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AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK

Mark was recently asked about various aspects of his work. This interview looks at his and Higher Power Production's approach to a range of both workplace and personal development issues

• What distinguishes your approach from other training organizations?
We aim to promote lasting performance improvement and life satisfaction by offering solutions that work from the inside out.

Many training programs start from a presumption of lack which assumes that skills and abilities can and must be layered on to supplement and compensate for this so called lack.

I've had great success with concentrating first on clearing out some of the things that are preventing us from becoming what we want to be that prevents us from achieving the results we want. It's an "inside job." It's the "horse before the cart," if you will. It's only after this process of clearing out of what's in our way, that we are ready to take a look at what skills and techniques we might enlist to help us get on with our lives and our work.

• What are some of the things that you think need clearing?
I think a lot of the challenges we face come to us as a consequence of the history we all carry. Resentments, feelings of shame, of inadequacy, knee jerk reactions to things that are symbols of the problem, as opposed to the problem itself.

These problems come from beliefs we adopted about life and ourselves when we were too young to consider the validity and usefulness of them. Often these beliefs remain with us, and later in life, they trigger emotions which lead to behaviours that stand in our way.

These beliefs, ways of being, reacting, and interacting with ourselves and others were developed in the context of our families, and may have been appropriate and even useful at the time. The world does not operate within the same perimeters or dynamics that most of our families did. Behaviours and negotiating skills we learned from our families many times are counter-productive to getting us the results we seek from the larger world.

But for most of us, our way of being has become transparent to us and as such, it is hard for us to understand that changing these systems of belief is not only possible, but in many cases it is imperative to our development in both our personal and working lives.

HIGHER POWER PERFORMANCE TRAINING aims to create a positive, comfortable training environment in which people are freed to consider their systems of belief, and what new approaches might get them the results they want and deserve.

• So you re saying that these kinds of issues affect people in their working lives and personnas?
Certainly! The workplace had long demanded that we grow-up , that we leave our histories, our problems, and our personalities at the door, and in my opinion, these requests are simplistic, possibly to the point of delusional. Wherever we go, we are there. We do not leave anything at the door. It all comes with us! We may have become skilled in repressing ourselves and our impulses, but eventually we find ourselves acting out our repression often in counterproductive ways. In turn, these outbursts are ignored, met with disciplinary measures or acknowledged with bemused questions like "Why can't we all just get along?"

• Is the workplace an appropriate forum for therapy?
Not at all. I'm advocating dealing with people's issues in a training environment so as to avoid the need for greater damage control down the road on the one hand, and upgrading performance improvement in a lasting way on the other.

What we're talking about is not only healing with the individual on an "inside out" basis - but the organization as well.

How can you expect a colleague to apply the principles from a one day "active listening" seminar if they feel they haven't been listened to for years?

How can you expect a manager to absorb and effectively use coaching and team-leading techniques demanding initiative and pro-activity, if she or he is terrified that they're just going to be made wrong anyway, and are too frightened to speak up about this?

"Pro-active" techniques taught to those in an environment not managed on that basis become superficial solutions that, in my opinion, serve as much to compound the problem, as address it.

• Surely some skill-level training is better than none at all?
Not always. I have often found that feelings of frustration, disappointment and low self-esteem increase if the employee is told that a two day workshop will solve most, if not all the problems they are encountering in their working day. This kind of promise externalizes the problem and raises expectations that cannot possibly be met.

I prefer to concentrate on offerings that have a chance of sticking because they've been built on a solid foundation of self-acceptance and understanding. Lasting performance improvement can only be accomplished from "the inside out" - first and foremost by becoming the type of person and organization that can create and realize the results we seek. Only by becoming a motivating organization from the "inside out," by becoming the type of person people naturally want to follow, by becoming a person who is capable of effective communication - only then will added techniques and skills learnt from training programs become effective.

HIGHER POWER PERFORMANCE TRAINING accomplishes this by creating tailored training, coaching, consulting, and mentoring opportunities encouraging first and foremost, becoming the type of person and organization that can realize HIGHER POWER PERFORMANCE.

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