Upshift: How to Turn Pressure into Performance and Crisis into Creativity

Upshift: How to Create Pressure Performance and Crisis Creativity

QTHERE ARE PROGRESSES. They always do. And a little of the accompanying stress is not good. We become distracted, discouraged, and unfulfilled. But with too much stress we become overwhelmed, and we just feel like shutting down. But in between is Challenge Zone.

International crisis management specialist Ben Ramalingam writes Upshift: Creating Pressure Performance and Crisis Creativitythat between the two extremes is the “sweet spot” where we experience a healthy level of stress.

We begin to move toward this sweet spot when we shift from viewing a stressful situation as a challenge rather than a threat. Here we start moving from left or right hand under par-performance sides to peak-performance zone. We click to be at the top of our game: at Upshifting.

Necessity is the mother of invention. “Evidence and experience suggest that most of the time, the pressure of demand actually drives us convention, not invention. When we’re under pressure, most of us want to be safe, tied down and tested. ” We really need three ingredients to take advantage REQUIREMENTS and return it to peak performance: Mentality, Originality, and Purpose. When all three are present, we have Upshift.

The Changing Mentality

The upshifting mentality is the switching process. We are all shaped over time by how we deal with stress. “A THREATS a stress that we feel we can’t handle, because we don’t feel we have the resources to meet the demands of the situation. How we see a circumstance in our mind determines how we react to it. We have thoughts anchored in beliefs that cause us to see stress as uplifting or debilitating. It’s a mental game. It is something we deliberately learn, practice, and improve.

Exposure to adversity in a moderate way develops the mindset we need to cope with future stressful situations and gives us more stress inoculation. We develop it naturally from early on through play-fighting.

Original Thinking Under Pressure

What we are looking for here is different thinking—the ability to explore many possible solutions to generate creative ideas. It is against convergent thinkingwhich is the process of finding the most effective answer to a problem.

Divergent thinking is more likely “when we see a situation as a challenge. Being in a state of challenge means we are more willing to explore possibilities. “

Purpose

The purpose of our lives creates meaning in our circumstances. All we need is not a stress-free state but, as Viktor Frankl stated, “the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by us.”

Harvard professor Teresa Amabile “found that in situations where pressure is unavoidable, you can get people to be creative by instilling a meaningful goal, where they have a sense of having an important, urgent need for the work they do. As Amabile said, ‘Most of the time we don’t have a choice about where the gun is. But if we want to be creative, we have to learn to dodge bullets.'”

Upshifting is not a given. It is a repeated set of behaviors that, over time, become ingrained habits, ways of thinking and relating, and, ultimately, a way of being.

Six Upshift Archetypes

As Ramalingam points out, “Upshifting builds our individual and distinctive problem-solving skills and styles.” He recognized six Upshift archetypeswhich he discusses in detail, sharing examples of individuals who share those characteristics.

They are:

Challengers— preferred by those of us who are adept at constructively disrupting the state of our environment. Social activist Rosa Parks.

Makers-understand and experiment with social, physical, and technological processes. Inventor Thomas Edison.

Combinations—Those who combine ideas from different fields and endeavors. Inventors the Wright brothers.

Connectors—creating bridges and networks between different types of people without a sense of social hierarchy. Revolutionary Paul Revere.

Corroborators—push for logical and critical thinking to prove that new ideas work—or not. Mathematician at NASA Katherine Johnson.

Conductors—orchestrating diverse minds to create change. president Abraham Lincoln.