On Confidence

I'm back from the USA. It was a great holiday, thanks. But very active - so now I need a holiday!
I love sport (watching not playing) and especially US sport. I managed to go to my first live NFL match in New York, and we also were lucky to be in Boston for the parade for the World (!!!) Series champions the Red Sox. Great experiences. New Yorkers are so unlike the rest of the US. The rest is sunny and optimistic, New Yorkers are more like us cynical Europeans. The poor old quarterback for the Jets was booed by the crowd within 15 minutes of the match starting. You could sense the confidence draining out of the team, and, of course, they just played worse and worse as the afternoon wore on.
Confidence is a funny thing, and watching sport gives the most clear visualisation of how fundamental it is to success. We have all seen sports teams playing beyond their limits and other teams below their potential. The US commentators talk a lot about momentum, but for me the root issue is confidence.
Another experience sent me to the same place, and that was the JF Kennedy library in Boston. Flawed of course, but what a leader that guy was! So many of the film clips and quotes from the exhibits were moving, in their far sighted brilliant inspiration and relevance to today. It was amazing how he always talked of the future not the past, in optimistic tones rather than pessimistic ones. The outcome could be said to have been for the US to rediscover collective confidence, and to feel empowered to exercise it.
This all linked to one of my hobby horses about the business world, which is that confidence is probably the biggest driver to performance. This applies at corporate level - what a great job Jeroen van der Veer has done for us in systematically rebuilding Shell's confidence from the floor, but of course we have some way to go, and for example this wrong-headed obsession with copying Exxon is just one manifestation of lack of confidence.
Most of us can't do much about Shell's confidence at macro level. But it is probably the single biggest thing we can work on at micro level, most obviously as line managers but true for all of us. When I look at myself and ask when I have performed well or badly, there is a massive fit to my level of confidence at the time.
The optimum level of confidence is quite high, so usually the biggest challenge is to grow confidence, but I'm one of those people who also occasionally overshoots. When I'm too confident I start behaving inappropriately and doing terrible damage, most notably to my own career, so there is too much of a good thing.
So, assuming that too little is more often a problem than too much, what can we do to grow confidence in individuals and teams? The boss has a big role to play. Most of the other factors - underlying competence, health and well-being, current situation - we can't do much about, but the boss (and colleagues) can do a lot.
Nowadays as a boss I try to place a large emphasis on building the confidence of my team. Most clearly this applies to new team members as they get familiar with the work and bed in. I still don't think I'm great at it - I'm afraid I'm new much of a cynical New-Yorker type - but I know I have improved and I know it has made a massive difference.
What are the tips to be able to improve people's confidence? It is not rocket science. For me the critical thing was the realisation that confidence was the goal, then trying to use common sense to create it rather than destroy it. Some recognition, some hand-holding, some choice of activities, some expectation setting. Pairing people up and buddying has been very helpful. A recruitment process designed to bring people in on day one with maximum confidence has been important. Trying to reduce the risk of humiliation or reason for fear (not my strong suit). Encouraging risk taking with a safety net. A strong team spirit with mutual support. I guess all the things the smart sports coaches do.
Personally I think this is a big opportunity for us as leaders and structurally. I'm not claiming to be any good, merely to have the insight of spotting a good lever and trying to pull it to the best of my ability. But structurally, what about a key HR goal to maximise the % of staff operating at optimum confidence level, measured by survey? I don't see much in guidance or systems to help now, and maybe if we started measuring it we would come up with some improvements.
Oh, and give the floor on this one to people from the US... but from somewhere other than New York!