The capacity to find a measured response to any scenario is key to a thriving career. A measured response is the ability to act in the best possible way in a given situation. A measured response is about responding to an event with poise rather than reacting with haste. It is more likely to produce reason whereas reacting with haste often leads to regret.

There’s one underlying factor to enable a measured response becoming your default position.

Ability to see the bigger picture for your career:

Understanding your ‘big picture’ is central to a measured response to anything you face in your career. It helps you contextualise, and often trivialise, the issue at hand. However significant the challenge is, the ‘big picture’ helps you see it as simply another stepping stone en route to where you want to go.

Measured response in action:

Tennis fans have seen how a measured response can be the backbone to career ambition. Roger Federer, the Swiss tennis player, is the most successful player in the history of the men’s game. Federer is equilibrium personified. His poise is constant. Even when he does show emotion it tends to be a measured release.

Take that amazing exchange in the 2017 Australian Open Final against Spain’s Rafa Nadal. The epic point in the fifth set, with over 26 shots, was won by Federer. Most would roar with exultation upon winning the point (akin to the reaction you can hear from some of the commentator’s of the match). Federer simply gave a controlled ‘fist pump’.

Federer’s measured responses gives him the composure required to recover perilous positions in matches. And they allow him to remain grounded in his continued success.

The Queen of England’s speech during her 2011 visit to Ireland serves to show the powerful impact of a measured response through communication. The speech was the first ever on Irish soil by an English monarch in the history of the state. There was a huge significance to this speech, particularly given the storyline of historical conflict between the two nations. The opening to the Queen’s speech, “A Úachtaráin, agus a chairde” (which in Irish means, “President (of Ireland), and friends”) was a wonderful example of how a measured communicated response can create an incredibly positive outcome in a highly charged and emotive event.

This also serves as a reminder of just how important communicative poise is, especially in highly charged and emotive situations, to keep career targets on track.

A measured response is not taught in classes or in curriculum. It need not be. As knowing and connecting to your ‘big picture’ in your career is the catalyst for ensuring your measured response.

It will be the driving force behind your career goals.

E-mail: john@inspo.ie