   Pitstop Meta-model
Re-modelling Performance to energize leaders and their teams in the realization of their full potential.
Leveraging inspiration from the performance-obsessed area of F1™ to engage Generations X, Y & Z.
Bringing to life the latest science & psychology of performance and potential using BIG data visualization techniques.
Video: 2.02 Mins.
Changing the way your team thinks about its performance
How to engage teams in their latest science and data on performance? The answer is the Pitstop Meta-model™ – a model as well as a metaphor for performance and potential. It is a totally new way to visualize performance data and engage teams in maximizing their performance potential.
Traditional models of business or performance, with their straight lines and square boxes, struggle to fire up the imagination or stir debate. See the examples below.
The Pitstop Meta-model™ does for business models what the Apple iPhone™ did for mobile phones. It makes them a lot more user-friendly and engaging, while also increasing their power to handle lots of data.
Traditional Models
Models are important in making sense of complex topics, such as performance. They visualize the many factors involved, including relationships and inter-dependencies.
Yet older models (shown below), with their straight lines and square boxes (although valuable) struggle to engage executives or visualize BIG data That includes models such as the McKinsey 7S or Porters 5 Forces.
Beyond Traditional Models
Here is a selection of some of the best and most familiar models. How many of them do you recognize?
Look under the diagram to see how many you identified.
While these models are important, their straight lines and square boxes often struggle to fire-up the imagination. It is difficult for abstracted models to come to life – to enter the conversation and change the narrative. Moreover, they are of little value in visualizing BIG data and bringing it to life.
The Pitstop Meta-model™ is different. Find out more about modelling performance here:
Answers:
| 1Â Aligning & Strategy Model (Frank Cespedes) 6Â Business Canvass (Ostewalder & Pigneur) 2Â Playing to Win Model (Lafley & Martin) |
4 Diamond Model by Don Hambrick & Jim Fredrickson3 Porter’s 5 Forces Model 5 Mc Kinsey’s 7 Ss |
Re-modelling Performance
Today we have a much deeper understanding of the many factors that impact on individual and collective performance, than at any time in the past. But it requires more than research papers and theories to engage busy executives with the science and psychology of performance.
That is why we have turned to F1™ to bring to life topics (such as team dynamics or organizational design). In particular the use of a next generation meta-model for performance inspired by the F1™ pitstop.
Based on extensive multi-disciplinary research, the meta-model revealing the source of almost 200 performance losses / gains.
New Insights
Executives engage with the Pitstop Meta-model during a pitstop>.
It is a great way of generating new energy and insight around topics such as organizational/team design, culture / team dynamics, leadership, execution and strategy.Â
The model is particularly powerful for management away-days, executive conferences, project reviews and team-building events. It is also used in leadership & skills development programs / workshops, with learning modules to accompany each part of the meta-model.
 
The Pitstop Meta-model™ has been developed to engage executives with 2 BIG ideas:
Performance Potential
There is a fascinating paradox.  It is that so many organizations are meeting (and indeed exceeding their targets) while their people are operating at between 50% and 70% of their full potential.  The data says that this is true of leading global corporations and internet start-ups alike. But, how can this be? Well that is the No.1 BIG idea from our research – the concept of Performance POTENTIAL.
Performance Losses
The average team is capable of up to 39% more – that number is derived from our research across 47 markets and 12 industries. Why does so much potential go unexploited (even in organizations that are hitting and exceeding their targets)? Well, the answer is Performance Losses – some 200 factors that prevent individuals and teams from realizing their full potential. Our research has focused on measuring, modelling and unlocking these losses.
Next-Generation Performance Modelling
Reasons the Pitstop Meta-model™ represents a major advance in the way leaders and think about performance.
Greater Sophistication
Deeper Insights into the Complexity of Performance
The Pitstop Meta-model™ provides un-paralleled insight into organizational and people performance potential.  Its visual clarity / appeal belies the level of depth and sophistication of the model.
The model is powered by a complex algorithm that analyzes almost 200 performance-related variables. Typically, that means 10,000 data points for a medium-sized business unit or team.
