Performance: The Secrets of Successful Behaviour

Chapter 6. What does performance-blocking behaviour look like?

	Bad habits are eliminated not by others, but by ourselves.
	--(Vince Lombardi)

Performance-blocking behaviour is a reaction to a threat of one kind or another. In a work setting it centres on a threat to your self-esteem, your competence, knowledge and ability, your worth and value, your control over career and destiny, your job security, and your ability to exert power and influence. It generally involves a loss of some kind or, more starkly, a feeling of being robbed or stripped of something. Our reaction to threat manifests itself in three ways: fight, flight or submission. While personality exerts little influence over performance-accelerating and performance-sustaining behaviours, ...