Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.7
EAN num: 9780375500077
ISBN number: 0375500073
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: December 21, 1999
Publishing house: Random House
Release Date: December 21, 1999
Sale Popularity Level: 234807
Studio: Random House
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Since the publication some two decades ago of his bestselling The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, Timothy Gallwey has come to believe that those books' overriding principle--eliminate negative internal interference to bring about positive self-change--is applicable to virtually any activity. Now, in The Inner Game of Work, he applies that principle to the arena where the biggest turn-of-the-millennium game of all is being played. 'We are constantly told that we live in an age of change,' Gallwey writes, 'and nowhere are we told more frequently that we have to change than in the workplace.' As on the court and the course, he contends, those changes necessary to survive and thrive can be effectively realized by quieting our inner doubts and learning to rely on our own natural instincts and behavior.
How does Gallwey suggest we do this? His method is twofold: 'focus of attention ... the quintessential component of superior performance in every activity' and 'clarity of desire behind the focus.' Through example and clear instruction, he shows how to minimize self-distracting thoughts that serve to undermine our confidence in the workplace and similar settings, and subsequently to begin 'playing in the zone' like elite athletes who have learned to visualize their goals unerringly and proceed unremittingly (and almost unconsciously) in their pursuit. It will take no small amount of dedication to put these ideas into practice, but those who do should find that Gallwey's advice relates as well to the working world as it does to the sporting world. --Howard Rothman
Product Description:
Do you think it's possible to truly enjoy your job? No matter what it is or where you are? Timothy Gallwey does, and in this groundbreaking book he tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.
Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack. For the past twenty years Gallwey has taken his Inner Game expertise to many of America's top companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, Apple, and IBM, to teach their managers and employees how to gain better acess to their own internal resources.
What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness. And if your work environment has been turned on its ear by Internet technology, reorganization, and quickly accelerating change, this book offers a way to steer a confident course while navigating your way toward personal and professional goals.
The Inner Game of Work teaches you the difference between a rote performance and a rewarding one. It teaches you how to stop working in the conformity mode and start working in the mobility mode. It shows how having a great coach can make as much difference in the boardroom as on the basketball court-- and Gallwey teaches you how to find that coach and, equally important, how to become one. The Inner Game of Work challenges you to reexamine your fundamental motivations for going to work in the morning and your definitions of work once you're there. It will ask you to reassess the way you make changes and teach you to look at work in a radically new way.
'Ever since The Inner Game of Tennis, I've been fascinated and have personally benefitted by the incredibly empowering insights flowing out of Gallwey's self-one/self-two analysis. This latest book applies this liberating analogy to work inspiring all of us to relax and trust our true self.'
--Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
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Rated by buyers -
This book presents a fundamentally different view on working and learning. This other view leads to more pleasure, better performance and more effective learning in work. The ideas in this book are so powerful and relevant and Gallwey describes them so clearly that it seems virtually impossible nót to apply them. Gallwey's core message is: the traditional way in which we try to improve ourselves and our performance -through (self-)instruction and supervision- blocks what we try to achieve. To be more specific: an instructive, controlling approach to performance improvement does not lead to better but to worse performance!
After Gallwey finished his English study at Harvard University in the nineteen seventies, he went to work as a tennis coach. Doing that, he discovered that nearly all his pupils tried very hard to improve one aspect of there play that they did not like, for instance their backhand. They expected Gallwey to give them the remedy for their problem. First, this was exactly what he did: "hold your racket like this, stand there, hit the ball then", etc. He instructed pupils but noticed that they showed resistance to his instructions and that their learning did not go well. Then he noticed, to his surprise, that the performance suddenly was better when pupils stopped trying so hard to correct their mistakes but instead just played tennis for fun. Based on this observation that the 'forced mode' of learning was less effective than the `natural' mode Gallwey built his approach. His book `The Inner Game of Tennis' became a bestseller.
Gallwey proposed that the ineffective, instructive dialogue between coach and pupil also existed within the head of the pupil. While playing, the pupil continuously gave himself instructions and comments: "that was really bad, hold your racket like this, do this, don't do that" etc. Gallwey called the coach inside the pupils head SELF-1. In Gallwey's words: SELF-1 is the collection of internalised voices from the outside world. To whom then did this internal coach speak? According to Gallwey it spoke to the person him or herself. He called this spoken-to self the SELF-2. The best learning took place when SELF-1 was turned off. How is this possible? Gallwey's answer: While SELF-1 is busy giving vague and (too) simple instructions, SELF-2 is doing something infinitely more complex and precise: computing the curve of the ball, instructing muscle groups, taking into account the wind speed, the speed of the ball, etc.
Gallwey concluded that SELF-1 was a from of interference that led to nothing else than an underutilization of the person's potential. In other words: Performance = Potential - Interference. In still other words: don't let SELF-1 distract you from your task and goal!
Gallwey formulated a different, more effective and more elegant way of coaching aimed at achieving three things: 1) Awareness: by letting SELF-2 do its work the pupil can focus on collecting information on the critical variables in the task (where is the ball landing? How fast is it going? How is it influenced by the wind? etc) which leads to a greater awareness of the task; 2) Choice: it is essential that the pupil determines what he or she wants to achieve. Without this choice there is no direction and focused attention is impossible; 3) Trust: trust yourself. This goes for both the coach and the pupil. This refers to the confidence that SELF-2 will be capable of fulfilling the task.
