Is Inauthenticity Killing Your Performance?

Authenticity is one of the founding elements to any high performance culture - the extent to which people feel safe, supported and inclined to show up as their whole selves.

The costs of not being authentic, both individually and collectively, for both wellbeing and performance, are too important to ignore. But are we always aware of how and where inauthenticity shows up?

In this week’s episode of with INTENT: we provide a practical guide for you to live more in sync with your true self, exploring 3 key areas:

1. Pace of life
2. Personality traits
3.  and Values

By understanding ourselves better in these 3 key areas, we can intentionally build a working pattern that suits us better - allowing us to push out of these comfort zones and grow, whilst understanding what we need to recover.

Transcript

Chris: 0:00

Hey, Chris, a FROM:TODAY from and this week we're going to be talking about authenticity and the importance of it, individually and collectively. So Gabor Mate said that authenticity is part of every creature's essential being, but human beings are the only animals who, for social reasons, give up this authenticity, and the costs are huge. So are you being authentic? Sounds pretty loaded, doesn't it? You know, nobody wants to be considered inauthentic or fake, but it's a really important question and I ask it in a completely non-judgmental, curious way. I ask it of myself every day, because authenticity is just too important not to pay attention to. We talk about it all the time as a business, the extent to which people feel safe, supported and inclined to show up as their whole selves. It is one of the founding elements to a sustained, high-performing organisation, and I recently read a book by Professor David Pozen Authenticity a guide to living in sync with our true selves, and I thought it offered such great insight on authenticity stemming from physiology, psychology and philosophy. So the advice that I put together in this episode is for the individual, it's for you, and I picked out three key areas to raise awareness of how authentic we're being and to be aware of when we're being less so. They are our pace of life, our natural personality traits and our passions and values, and by raising our awareness of our in these three key areas, what we do is we can start to intentionally build a pattern of work that suits us better, and we can also push out of our comfort zones whilst understanding better how to recover. So let's get into it. Number one pace of life.

Chris: 1:55

The speeded up world in which we live represents a disruption to our natural rhythms. There is a conflict between biological time and artificial time. The constant demand for more more quickly generally makes us feel stressed and uncomfortable. It really does take its toll. Generally, we are finding that we have less time for people. We have less space for reflection, contemplation and lateral thinking. We're being less efficient. We're rushing and making mistakes, so the quality of our work really suffers. We have less time for each other and we are feeling chronically stressed out. 63% of the UK report being stressed at least weekly, and that is up from just over a third six years ago. So what does this have to do with authenticity? Well, quite simply, we're not living in sync with our natural rhythms. Don't wait for burnout to react. Be intentional. What can you do to get off of the merry-go-round and create pockets of space where you can pause and really be present. Is it going away from the desk to have a conversation with a friend, spending some quality time with a loved one, going for a walk, doing some breathing exercises, singing, doing something that you love, something that brings you into the present? It's not rocket science. Be intentional, make it your own and take back control.

Chris: 3:27

So number two, personality traits and, in particular, the fundamental, if often misunderstood, distinction between extroversion and introversion. So these are terms first coined by Carl Jung in 1921. It is simply a reference to where most of our psychic energy is directed inwards or outwards, subjective or objective. So, generally, more of an introvert's energy is directed to their own thoughts and feelings. Generally, more of an extrovert's energy is directed outwards, towards other people and the world, external stimuli. So a general awareness of where you fit on the spectrum can be incredibly helpful. Generally, better awareness leads to better decisions, certainly when it comes to living in sync with our authentic selves. So, generally, introverts recharge with space for solitude and reflection. Extroverts recharge and re-energize through interaction with other people and the external world. So, for example, if you're an introvert and you know that you're going to be having to do a lot of interaction in the coming week with people in busy environments, understanding that that might just take its toll. And what can you do to create those regular pockets for solitude and for reflection so you avoid exhaustion? And, on the other hand, if you're an extrovert and you know that the week coming up there's not going to be much collaboration, it's going to be quite solitary, focused work, what can you do to create those pockets of interaction so that you don't feel under stimulated? It really is all about getting the cortical centers at their optimal level of arousal. You can have a look at the blog for a bit more detail of that. But what this awareness is about, it isn't about creating conditions where you're constantly in your comfort zone. We all know it's really important to be able to push out of this, but what it can do is allow you, by understanding the toll that it can take, to create conditions where you can recover and avoid burnout. So what will you do to serve this better?

Chris: 5:41

Finally, point number three your passions and values. When we live our lives in a way that goes against our authentic values, it takes its toll. We generally feel uncomfortable and stressed. When we live our lives doing something that doesn't ignite our passions, we generally feel unhappy, uninspired and lacking in purpose somewhat. So spending some time whether it's through self-reflection, coaching, reading to raise our awareness of what makes us tick and what values are integral to us, can be incredibly important, really important work, because we could be living our lives in inauthenticity and being completely unaware. Maybe it's not in every area of your life, it probably won't be, but there could be some pockets, and the fewer pockets that there are where we feel unhappy, uncomfortable in our own skin, lacking in motivation and stressed out the better. So by raising these, you know, bringing these passions and these values to the surface and articulating them and having them visible, it empowers us to make better choices. So what will you do to better maintain this reflective work?

Chris: 7:00

So clearly, we can't cover this whole conversation about authenticity in this relatively short piece. There are wider conversations to be had around how organizations create environments where people feel safe, supported and inspired to show up authentically and to bring more of themselves to work. However, one of the best ways to get ready for these conversations and to prime ourselves for these conversations about authenticity is to start living more authentic lives ourselves, and maybe you're doing fantastically on that front. If so, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. But there might be some pockets where you feel that you could do better, certainly in those three key areas that I've highlighted. So my challenge to you is to work out what you will do as a result of this video. If you want to continue this conversation or you want some advice on how to implement some of these changes, we would love to hear from you. You can get in touch with me chris@ fromtodaycom, or simply get in touch on LinkedIn. I look forward to speaking to you soon. Bye-bye.