The Pitstop Meta-model™ is a model of 200+ variables and the first in the world to integrate behavioural dynamics and team design with business strategy and execution to transform performance losses into gains.
BIG Data Visualization
The Pitstop Meta-model™ is a key element of the Pitstop Analytics™ engine and is expressed mathematically in the pitstop algorithm. It is the means of visualizing the performance BIG data, bringing it to life and making it actionable.
Initially the meta-model was developed for its diagnostic power – that is its ability to explain and make sense of what has happened. However, as more and more data has been entered into the model, its accuracy has increased to the point where it can predict what will happen. It is now a predictive meta-model of performance, innovation and growth.
Improved Decision-making
The pitstop is a tool to improve group decision-making – it simplifies and accelerates decisions in respect of performance and growth.
Meta-model™ looks like no other model. It brings data on performance to life and tells a story. The result is new levels of insight, clarity & creative thinking.  Click to explore the model and its narrative.
The pitstop meta-model generates ‘cognitive ease’. It results in better analysis, more creative problem solving and improved decision making. The use of the model challenges assumptions and minimizes bias, especially in group decision-making (where it tackles conformity and group-think).
Combining Metaphor & Model
The pitstop combines the power of a metaphor with the clarity of a model – the result is a meta-model. Â
Metaphors have been described as ‘weapons of mass instruction’1. Their power lies in their ability to communicate complex ideas with few (if any) words, also in their ability to fire imagination and evoke emotion.
The use of metaphor re-frames2 the issue of performance so as to enable a discussion that is free of defensiveness, personalities or politics. It also results in more creative and holistic ‘right-brain’ thinking.
1 Anne Miller, ‘Metaphorically Selling’, Chiron Associates Inc, 2004.
2. Cognitive Reframing – creating a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives.
Multi-domain Modelling
Performance is complex and no one discipline has all the answers.  A multi-domain perspective is key to the robustness of the pitstop meta-model and process.
To complete the performance jig-saw the pitstop leverages the latest insights from the fields of social psychology & behavioral economics, as well as organizational design, group dynamics, strategy and execution.
Most important of all it is grounded not in academic theories but in the reality of organizations and teams.
A Psychological Model
 To engage with how people see the world – their mental model – is to engage with attitudes and behaviors at the most fundamental level.  To do this for a group or team is to accelerate change and innovation.
The Pitstop Meta-model™ enables leaders and their teams to arrive at a single shared view of reality. It also provides them with a neutral or ‘clean’ language that minimizes bias and defensiveness, thereby enable a deep dialog and breakthrough insights.
There is deep psychology behind the pitstop meta-model, including the concepts of cognitive re-framing and mental modelling.  The Pitstop Meta-model™ changes how people see things – that is their mental model or world view. It engages with how they see their organizations and teams, as well as their own role in it.  It makes people better systems thinkers, design thinkers too.
A Model for Engagement
The pitstop meta-model has enormous visual and intuitive appeal – regardless of demography or culture of the audience.  This is the result of careful and deliberate design and testing in use with hundreds of organizations and teams over many years.
Moreover, the process by which the pitstop meta-model is employed takes dialog, energy and engagement to the next level. Based on an Pitstop Engage-Change Model and Results-Based Learning. It also draws inspiration from methodologies to improve dialog and collective problem solving / innovation, such as; World Cafe,  Gestalt coaching and Strategic Conversations. A key objective is to create a safe environment for executives to open up and have honest, respectful and yet challenging dialog.
An Inspired Narrative
The meta model tells a story.  It has a number of embedded narratives with direct relevance to the performance of leaders and their teams. Inspired by F1™ the 4 central narratives are:
1. The changing basis for competition within an industry or sport (i.e. driver, machine and team)
2. The tale of two teams – the high performing team at the top of the model and poor performing team at the bottom
3. The role of pitstops – you can tell the potential of a team by what you see happening a pitstop
4. Every person has the potential to grow and contribute to the system they operate in.
These narratives are communicated via the model and told in the Growth Pitstop® and Pitstop to Perform™™ books.
 Click to explore the model and its narrative.
Did you know that our industry-leading analytics platform, called Pitstop Analytics, measures all of these things:
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