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Brilliant on the Basics

April 11, 2010 in Development, Growth, Performance, Productivity with 0 Comments

Although I was quite young when legendary football coach Vince Lombardi died, I was influenced by his philosophy on life and success.  This is probably because football was the game I played most in my youth and the Vince Lombardi Philosophy was always being referenced either by my coach on the field or my dad at home. As a coach, Lombardi was known for being a tough and demanding man and his reputation was that of a winner. In his time as head coach of the Green Bay Packers he was able to lead them to five NFL Championships and two Super Bowl victories. The championship trophy that the NFL plays for each season is named after him.

I was doing some prep work this week for a talk I am going to give next week to a group of sales people and their leaders. As I was thinking about what makes a really successful seller, or leader, or organization I thought of Coach Lombardi and his philosophy on success and being a winner. He was once asked what he was going to do to get to the championships in the coming season. He answered by saying, “We are not going to be flashy. We are going to be brilliant on the basics. We will run, throw, catch, tackle, and block better than every team in the league. That is how we will go to the championships this year.”

Simple, but not easy

Have you ever noticed how amazed people are when someone or some team wins their sport championship two years in a row? Going for three? Wow! More than three? What? Are you kidding me? Impossible! Well, what coach Lombardi knew and what I have learned over the years is that success often breeds carelessness and complacency. Once we taste victory or enjoy a winning season we tend to adopt an attitude of complacency. “I have made it…I can relax”. I see this in the leaders I speak to and I see this in me and I find it to be one of the biggest reasons why we have so few repeat champions. Whether you are selling, leading, or just running the daily race of life, being brilliant on the basics is what places you in the position to win year after year after year.

Determine Your Basics

In Football, Coach Lombardi said, “Some people try to find things in this game that don’t exist but football is only two things – blocking and tackling.” That can be true of all of us, focusing on things that are not important or are not relevant to our overall success. In my line of work the basics are preparation and confidence.  I find that the more I do to be prepared and to build my confidence behind my message the more successful I become. The quickest way for me to lose is to think I have “made it”, don’t prepare properly (just “wing it” because, well, I am good, I have made it), and then flop in front of my audience and lose all confidence behind my message.

What are the basics for you? Have you stepped away from them and begun focusing on the flashy or unimportant aspects of your work? Take a few minutes this week to do the following exercise:

  1. Determine the two or three “basics” for your line of work. What is it that really successful people in this area do day after day better than anyone else?
  2. Perform an honest evaluation of yourself on these basics. Do a simple “fist-of-five” evaluation. High=5 (I am doing really well in this area), Low=1 (I have no idea what the basics even are for me). 2, 3, and 4 are somewhere in the middle.
  3. Make a plan to return to the basics. What actions would you need to take each day to begin to strengthen your performance in the basics of your life?
  4. Set aside a few minutes each day to execute on that plan. (read, practice, study, think)

Coach Lombardi said, “Success demands singleness of purpose.” It is so easy to be distracted by the “flashy”. He also said, “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” It is also easy to wish and want for success without being willing to put in the work required to actually be successful.

Question: What are the “basics” of a successful life? I would love for you to tell me at least two things that we each need to be brilliant in to experience a successful life.

Lessons of Growth & Development from Thomas Jefferson

April 1, 2010 in Development, Growth with 0 Comments

This has been a very educational week for me. First it was the US Marines showing me lessons on leadership and life, and now it is Thomas Jefferson showing me lessons on growing and learning. After leaving the Marine ceremonies I headed to the home of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. I have seen a lot of the presidential sites over the years, but I have never had the opportunity to visit Monticello, and I really have not known a lot about Thomas Jefferson.

After spending the day at Monticello and the University of Virginia, which Thomas Jefferson founded, I put together a list of Mr. Jefferson’s thoughts on learning, leading and growing. He was brilliant to say the least, and the lessons he left for us are lessons that can make a difference in our lives today.

1. Reading Books – Jefferson was a voracious reader. His library was so impressive that it was the starting point for what we now know as the Library of Congress. He has been quoted as saying:

  • “I cannot live without books”
  • “Books constitute capital…”

Lesson for you and me, spend some time each day reading. You can learn from your own experiences for sure, but you can also learn from what others have experienced. Read more!

2. Time Management – The tour guide at Monticello said that Jefferson was not one to waste daylight. He rose early and was very productive during his waking hours. Jefferson said:

  • “Determine never to be idle…It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”

Lesson for you and me, have a plan and execute the plan. Run your day or your day will run you. A real truth for me in this area has been to deliberately recognize that when I say yes to one thing (or everything) I have by default said no to something else. If I can remember this it becomes a lot easier to say no to the things I should say no to.

3. Take Action – Jefferson was a man of action. He read and studied on a wide variety of topics and when something needed doing he was quick to take action. In his home at Monticello was an impressive display of artifacts brought back to him by Lewis & Clark. Jefferson took bold action to commission the expedition that opened up the western half of the United Stated. He said:

  • “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

4. Be Prepared – As I looked around his home and property at Monticello, there seemed to be very little the man could not do. From his tremendous gardens to the manufacturing of nails (5000 -10,000/day) for construction, there seem to be no end to his ingenuity. Jefferson like to say:

  • “I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

5. Attitude Matters – Jefferson faced many challenges and trials in his life. Of his 6 children only two lived to adulthood. His wife died after only 10 years of marriage. In spite of the enormous challenges he faced he was able to accomplish great things. Jefferson said:

  • “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

Lesson for you me, pay attention to your attitude. It is really easy in these trying times to focus on the negative and not the positive. Determine today to be known for your positive attitude. Attitude matters, it is the difference maker in almost every situation of life.

