Habituating peak performance: A quick peek at the PEAK scoring matrix.

I’m juggling a whole bunch of ideas I call ThriversEd, a sort of pre-pre-school curriculum for very young children – say 18 through 72 months, with the sweet spot being the Toddler years, ages 2 to 5.

How can anyone do a curriculum for people who can’t talk yet? Hide and watch.

Here’s a piece of it, a scoring matrix, and this can apply to any sort of evaluation, not just kid stuff.

I call it PEAK, which is acronymic for Proficient, Efficient, Appealing and Kind.

In ThriversEd, anyone can do a PEAK scoring of any work of the mind, with the goal being to provide feedback, thus to goad improvement over time.

Hence, each evaluation matters, as does the aggregate of all of the evaluations, but the score that will matter most, over time, will be the relative change in evaluations. By doing many presentations, over time, each Thriver will be able to coach his own growth.

The PEAK score is broken down in these proportions:

Proficient = 10% of the final score
Efficient = 20% of the final score
Appealing = 30% of the final score
Kind = 40% of the final score

The DISC strategy behind that could not be more bald: We are scoring, every time, for Doing, Showing, Sharing and Scrupling. The fact of getting the whole job done will promote Driven and Cautious virtues, but working hard for the Incandescent and Sociable values will repay effort. Each individual is induced, over time, to work harder where he is weakest, with everyone being gently and gradually moved toward the Ds/Sd DISC alignment.

Here’s a way of evaluating the evaluation categories:

A work is proficient when it does what it sets about to do. It is efficient when it does that job in a way that seems most logical and direct – maximal payoff with minimal waste. It is appealing when it delights the senses and the mind. And it is kind when it deepens human connections.

I anticipate kids doing presentations and demonstrations – like Toastmasters For Toddlers, one minute per each year of age – but this scoring matrix makes sense in any application. Moreover, you can goose the percentages to reward the results you’re looking for – perhaps inverting the proportions when evaluating accountants, for example. And while my plan is to work with Toddlers, the most eminently teachable people, anyone can get better at anything with practice.

I haven’t put this to the test yet, but I think this is a way of habituating peak performance – for life.

I started with a firm place to stand. PEAK is one plank in the lever I’ve been shaling for…