Category Archives: Fitness

Best Measure of Performance

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The best measure of performance is performance. – Lee Thayer

Fitness. A team can have all the necessary elements, but if they don’t have fitness, they will not be able to pull off the strategy. My colleagues get that blank stare when I talk physical fitness. The eyes glance from side to side. “He’s not talking about… being fat, is he?”

If the project calls for a ten hour day, can you work it and then go home with enough energy to be with your family? No way, unless you are in shape. Yes, physical fitness, exercise and nutrition.

And mental fitness.

  • Create four alternative solutions to every question, to make sure we include unlikely possibilities.
  • Create an argument for the other side when this side seems so obvious.
  • Pull the team together for fifteen minutes to make sure we “check-in” before we make a major decision.
  • Discipline – use a consistent mental process for problem solving and decision making.
  • Discipline – focus on a single task until it is complete.
  • Discipline – follow-up on due date projects.
  • Discipline – have the difficult conversation when it is easy to avoid the confrontation.

Physical discipline and mental discipline go together, critical for execution. Most companies do a fair job of planning and organizing. But effectiveness is all about execution, physical and mental discipline. I will take a mediocre plan well executed, anytime, over a great plan that is poorly executed. Where does your team stand on the fitness scale?

The Limit of Minimum

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Physical strength is built by pushing the limit to the maximum, breaking the micro-strands in muscle. The repair of the micro-strands builds the muscle, makes it stronger.

Mental strength is built by pushing the limit to the maximum. The experience of mental pushing is moving from comfort to discomfort. We learn the most when we leave the familiar to discover the unfamiliar, when we shift from the land of certainty to the land of uncertainty.

We still need time to repair. Mental repair is called integration. Mental repair is integrating the new experience from the land of uncertainty with things familiar that we know. Integration builds mental strength.

Pushing to the maximum requires risk and discipline. Sometimes the risk looms too large and discipline too hard. So, all we do is the minimum. And, if all we do is the minimum, pretty soon, our minimum becomes our maximum.

Can’t Always Get What You Want

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[Our online program – Hiring Talent 2018 kicks off April 16. More information here]

You will never ever get what you want!!! You will only get what you focus on.

At first I am disappointed, because I really want what I want. And, it makes me feel bad to understand that I will never get what I want.

If I really want it, I have to focus on it.

“It is really hard to find good people these days. We just never seem to hire the kind of people we really want.”

YOU WILL NEVER EVER GET WHAT YOU WANT! You will only get what you focus on.

It’s not that you can’t find good people out there. You have not focused your concentration and energy to find good people. What does focus look like? Think about finding good people, talk about finding good people, have meetings about finding good people, plan a campaign to find good people. Roll out an action plan to find good people.

You will never get what you want. You will only get what you focus on.

Habits Help, Habits Hurt

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“But habits can help and habits can kill,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” Muriel replied. “We just talked about how competence and habits go hand in hand.”

“Yes, they do and like many things, your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness.” I could see Muriel’s face scrunch up, mixed in resistance and curiosity.

“Competence requires a set of habits. Habits help us, habits hurt us. Think about a new problem that must be solved, like that change in production last month.”

Muriel winced. “I know, I know. We practiced hard on producing that left element. We were really good at it, and it was difficult. Then we got the machine. Using the machine was even harder, so my team kept doing it manually. Someone even sabotaged the machine configuration that kept it out of the loop for two days. All in all, it took us three weeks to become competent on the machine, when it should have taken only five days.”

“Habits can sometimes be a powerful force in resisting change. Habits are grooves in the way we think. They can be helpful, but sometimes, we have to get out of the groove and it’s tough.” -Tom

Competence and Habits

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“How are habits connected to competence?” I asked.

Muriel looked at me and remembered. It was a short trip down memory lane. “When I first became a manager,” she started, “I was awful. I thought I was such a hot shot, walking around telling everyone what to do. Within a couple of weeks, productivity in my department was at an all time low, and I couldn’t figure it out.

