Consistency within "The Cactus Approach"

In my book "The Cactus Approach - Building blocks for invincible teams" I explore six elements I believe are key to a great team. 

This particular article is about the first "C" of the CACTUS which is Consistency - Consistency of Skills. 

Consistency of Skills

Once the skills of our team members have reached a level of unconscious competence, they need to be able to perform the skills to a high level of competence EVERY TIME they call upon them – especially the basic competences. These are the basic competences that do not require any conscious thought about how to do them.

In terms of CACTUS, this is what I mean by consistency of skills.

The biggest enemy of consistency is pressure, and pressure falls under three main headings.

• Variables
• Our opponents or competitors
• Ourselves

Variables

For each of our skills there are a set of variable circumstances that will affect our consistency.

If we consider our driving, these will be the weather, the state of the road, the state of our vehicle and the state of other road users and pedestrians. These are regardless of our own mental and physical states.

These are all variables that will affect the perfect “ideal condition” state of our unconscious competence.

If we think of sport, business, our personal and social skills, indeed any performing skill-set – these are all subject to a wide spectrum of variables. These are variables that we have to cope with, deal with, in an equally competent way so that we can bring our A-Game to whatever we are doing.

For example, in a rugby match in extremely wet and windy conditions, each of the teams will be faced with a set of variables outside of the competitive match directly with each other. The team, and the individuals within the team, that adapts their skills to the variables of the weather and the pitch condition the most, will be in a dominant position with regards to being able to deliver their skills consistently. This is regardless of any differential in the range of capable skills between the respective teams.
A team with limited skills that adapts to all pitch and weather conditions will gain a competitive edge over far more skilled opponents who cannot handle the pitch and weather conditions.

A good friend was talking to me about giving a presentation to workshop delegates using a tablet with presentation software, projector and screen. He had no experience of delivering a presentation using the aforementioned tools and methodology; all his unconscious competences lay in the area of the subject matter and being able to deliver it using the spoken word and a flip chart as a visual aid.
His up-front trepidation was that this new mode of delivery would impose variables upon him that would affect his performance – i.e. the ability to get the workshop content across to the delegates. It was rather like he was going to be driving a very familiar route from A to B but in a car he’d never driven before. In fact he was so concerned, that he considered this metaphorical “car” felt like it was going to be left-hand drive!

From the dancing pairs in BBC TVs Strictly Come Dancing, right across the spectrum to the Red Arrows Aerobatic Display Team – whether the skills are basic, or at a very high level – consistency in the face of variables shows a level of mastery of our performing environment.

All well functioning teams HAVE to be able to deliver their skills CONSISTENTLY in less than perfect environments.

Opponents

The pressure from opponents comes in the form of anything they can do to either distract us so we, both actually and metaphorically, take our eye off the ball, or force us to abandon our plans, or indeed anything that causes us to fail to deliver our skills adequately.

That is opposition pressure in a nutshell.

Dominance brought about by the way they are playing or competing; Scoreboard pressure; Time Pressure; these are all means that an opposition can bring pressure to bear upon a team, by stifling them from playing their strongest or most natural A-game. 

Gamesmanship; an intimidating level of physicality; ‘sledging’ and more subtle means of distraction are some other typical by-products of competitor-led pressure.

All the successful effects of competitor-led pressure, in the end, boil down to creating a scenario where we will, essentially, defeat ourselves.

Ourselves

The third and by far the broadest range of pressure, comes from Ourselves.

We are our greatest friend yet we are also our greatest enemy, our greatest opponent – and this is arguably because WE are the ones that we pay most attention to. WE know best and WE know ourselves better than anyone else. DON’T WE?

Of course such a rhetorical question throws up the conundrum between “Thinking and Knowing” – long before we look at “Knowing versus Understanding.” The thing about the conundrum is this:-

Until we REALLY know, we think we know how to best handle our own pressure.
And the sad truth of the matter is this: Until we REALLY know, we haven’t got a clue.

The famous quote of psychologist R D Laing should always be ringing loud in our ears ~
“If I don’t know I don’t know, I think I know.
If I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know”

The mark of any champion or any amazing and consistent performer is that he or she REALLY understands how to alleviate Self-Pressure. Similarly, the mark of any great team or any amazing and consistently performing team is their collective ability in alleviating Self-Pressure.

As Tim Gallwey said in the Preface to ‘The Inner Game of Golf’ –
“Learning to get out of one’s way is the purpose of The Inner Game.”



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