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?