Galwey gradually started to apply his approach to others field that tennis: golf, skiing, music and ...work. He noticed that the effects were the same. For instance: a salesman who stopped instructing and commenting himself became more effective. In seminars Gallwey draws a triangle with on the corners the words: performance, learning en enjoyment. Gallwey claims that each of these are of great importance in work and that they are dependent on each other. When you neglect enjoyment, this will eventually also lead to performance problems. What Gallwey says about the relationship between performance and learning is interesting. Performance leads to an observable change in the external world. Learning, however, establishes a change within the person who learns. It is precisely because of this that learning results are hard to measure. Enjoymentis important according to Gallwey because it refers to the relationship the person has to him or herself. If you appreciate yourself, you won't deny yourself enjoyment for a prolongued period.
Since his discovery Gallwey's most important ambition has been to let himself and others enjoy the freedom to express in their work who they really are and what they really want. He says that human freedom is nowhere more constrained than in the world of work. Nowadays, the most prevailing experience of work even seems to be: someting I'd rather not be doing if I had a choice. Gallwey says that striving for freedom ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
The true achievement of Timothy Gallwey is his 'putting his finger on the exact, right spot'. Not only the spot where our barriers in achieving our full potentials lie, but also on how to evade and avoid these barriers. His book on Work (after his books on Tennis and Golf) is very well written. Through his natural flowing writing style he is able to establish a paradigm shift with the reader. Then, throughout the book, he keeps the reader firmly attentive to 'the inner game' paradigm and makes the subject come alive using theory and stories as building blocks. Once you have read this book, you will never look at achievement the same way. Not for yourself nor for anybody else. This book is an absolute must-read for all modern workers providing understanding of how true fun, learning and achievement works from-the-inside-out. Do not be surprised though when this book will also positively impact your view on, and handling of, many other aspects of life outside your work. Get it; you will not be disappointed.
Rated by buyers -
This book deserves more than five stars, because it explains how you can be most effective in learning, gaining experience, and achieving higher performance. The principles are based on Mr. Gallwey's earlier successful coaching experiences and books about the inner games of tennis and golf. That may sound like an unlikely way to approach becoming more effective at work, but it is unusually effective for those who have ever played tennis or golf by providing a visceral point of reference.
I could immediately relate to the book's ideas, because both my tennis and golf performances are hindered by the critical stream of commentary that flows in my head as I play these sports. Occasionally, I quiet the criticism and I play much better.
To me, the explanation of how to help someone improve their tennis or golf games, or do their work better was a real eye opener. If you encourage someone to simply notice what is going on during the performance of the act (where they strike the ball relative to their feet in tennis, the lie of the ball in golf, or the important circumstances of the work environment), the person will quickly and easily find their own solutions to becoming more effective. That made sense to me because I have been operating without taking golf lessons for about a year and a half now, and many parts of the game have improved in major ways. I have taken charge of making my own diagnoses of what I need to do differently, and have learned a lot that I did not grasp from taking lessons. That experience validated the author's approach for me.
The other reason it made sense is that in my own coaching activities with business executives about their work, I always find that people know the answer to their own issues if you can give them a more helpful focus to open their minds and help them recall information that they have observed in other contexts. That is exactly the coaching method that Mr. Gallwey describes in this book.
The model here is that our conscious minds tend to focus on harmful criticism that provides limited useful information about what we should be doing. On the other hand, our subconscious minds are very good at directing us when we let loose of the chatter from our conscious minds.
Mr. Gallway takes that observation and builds methods to help you set inspiring, authentic, and meaningful goals for learning, gaining experience, and becoming more productive. He gives you tools to shift you focus away from the concerns of the conscious mind, and how to coach others to do the same in their learning. He then links all of this to creating conscious choices to change your direction and behavior in ways that serve you better. To make this last step easier, he provides several alternative perceptual analogies to encourage you. The book has a series of effective exercises you can do to pursue those analogies. The book also provides many examples drawn from the author's consulting experiences to help bring the points home. I am sure that many of these will strike a familiar bell with you.
I plan to cite this book in my future writing, because it is an important contribution to how we can reestablish the wonderful learning capability we all had as children, in a way that is appropriate for adults.
Be sure to share this book with others you care about so you can learn to coach each other, as a way to reinforce your progress toward nonjudgmental learning. That will be a 2,000 percent solution for you both!
I also suggest that you reread this book from time to time . . . especially if you find that you are not accomplishing things as easily and as joyfully as you would like.
Rated by buyers -
The Inner Game of Work is the best book I've read yet on creating an environment in the workplace for optimal learning and productivity. Thanks to this book, I now see how the 8 hours each day I spend at work can be personally fufilling instead of a chore. He points out how I can actually integrate my experience at work to acheive my personal development goals. This book provided the tools I need to maintain my quality of life at work independent of the negative situations that inevitably occur in the workplace. I have shared this book with many people at work. Some have remarked that they are feeling the culture at work beginning to shift. People remarked that they are feeling more purposeful and less stressed. I highly recommend The Inner Game of Work.
Rated by buyers -
This book is unique from the many others on how to succeed at work, management, leadership, even life. All of the rest either give you great "principles" and urge you to pursue a higher purpose at work, or they are "packed with great ideas" for doing it better. This book is different because it is not preaching a principle or trying to sell you on the newest work fad.
This book gave me the insight, in simple terms, to learn my way of living up to any principle I choose, and then to determine if it really is a good principle for my work or the kind of leader I want to be.
The book teaches you how to work with your own best inherent desires and abilities in order to develop all the ideas, successful habits and best practices you will need. Not someone else's that they self-righteously prescribe for you, but your own genuine best.
So this is not about trying to implement the latest fad in how to be a highly successful professional and leader. This book is about a simple, elegant way of discovering and learning to be your best.
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