6. Pursue Excellence – Jefferson said, “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching”.  Details matter. Execution matters. It is easy sometimes to think that no one notices what you do, but why should that matter. Do whatever you do like the whole world was watching, it will help you to raise your game. A good test of this is to start a blog. You feel like only a couple of people even know about it, but with the power of the world wide web the whole world could indeed be watching.

As I made my way out of Monticello and headed down the hill to return to the parking area I had to pass by the Jefferson family cemetery.  I found it interesting that it was Jefferson’s wish, as one author put it, “that his tomb stone reflect the things that he had given the people, not the things that the people had given to him.” So things like being president of the United States or ambassador to France are not listed among what he thought were his greatest accomplishments. Here is how his tombstone reads

HERE WAS BURIED

THOMAS JEFFERSON

AUTHOR OF THE

DECLARATION

OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE

STATUTE OF VIRGINIA

FOR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

BORN APRIL 2, 1743 O.S.

DIED JULY 4. 1826


Question: What lessons have you learned from our country’s founding fathers?

What Comes Out When You are Squeezed?

March 17, 2010 in Choices, Growth, Performance with 0 Comments

“I was angry!”

That was the answer when I asked, “Why did you send such a nasty email without thinking first how it would be perceived?”

Recently I wrote an entry in this blog about “mastering the pause” and how it can be an effective communication tool. I was reminded recently of a great place to insert a pause when I witnessed an unfortunate email exchange between two people that I know fairly well. We all probably have responses that we wish we could take back; emails we wish we had not sent or voice mails we wish we had not left. What a great place it would have been to insert a pause.

In his book titled, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey teaches us that between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.  He speaks about either being a reactive person driven by emotion and the behavior of others, or being a proactive person driven by values and the ability to choose. If I am completely honest with myself I would have to say that I can easily find myself on the reactive side of things from time to time. What I really want to do is figure out how to stay permanently on the proactive side, mastering the gap between stimulus and response.

I often work with young married couples who are struggling in their relationship with each other. It is common to hear one or both people say that their spouse is such an angry person. When I dig into this and compare it with my own experience I find that one or both of the people in the marriage are being driven by emotion and the behavior of the other person. I know this has been true of me in the past. The only thing I have found that can help in this situation is to realize what Dr. Covey so brilliantly stated, that between stimulus (angry words, or actions from someone else) and my response to those words or actions, I have the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE. I can choose to react. I can choose to pause. It is my choice. If I am driven by emotion I will skip right past my moment to choose and I will strike back and take the situation from bad to worse. If I am driven by values and a desire to calm and diffuse the situation I will seek to better understand before I respond.

The question to ask yourself is how do you, how will you, handle the space between the next stimulus that comes your way and the response you want to communicate to that stimulus? Will you pause and evaluate the situation or will you react and allow the negative cycle of emotion to continue. It is your choice to make.

Mastering the Pause

March 8, 2010 in Growth, Performance with 1 Comment

I had a friend some years ago that really frustrated me every time I tried to tell him about something that was happening in my life. Each time I completed a sentence he would jump in and attempt to answer questions I had not asked. He would share how he had done something similar; how he had seen the same thing; how he thought I should handle what he perceived to be the situation.  I was afraid to pause, even to take a breath, for fear that he would hijack my story and begin telling me what it all meant to him. All I really wanted him to do was listen to me. I mean really listen to me.

Stephen Covey, in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” asks, “how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?” My friend, and me as it turns out (and probably you), loved to jump to prescribe before actually diagnosing the complete situation. He wanted to be understood before he took the time to understand where I was coming from. We often choose to assume we understand the other persons point before they actually make it.

This is a problem I think many of us face and it has a negative impact on our relationships and on our ability to communicate effectively. As I have been working with sales people over the past few years on how to be more effective I have discovered a tool that I am trying to apply to my personal life and all opportunities I have to communicate with others. It is called “mastering the pause”.

Mastering the pause means that when I am in a conversation with someone, a customer, a prospect, a friend, a spouse, a child, I resist the urge to jump into their part of the conversation. When they pause to gather their thoughts or take a breath I do not jump in and start talking, I wait – silently. Now, if I am you and I am reading this I am saying to myself, this sounds like common sense to me. It is common sense, but it is not common practice. Begin watching how often you actually do not wait for the other person to completely finish what they are talking about before you dive in to either finish their thought or add value to their story. I have noticed that if they pause and I stay quiet they almost always start talking again. Only when I am sure that they are done with their story or the point they were making do I begin to formulate my response. This is tough to do.

Choosing to understand first before being understood yourself goes against a lot of our human nature. It is only natural to want to add value to someone elses story. But what communicates value to another person is listening with the intent to understand before you respond. Give it a try today. Can you master the pause?

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