land potentially of failure and rejection. But I believe there is another way to motivate individuals and coax them out and it relies on one simple fact, most people do not know what they want from life. Certainly, the majority working in a commercial field will say they crave success but without understanding what success means for them. Of course, describing success is difficult, because it will be different for all of us. The definition I prefer is “The achievement of a worthwhile goal”

Success should be something we don’t just ‘Kinda Sorta’ want to achieve but something we must achieve.

Generally, successful people expect to be successful and as a consequence, they usually are. They are driven by a have to attitude not a want to attitude.

Any individual who wants to climb out of their comfort zone must deep down feel that they have to.

I suspect most of you will have seen the results of the “Best Leadership Blog Of 2007” – this is how it finished:

Leading Blog – Building Community Leaders by Michael McKinney 615
Leadership Turn by Jonathan Farrington 410
Slow Leadership by Carmine Coyote 35
Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber 26
Dispatches from the New World of Work by Tom Peters 17
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg 15
Talking Story by Rosa Say 11
Three Star Leadership Blog by Wally Bock 4
Mick’s Leadership Blog by Mick Yates 2

I sent Michael my congratulations and best wishes on Saturday morning: I genuinely believe he was a worthy winner and in fact I voted for him myself. If you are not familiar with his blog, I urge you to pay him a visit here 

I do want to thank everyone who voted for me and made it such an exciting contest right up to the death – when I went to bed at 1am on Saturday morning, I had a lead of 60! But he came back with 240 votes, whilst I was in the “land of nod”

However, to receive 36% of the votes, when I only started blogging about leadership in mid-April, was gratifying.

Have made a commitment to do better next year! -JF