In Beyond High Performance , Jason Jaggard, along with the coaches of Novus Global and the faculty of the Meta Performance™ Institute, pull back the curtain to reveal the coaching tools they use to help the best get better. Their groundbreaking research shows there are two types of great leaders and those who achieve success once and then plateau or decline, and those who achieve success over and over again. Leaders who are able to consistently and enthusiastically reinvent themselves do so not because they are more talented or have more access to resources, but because they choose to see the world differently than everyone else and create a distinct kind of culture. Full of ideas and insights drawn from years of behind-the-scenes coaching and training with some of the most famous leaders and companies in the world of entertainment, government, business, and nonprofits, Beyond High Performance will forever expand the way you see yourself, the people around you, and your capacity to succeed at the things that matter most.
The author turns the analysis of performance on its side by postulating a set of questions.
Current management models view performance as a pyramid of levels: low, mid and high.
Low performers ask themselves, “What is the least I can do to keep my job?”
(Normal) Mid-level performers ask themselves, “How can I do a better job?”
High performers ask themselves, “How can I be the best?”
The author posits a new question: “What’s the problem with being a high performer?”
High performers resist feedback, resent being asked to do more, are simultaneously overwhelmed and bored, resent other employees who are not up to their standards, are jealous of others who surpass them and are no longer coachable.
So, if high performance is a bottleneck what’s beyond high performance?
The authors define meta performance in terms of the athlete. The first three questions all have finite answers. However, the athlete asks, “What am I capable of?”
The meat of the book pursues the answer to the athlete’s question.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in leadership or self-development.
I was given an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book reads like an advert for the two companies that are run by the author. Some of the ideas contained within the boom are interesting, but it begins by discussing the 10,000 hour idea from Malcolm Gladwell - a theory that has been universally panned as wildly inaccurate and a gross generalisation.
Once you get past the context setting, the book picks up a bit, and there are some practical questions to ask yourself and ideas fo consider.
Overall, it's not a bad book, it just feels quite self-c9ngratulatory and very keen to appear academic, using often unnecessarily complex sentences to make a simple point. Good ideas, just somewhat lacking in execution.
A really good overview of the Novus Global vision and ethos, which I have found very helpful in my own life. Prior knowledge did help in understanding the contents better, there’s a lot of depth that can be gotten into after an initial read has familiarized the concepts.
As someone who resonates with being a high performer, I felt very seen on page 1 of this book. I loved the idea of meta performance - what is beyond high performance. This is a book I will continually come back to for inspiration and motivation.