Further reading: Challenging Coaching, by John Blakey and Ian Day (Nicholas Brealy Publishing, 2012) - Dave Stitt

• What difficult conversation do you need to have but have been putting off because you don’t want to upset the other person? Idea • An ambitious delegation requires you to give lots of both support and challenge to the delegatee. Idea • Too much challenge is the Zone of Stress, burn-out and uneven results. Too much support is the zone of complacency and slipping standards. Too little of each is the zone of inertia, apathy, isolation and boredom.

Dweck believes that children’s mindsets are profoundly affected by how we praise them. What should be praised is not just success and signs of intelligence, but the application of the learning process – the effort, perseverance, strategizing, and resulting improvements. This fosters motivation and a sense for how success can be achieved. If we praise only successful results and other signs of intelligence, we may give the child a temporary confidence boost, but we may unwittingly be fostering a fixed mindset. The result is greater fragility, and a dependence on constant validation.

Frank Sinatra never moved pianos. He didn’t worry about lighting, stage sets, or ticket sales.