“So, I started asking questions. Instead of telling my team how to do the work more efficiently, I began asking them how they could do the work more efficiently. I didn’t do it very often, but when I did, remarkable things happened. Over time, I got better at asking questions. Practice. Practice makes permanent. Now, asking questions is a habit.”

“So, describe the competence connected to the habit?” I pressed.

“The competence is challenging my team. Challenging them to higher levels of performance, productivity, efficiency.”

“So, competence is about acquiring a new habit.”

Routine Grooved Behaviors

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“I understand,” Marietta replied. “I got it. The way you explained it, now I know what to do.”

“You understand, in one part of your brain, but in the heat of the day, another part of your brain will want to do what it has always done,” I observed.

“But, now, I know what to do differently,” she protested.

“And, when you walk into the situation, that other part of your brain will take over and you will fall back on your habits, your grooved behaviors, even if they were not successful.”

“I hope that won’t happen,” Marietta flatly said.

“The only way to act in your new understanding, is to practice, practice and practice, until your new understanding becomes a habit. Only then will you be able to execute in a new way. We think we choose our success, but we don’t. We only choose our habits and our habits will determine our success.”

Time to Practice

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“But, I am back to my original question,” Marsha wanted to know. “How many skills can a person be good at?”

“You can be good at as many skills as you have time to practice,” I said. “Right now, you are good at the technical stuff that flows through your department?”

“Yes,” Marsha replied. “Because I practice. We get problems every day that have to be solved. We get technical bulletins all the time that we have to pay attention to.”

“If you focus on this new department, it is a different skill set, with a learning curve. What will happen to your technical skills related to the work in your current department? You will stop reading the technical bulletins, you will stop solving those technical problems. As you practice new skills, your old skills will begin to go away. You can only be good at as many skills as you have time to practice.”

Skill Development is About Practice

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“How different is this new department?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s different. The department I run now is full of technicians. This new role is all about merchandising and promotion. I will have to learn a lot,” Marsha replied.

“But, it sounds interesting to you?”

Marsha nodded. “Yes, it sounds interesting. More than that, I have always had an interest in marketing. I mean, I know I am in charge of a technical department, so this would be a challenge for me.”

“What will have to change?”

“There will be a learning curve, to get up to speed. There are lots of things I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Here’s the thing about any skill. There is always technical knowledge you need to know. But technical knowledge is learn-able. And, to get good at it, you have to practice. You may have an interest in marketing. You may have read a couple of books about it, but you have not practiced it. If you want to get good at it, you have to commit to practice.”

How Many Skill Sets?

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“You look out of sorts,” I said.

“I am,” Marsha replied. “I have been at this job, as a manager, for almost 15 years. I have an opportunity to move into a brand new department. I would still be a manager, but I have no real experience in that area.”

“If you have no experience, why does the company think you can handle it? Why would you even be interested?”

“The manager of the department retired. My manager said I should give it shot. His boss said they would like someone on the inside to take it over, rather than recruit from the outside. It would definitely be a challenge, and it looks interesting. But, here is my question. How many skill sets can a person be really good at? In my current role, I have a handle on things. This would be new.”

“How many skill sets do you think you could be good at?” I prompted.

“That’s the big unknown,” Marsha nodded.

State of Fear

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“I don’t know,” Denise continued. “If we are really going to be down another 20 percent in revenue, we are going to have to take some steps that I don’t want to take. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do with my company. I can usually take things in stride, but I can tell this is affecting me. I am not a stressed out person, but I can feel this.”

“It is easy to get hung up in this market,” I replied. “You think your business is contracting because you did something wrong. This is no different than adding headcount and buying equipment when the market is growing, except we are having to reduce headcount and idle equipment when the market is contracting.”

“I know, but it feels bad.”

“Feeling bad is not going to help. I know it is difficult to imagine, but think about the worst thing that could possibly happen.”

Denise glanced sideways at me.

“Seriously,” I insisted. “What is the worst thing that could happen? Now, accept it.”

Denise’s stare became intense.

“The stress you feel is because you cannot imagine the worst. It puts you in a state of fear. When you can accept the worst, you can take positive steps to improve your position. Not from a state of fear, but from a state of acceptance.” -TF
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