Maximizing Your Potential: Understanding and Utilizing Performance and Learning Zones

Mastering Your Current Skills: The Power of the Performance Zone

This article has been updated and enhanced on my new website to provide additional insights and strategies. You can read the latest version here:

https://www.exploreyourreality.com/maximizing-potential-learning-vs-performance-zones/

Have you ever felt like you’re not achieving your full potential or progressing in your career as quickly as you desire? If so, you can utilize the Learning and Performing Zones to enhance and develop your career. We all go through these phases often in various stages of our careers. To be successful at what we do, we must understand what they are and when to use each for continuous improvement.

This article will examine the concepts of performance and learning zones and provide strategies for identifying and utilizing them effectively to maximize professional growth.

Learning Zone

Learning is the process of developing new skills or knowledge through deliberate practice. It occurs when you repeat an action in a conscious, manual way until performing that action becomes automated, and you execute it subconsciously.

You cannot control Learning directly, but you can control it indirectly by forcing repeated action. For example, when you learn a new language, you cannot force yourself to remember a specific word. However, you can direct your conscious attention toward repeating that word until you remember it subconsciously.

There are several steps in the learning process. The first one is the awareness that you need to change. You will only change something once you know that you have to. Without this first step, change will happen only by chance and if we are directed by somebody else. We must set the direction of our development and move forward based on our agency.

Next, you must establish the intention to acquire the new skill or change your behavior. You may be aware you have to learn something, but it won’t happen unless you intend to make it happen. Then, the intention is put into action when performing a new task or practicing a new behavior through repeated mental actions. With continued practice,  these mental actions become more effortless and eventually become fully automated mental habits. At this point, the new activity becomes easy, natural, and accurate, with the subconscious mind taking over.

For instance, suppose that your manager tells you that enhancing your communication skills is necessary to secure that desired promotion. This may surprise you, as you previously believed yourself to be an effective communicator. Nonetheless, after a conversation with your manager, it becomes clear to you where your improvements need to happen – you become aware of your development need. Without this feedback, you may not have recognized this area for improvement.

Next, you build a strong intention to improve your communication skills so you get your desired promotion. You actively implement strategies to improve your communication skills, such as listening carefully, speaking clearly and slowly, and being mindful of your body language. Initially, you struggle to use these strategies consistently but continue to practice and concentrate on improving your communication skills (mental actions).

As you continue to practice and apply these strategies, they become more accessible and automatic. You communicate more effectively without as much effort and attention to detail as the new process becomes a mental habit. You have successfully completed the Learning process and have increased your skillset.

Unlearning

Before moving on to the next topic, I want to briefly touch on Unlearning, or how to eliminate bad habits. Unlearning can be difficult as it requires breaking deeply ingrained automatic, subconscious habits that have accumulated over time.

Because repeated action (conscious or subconscious) always becomes a habit, we must be careful what our actions are. Otherwise, if we are not careful, bad habits can sneak into our subconscious without us becoming aware of them. And once bad habits have taken root in the subconscious mind, it can be challenging to remove them.

The best approach to eliminate bad habits is to avoid developing them in the first place. However, if bad habits have already formed, the key is to rewrite or alter them or to build the opposite habit.

Be mindful of where you direct your focus and the actions you undertake, and ensure to only engage in activities that will help you improve.

Performance Zone

Once you have mastered the new skill, it is time to put it into practice. This is an important step. Learning is an investment in the present that will reap benefits in the future. So, once you invest the time and effort into learning your new skill, put it to use. Don’t learn only for the sake of Learning, do something useful with what you know.

 "The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge."

Aristotle

The performance zone is when we perform at our best. We are fully engaged, focused, and motivated to achieve our goals. We are the experts in our field, feel confident, and execute efficiently. While Learning Zone maximizes future performance, the Performance Zone optimizes present performance as we add immediate value to the organization.

It is important to note that the performance zone is not a static place. Even when you achieve a high level of proficiency in a particular skill, you still need to practice and maintain your skills to remain in the performance zone. And, in time, you have to update or upgrade your skill to keep up with the changes; otherwise, stagnation will occur, and you will fall behind.

Learning/ Performing in an Organizational Environment

Observing how organizations handle the Learning/ Performing dichotomy is quite fascinating.

On one hand, Learning is openly encouraged for existing employees. Organizations provide plenty of courses, classes, and development plans. This is a short-term investment in Learning (increasing the knowledge base for employees now) with the long-term goal of improving performance (improving the quality and quantity of output).

On the other hand, with prospective employees, the situation is reversed. Managers want to hire people that can perform on day 1, with the next-to-perfect skill set, so the short-term investment on the front end of the Learning/ Performing cycle is avoided as much as possible. Avoiding short-term investment improves the ROI: low upfront cost and high returns.

A peculiar situation emerges when inexperienced employees (just out of college) want to get a job to start the Learning/ Performing cycle but have a hard time because even the lowest entry jobs have elevated barriers of entry and high requirements: minimum years on the job, required skillset, proven track record, etc.

Learning is challenging, you feel uncomfortable, even frustrated at times, and you make mistakes. Learning requires a lot of concentration and effort to get things right. However, it is a crucial stage, as it is during this time when you make the most of the progress and build a strong foundation of skills and knowledge.

Today’s Learning is the foundation for tomorrow’s success. It is an unwritten rule that in your career, you cannot stay constant; you cannot hold on to your current skills and use them indefinitely. Your skillset, relatively speaking, either grows or contracts; there is nothing in-between. This is the main difference between the Fix and Growth mindsets.

"I learned to always take on things I'd never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist."

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty.

When you learn something new, your skillset expands, leading to new opportunities and a broader range of professional options; it seems as if the world is changing around you. The truth is, everything is all the same; the only thing changing is you.