Pawliw-Fry J. P. - Performing under pressure: the science of doing your best when it matters most

Copyright 2015 by Hendrie Weisinger and Institute for Health and Human Potential, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

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CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and CROWN and the Rising Sun colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weisinger, Hendrie.

Performing under pressure : the science of doing your best when it matters most / Hendrie Weisinger, J. P. Pawliw-Fry
pages cm
1. SuccessPsychological aspects. 2. Stress management. 3. Performance anxiety. I. Pawliw-Fry, J. P. II. Title.
BF637.S8W358 2015
155.9042dc23 2014031662

ISBN 978-0-8041-3672-3

eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-3673-0

Jacket design by Gabriel Levine

v3.1_r3

Hank: To the memories of my parentsthey make me feel confident, optimistic, tenacious, and enthusiastic every day!I was lucky.

JP: To Brigitte, Grace, and Westley: my confident, optimistic, tenacious, and enthusiastic kids!

When you are on the witness stand in a courtroom, everything you say is recorded, interpreted, challenged, and judged against the letter of the law. A distorted fact, a failure to remember, the truth told unconvincingly, a stutter or two can all influence a verdict that brings irrevocable, life-changing effects to you and to others.

It is not surprising that such high drama is center stage in Pulitzer Prizewinning novels, Academy Awardwinning films, and television Emmy winners, as seen through such unforgettable characters as Captain Queeg, Atticus Finch, Daniel Webster, Perry Mason.

Bob Andreatta, however, is not a fictional character but a flesh-and-blood human being. In his late forties with thick, wavy black hair and dark-framed glasses, Andreatta was being subpoenaed by the Securities Exchange Commission to give testimony on charges of backdating stock options at Apple and Pixar.

When we first met him in San Francisco in 2013, the experience had been permanently etched in his mind. He didnt need a Hollywood writer to dramatize his telling of what hed gone through five minutes before he took the stand: My head was exploding, the pressure was so extreme. If I was indicted or found culpable in any way, my reputation would be ruined, my credentials taken away, my ability to work in a public company gone. I felt like I might end up living in a van down by the river. I was afraid to say the wrong thing. I felt this was it, I was on the line.

Bob Andreatta had faced a particularly harrowing high-pressure momentthe outcome was important to him, the outcome was uncertain, and he would be accountable and judged on the results. If there had ever been a time that Mr. Andreattas performance mattered, in his mind, that was it.

We all experience moments of extreme pressure in our lives, times in which we feel like Mr. Andreattawhen we have to deliver the goods or suffer dire consequences. For most of us, these moments create a sense of dread.

Over the last twenty years, the two of us, one as a psychologist, one as a high-performance coach, and both as researchers and consultants, have collected a great deal of information about how people experience pressure.

Our research has been conducted all over the world via workshops, seminars, business school presentations, clinical therapy, coaching sessions, and consulting activities with all sorts of organizations, including the US Navy and Army; the CIA; NASA; the Federal Reserve Banking System; the EPA; the FBI; the Department of Labor; the National Institutes of Health; the IRS; NBA and NFL teams, Olympic athletes, and other elite athletes; Fortune 500 companies such as Goldman Sachs, Chubb Insurance, IBM, Este Lauder, Avon, Intel, Merrill Lynch, SAP, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Medtronic, Prudential, Nationwide, State Farm, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, TRW, Hughes Aircraft, Hyatt, Microsoft, Pfizer, KPMG, and Fidelity; the Institute for Management Studies; the Security Industry Association; and the Young Presidents Organization.

We have also undertaken a multiyear study of individuals who are under pressure and asked this question: What is it about the top 10 percent of the twelve thousand people (the top twelve hundred) we studied that helps them handle pressure more effectively and receive the most promotions? This wasnt just anecdotal; we used cutting-edge 360 assessment to ascertain what these people did differently. This 360 or multi-rater assessment is a method of systematically collecting observations about an individuals behavior and performance from a wide range of sources including peers, direct reports, managers, customers, and even family and friends (see self-perception. Each of the twelve thousand people we studied was assessed by anywhere from six to fourteen people, so in total we had more than one hundred thousand people assess the twelve thousand subjects. We identified the top 10 percent based on their managers performance ratings from all who assessed them. In addition, each month, JPs organization, the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP), sends out short questionnaires to more than ten thousand individuals around the world, asking such questions as Do you feel you work better under pressure? Are you more concerned with failing in a pressure moment or more focused on succeeding in one? Responses from tens of thousands of individuals have helped us identify the pressure patterns and pressure management interventions.

Hendrie Weisinger developed the Weisinger Pressure Assessment and Inventory, a clinical assessment tool that provides important insights into how people experience, respond to, and can manage pressure more effectively (see for the full Pressure Inventory questionnaire).

Over the last fifteen years years, weve also sifted through vast amounts of research on every aspect of performing under pressure, drawing from social and cognitive psychology, sports psychology, neuroscience, and clinical psychology.

The bottom linepressure is the enemy of success: It undermines performance and helps us fail. When under pressure, air traffic controllers, pilots, and oil rig chiefs make errors in judgment. NBA players, World Cup soccer players, and champion golfers frequently miss their usual shot under pressure. ER doctors and nurses can make inappropriate decisions and incorrect diagnoses. Actors forget their lines, politicians forget their talking points or otherwise stumble and fumble. Corporate executives, managers, and sales professionals make poor decisions, and parents have less patience with their children. Pressure is more than a nemesis; it is a villain in our lives. Here are just some of the findings weve assembled over the last five years that well elaborate on throughout this book:

Pressure adversely impacts our cognitive success. There are many tools that make us successful. But at the top of the list are our judgment, decision-making, memory, and attention. Whether we are adding up numbers, identifying relevant data, analyzing information, listening to a client, or appraising a job applicant, pressure negatively impacts us. A financial advisor, a real estate agent, or an attorney under pressure to produce can do disservice to a client. Your son or daughter under pressure in the classroom may miss answers he or she knows on the midterm or final.