Creating the High Performance Business Athlete
If you were an athlete growing up or participated in organized sports, then you probably have continued the discipline of training and competing through your adulthood. Athletes and very successful business professionals have a lot in common. There are a multitude of similarities to speak about, but lets focus on 2 key aspects: the characteristics of a High Performance Business Athlete, and what it takes to create a High Performance Organization & Environment.
High Performance Business Athlete Characteristics
Before the Game:
- Clarity of the vision and the goal
- Commitment to prepare for the game
- Gain competitive intelligence about the competition – how are they preparing to win?
- Develop a game plan
- Develop and enhance key skills that support the game plan
- Know what resources and tools you have at your disposal to put into the game to help score points
- Get your metal game prepared and get psyched up to win
Before the game, athletes and business professionals must do these very specific things to prepare for success. Not preparing diligently in any one of these key areas could cost them greatly during the game. Think what opening day of football season would be like if players and coaches only practiced whenever they felt like it instead of at least once a day, and in most cases, twice a day. Just Imagine yourself as a professional fighter. What outcome do you think would happen if you went into the ring without any plan on how you would approach the fight as a striker or grappler. Knowing your resources - like your coach, your playbook, your weight training - and using them to help you prepare is key as well. Maybe the most important preparation of all is visualizing the win, much like Shawn White‘s mental preparation and walk through of his victories before they actually transpire. All of these same skills are needed in business and the successful business athletes are the ones that have mastered the art of preparation before the game.
During the Game:
- Stick to the game plan and execute it
- Adjust adapt and overcome!
- Total focus and commitment to the outcome
- When you think you can‘t continue and you‘re ready to quite – dig deep and keep going!
- If you lose a battle, remember you haven‘t lost the war – keep going!
During the game, athletes must stick to and execute the game plan they prepared, but must also be ready to adapt to any given situation or opportunity. There is no more time for planning. Total focus on the task at hand and no wasted mental energy is key. It is too late for those things in the heat of battle and too soon to reflect on the final outcome. In the moment, athletes and business professionals must use their skills to deliver, persevere and win!
After the Game:
- Learn to learn from what you learned
- Relive the game and mentally adjust for the next one
- Evaluate your successes and failures - Battles and Wars
- If you lose – recognize the value of your loss and use the sting to push you farther as you hit the next practice and prepare for the next game
- If you win – find ways to continue the energy and emotion, identify why you won, exploit and focus on maintaining your strengths and build on your weaknesses
After the game, win, lose or draw, you must reflect and learn from your performance. Relive the action in slow methodical review so as to find your advantages, successes, weaknesses, missed opportunities and failures. Losing can be used for future motivation and winning can be used to fuel your momentum and vigor. However, in either case the process is repeated, and preparation must begin again.
In business, High Performance Cultures must have the right environment to grow and nurture High Performance Business Athletes. The keys to creating and sustaining such a culture are:
- Alignment
- Vital Business Result – launch a new product, grow top line, provide superlative customer support, create sustainable customer loyalty, etc.
- Business Process – what process will support and drive resources to the targeted end result
- Performance Systems & Tools – what type of systems can help support and automate the process
- Competency & Skills - What will your team need to know how to do, and do with excellence?
- Behaviors - What "winning" behaviors MUST your team exhibit?
- Autonomy within a structure and process that allows for some flexibility for style
- Enterprise agility – the ability of any organization to quickly respond and mobilize around a specific mission or objective ordered by leadership
- Front-line team agility is required in order to mobilize quickly and effectively
- Lead with creativity and be open to new out-of-the-box thinking
- Enablement vs. Management
- Just-in-time engagement with SMEs, enablers and leaders
- Clearly define your repeatable, measureable and scalable process
- Comprehensive systems and tools to help accelerate results
- Comprehensive performance based training, coaching and execution practice
Just like pre-game preparation for athletes, preparing your organizations culture for success requires focus in all of these areas. Lack of focus or planning in any of these areas can lead to dramatic losses and missed opportunities. Similar to the preparation, execution and reflection cycle in sports, every organization must continually repeat its own culture- focused preparations, executions and post mortems. All of this is critical to continued growth and long term prosperity.
Ask yourself these questions to evaluate whether or not your organization is a High Performance Culture for High Performance Business Athletes:
Do you have clear processes in place for your business athletes to know the "game plan" going into a competition?
Do you know what Competencies, Skills and Behaviors your High Performance Business Athletes need to be successful? Do you have right resources, training and coaching in place to sustain success?
Are you consistently evaluating your culture for advantages, successes, weaknesses, missed opportunities so that you can learn from your failures?
Every organization can develop and grow High Performance Business Athletes with the right preparation, in-game fortitude and post game diligence. The game is always there waiting and the competition is always getting stronger. What are you doing to amplify your team‘s capabilities as a High Performing Organization with High Performance Business Athletes?
Walter Rogers is the President and CEO of Baker Communications. Baker Communications is a sales training and development company specializing in helping client companies increase their sales and management effectiveness. He can be reached at 713-627-7700. "
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