Perspective: People have far more potential than their results suggest.

Everyone wants to do well. We are all doing the best we can with the understanding and resources available to us in the moment.

But how much of our capability we access can vary enormously, depending on our energy, mood and clarity of mind. What gets in our way is rarely a lack of ability. It’s interference.

Timothy Gallwey captures this in his elegant formula:

Performance = Potential − Interference

Performance means how we do in any part of life: leading a team, playing a sport, having a difficult conversation, serving a guest or raising a child.

Potential is the capability we can draw on: our intelligence, knowledge, experience, creativity and resourcefulness.

Interference is whatever gets in the way of using that capability. It can take the form of insecurity, ego, unexamined assumptions, unhelpful beliefs or emotional reactions.

The difficulty is that we can feel certain we’re thinking straight when we’re not. That helps explain why smart, experienced people can make poor decisions.

This understanding encourages us to look beyond someone’s immediate behavior – including our own – and ask what is getting in the way. If interference is the problem, more effort, information or instruction won’t solve it.

Much of my work involves helping people understand how interference operates and learn to recognize the signs for themselves. As they see through assumptions and beliefs they previously took for facts, those ideas lose their grip. Their natural intelligence, creativity and resourcefulness come through more freely.

That shift can happen quickly. A situation that seemed overwhelming can look manageable. A difficult conversation can become easier. Options appear that were not visible before.

What I love about this work is seeing people discover that they are more capable than they had realized – and doing well needn’t involve so much struggle.

If this sounds useful to you or your team, please get in touch. 

You can explore these ideas further in A Handbook for Hoteliers (and other humans).