Getting it right…

I love stories about superior performance.  Behind the accomplishment (which everyone sees) lies the effort; the practice; the coaching; and the commitment (which only the performer sees). 

Success is uncommon and not to be enjoyed by the common man.  I'm looking for uncommon people because we want to be successful, not average… Steve Kerr of the Chicago Bulls shot five hundred free throws a day to make himself uncommon.

Tony Dungy

Superior performance is easily associated with sports.  Athletes’ accomplishments are televised; commentated on; entered into databases for the data analytic aficionados.  Yet uncommon success spans every walk of life.  Perhaps even those behind the data analytics:

    Jean P's story illustrates both the irrelevance of average and the growth potential of talent.

    For data entry roles, the national performance average is 380,000 keypunches per month, or 19,000 per day.  Many companies use an average performance measure like this to determine how many data entry employees they need to hire... the top-performing data entry employees make a mockery of the national average...

    Jean P. is one such employee.  When she was first measured, she averaged 560,000 punches per month, already 50 percent above the national average.  She was recognized (by her manager) for her performance...

    ... Three months later she hit a million keypunches...  A couple of weeks later, Jean checked ... and saw that she had managed 112,000 keypunches in one day...  She and her manager put a plan together, and six months later she soared past 2 million.

    Jean became a model for her role.  Her manager spent time watching her, asking her why she loved her work so much ... He designed a talent profile to find more like her and a compensation plan to reward her excellence.  Today, Jean's personal best is 3,526,000 keypunches in a month, and the average of all the data entry employees working around her is over a million."

Marcus Buckingham

I’d call that superior performance!

Uncommonness isn’t always scored or commentated on.  In his book, Getting Past No ©, William Ury shared his passion for performance:

In working on successive drafts of this book, I often felt like the opera tenor whose finale was greeted with enthusiastic, cries of Encore! Encore!  After the fifth encore, the tenor asked the audience, 'How many more times do you want me to sing?'  And the answer came back: 'Until you get it right!'

Ah yes…  getting it right.  Uncommon performers share that standard; a passion for getting it right.  No matter how long it takes.  No matter what the effort entails.  Uncommon performers are driven. 

Perhaps you can relate because you’ve achieved a level of uncommon success in something you’re passionate about even if it’s not televised, scored, or entered into a data analytics database.

Here’s a Mile Hi Salute for your uncommon, off the charts, performance and all the effort behind the scenes it takes to get it right!

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Facial expressions…

To this day my wife reminds me to watch my temperament.  You see, when I get into a dispute – it shows.

Of course, my contention is it’s an argument and I should show displeasure.  Otherwise, it would simply be a conversation.  (No, that doesn’t work with her. HaHa!)

How about you?  When you get into a quarrel does it show on your face?  Or, do you maintain more of a peace maker’s disposition?  I know it depends on the situation:

There is a saying that an appeaser is someone who believes that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will eventually become a vegetarian.

William Ury

The other side may look like this:

Braxton Bragg's irascibility was legendary, he argued with everyone including himself.

Robert I. Girardi

Sometimes we just have to stick up for ourselves.  It can be a delicate matter when the quarrel is with an unreasonable boss:                       

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Unknown Sage

Thankfully, in my career I worked for managers who accepted my willingness to fight for my position; and my people.  Except once… during the single worst business meeting of my entire, 40+ year career.

Russ Deloach was VP of Sales for ADP’s Major Accounts segment back in the day.  I was a Major Accounts Sales Manager.  I was “participating” (aka being “inspected”, aka facing “interrogation”) during an “Ops Review” Russ was infamous for.   The word irascible comes to mind when I think of Russ’ approach.  Coincidentally, it was also the year the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was enacted.

Sure enough; two of my sales people requested FMLA leave to start their families.  Beyond that, they each requested returning part-time (3 days per week) so they could spend more time with their children.

The leave was a legal provision; returning part time was at my “discretion”.  Russ Deloach didn’t agree with either the leave nor the flexibility of their return.  Weakening my position, my sales team was under quota.  Further, I did a poor job of getting my Division VP of Sales, John Harris, to support me. 

So there I was; out on the proverbial limb; arguing with the top sales executive of the company before the term “family friendly” was accepted.

Thankfully, the VP of Sales Operations, Tom McSweeney, Russ’ “right hand man” who just happened to be my friend, finally stepped in to rescue me.  Tom queued me to shut up and check my facial expressions; Russ finished berating me; I licked my wounds; my sales reps returned to work after their leave (part-time); and my team eventually returned to over-quota performances.

At ensuing President’s Club celebrations my wife continued reminding me to check my facial expression every time I was around Russ.

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Stressed?

Seems like stress is the new normal these days, true?  Stress at home; at work; in the media; I think we’re surrounded.  The good news is we can handle stress regardless of the cause:

Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there".

Eckhart Tolle

At work, companies have been stressing us with unrealistic performance expectations for years.  I get it. After rising to the top, many executives want to leave their mark.  It’s not the business goals that cause us stress; it’s the extremes our leaders want us to go to reach them:

Goals...Business school professors suggest they should come with their own warning label: 

Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation.  Use care when applying goals in your organization.

Daniel H. Pink            

It can be difficult to get motivated when one of our leaders sets an unrealistic goal.  It’s OK though.  There are many skilled and experienced employees at our companies who know better:

Or as Fred Brooks, the droll engineering genius from North Carolina who led the project, once wrote, “the bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.”

Thomas J. Watson Jr.

Truthfully though, we are capable of raising our level of performance to match the challenges of our time.  We come from generations before us who succeeded.  We may not all be entrepreneurs like Phil Knight was when Nike was a fledgling start-up, but we’re up to meeting our challenges – we have no choice:

The cowards never started and the weak died along the way.  That leaves us…

Phil Knight

So here’s to raising our level of performance while keeping stress at bay.  Someday we will be “there” where stress will be merely a mile marker memory on our path to success.   

GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.