Here, Judith Leary-Joyce - a psychologist, management consultant, executive coach, inspirational speaker and author of 'The Psychology of Success: secrets of serial achievement' - discusses how to make the most of yourself and your employees.

Zena Martin is a successful business woman. Highly experienced in the art of effective communication, she runs her own company helping business include the diverse culture that is the UK. Until recently, that is. Now she is setting up a new business, Cookieluscious, alongside Acknowledge Communications which she also founded.  This time she is making delicious American Cookies to tempt the taste buds of the UK!

Zena is a Serial Achiever – someone who continues to go from strength to strength in her life. Happy while she is stretching her talent and doing something she enjoys. And as soon as the shine starts to fade, she is looking for the next challenge.

Serial achievers are our entrepreneurs, free thinkers and thought leaders. They push the boundaries of life as they know it – it’s just who they are. If you are a serial achiever, you know the excitement and challenge this brings. You also know the discomfort of being bored or struggling to find the next move.

If you manage or lead serial achievers, you want to foster that driving, demanding energy that makes them so good in any business. They are full of new ideas, love their work and treat the company as their own. Above all, these are the people you really don’t want to lose.

Managing change with high achievers

Everyone goes through change and it’s never an easy process. For high achievers, change comes round more often and adds spice to life - but it is still pretty uncomfortable. But each time you go through the high achiever change process, you refine your ability to manage it and the process speeds up – you learn how to ‘do it’ and difficult times move more quickly to resolution.

There is a set pattern to the process:

Once you become a real expert in your work, challenge is reduced and you begin to feel restless. Something isn’t right, you don’t know what – you just know the spark has gone and that’s not good.

Acknowledging the fact, you immediately move into a time of exploration: reviewing what has happened – what you enjoyed or disliked about the recent tasks; looking at the options – which way you might want to go now; defining the opportunities and risks. This is the significant moment in change – the time when most learning takes place. This time of ‘incubation’ is the next experiment beginning to take shape; the time that delivers fresh ideas and offerings.

The incubation phase varies in duration. In early turns of the change cycle, the process is drawn out and uncomfortable as you manage the uncertainty and flounder in a sea of too many or too few ideas. You feel exhausted, with little free energy. As you become more skilled, the time spent exploring shortens and you even begin to enjoy the opportunity.

After reviewing, exploring and assessing for as long as it takes, the penny will finally drop and the next idea will come into focus. You know exactly where you are going and energy returns in spades. You are focused, determined and nothing is going to deflect you from making your idea work. This is what you have been working for, waiting for – the thrill of the chase, the challenge and excitement of a new direction. It will also be extremely demanding and take every ounce of energy, as you break down the barriers between yourself and your goal.

Once you fully understand what is involved, life begins to settle down and you gradually get on top of the business. Success follows and it all seems worthwhile. Until the challenge fades, restlessness pops its head over the horizon – and it all begins again.

Managing your own change process

Given the entrepreneurial joy in a new idea or opportunity, it is tempting to jump over incubation and back into any action. This will work sometimes, but remember – the stimulus to withdraw is driven by something new struggling to emerge. It takes thinking time, time to brew and develop. Accepting that makes the time more precious and productive. So:

Give yourself time - you can carry on with what you were doing, just leave space to think, find good listeners to talk to, use the web, read. If you feel you are getting stuck, ask for help – a great attribute for a serial achiever - you don’t need to know it all, you just need to find someone who does!

Find companions – this is when all that networking will really pay off. Join forces with someone else in exploration, work with an executive coach, find yourself a mentor. Look for partners who are excited by the same things. Go wide in your thinking and look for any links or connections that might work and grow the idea further.

Explore your core talent – everyone has at least one core talent and it drives their success. Working to your talent is so exciting – you are in flow, time just disappears and you do a really good job. Think about times when you’ve felt like this and distil down what you were doing. We are not talking skill here, you can learn skills. Core talent is something you do naturally – you may even take it for granted, so familiar is it. Once identified, align your work to it and increase your chances of success ten fold.

Managing serial achievers

Employing serial achievers is great for business. It is also challenging and needs managers who are on their toes. How easy to be irritated by the grumpy, stolid times of incubation, seeing it as lack of interest or focus, when in fact it is new ideas brewing and developing. This is exactly when you are most likely to lose good people. Unless they feel challenged and encouraged by you, knowing their ideas will be welcomed, they will look elsewhere for the stimulus they need.

As a manager you need to:

Build strong relationships - get to know your people well, so you spot when changes occur and have the relationship that enables discussion about their ideas and thoughts.

Identify the core talent – work it out together and make sure you use it well. Use it to balance your team – co-ordinating talents leads to great team work.

Always tell the truth – there is no advantage in backing off tough conversations. If a person is not performing, you have a problem, so talk honestly about it and take action. No one is happy doing a bad job. When mistakes are made, use it as good learning and support the experimentation. If the same mistakes happen again, then deal with the performance issue.

Provide challenge and support – keep them stretched, but knowing that they can ask for help when needed. Get the balance right and they will love their work!

Success comes from core talent used to the full throughout life. Whether working or just having a good time, it will take you into many different arenas with great effect. So expect the up’s and down’s, take learning from every step and the delight of challenge will keep growing.

Judith can be contacted on judith[at]judithlearyjoyce.com