High Performance Ritual #3-Focus Rituals (Part 4 of 4)

When was the last time your executive team breathed as one?  Yes, I’m getting a little Zen on you but to proclaim my expertise on rituals and energy management and not discuss processes of breath, visualization, and mindfulness would be a disservice. 

Is Corporate America ready for the “mystical” aspects of human nature? Society is… but society doesn’t base its direction on profit… it bases its direction on trends… which is based on needs. Although there is a trend for Zen like products and services, Corporate America is ready to profit from them, but not actually benefit from them. Give it another 10-15 years and then you’ll see Yoga in the conference room.

This is too bad, because we are talking about the power of focus. Internal experiences have real power and this goes against the hierarchy of traditional command and control business models but plays to the very essence of a Core Values Based model of sense and respond.      

Focus Rituals can be a little delicate to explain or even execute because they are extremely spiritual in nature… thus the mysticism.  On the fray of these rituals are more acceptable applications.

On the softball field, my team and I have a rally cry where we gather in a circle, give each other reinforcement statements, and focus as a group.  When we need to score, make something happen, generate results or sustain our energy, its time to get focused.

We don’t ohm in a circle or clear our minds and become one with the bat, but we engage in essentially the same process.

Peering inside our huddle you’d hear a variety of voices, “keep your energy up”, “hit the ball low and hard”, “we need hits”, “let’s score some runs”… … “one, two, three” and the team shouts, “HITS!”

If you try to establish Focus Rituals on their own without using a Company Culture model of change like that of Ritual Builders©, your staff will see these applications as cheesy and in-authentic.

Although delicate in application, Identity Rituals are extremely powerful and are a fertile seed in the pursuit of high performance.

Example of Focus Rituals

• A moment of group silence where each individual reflects on the positive experiences and feelings that are created by your products/services

• The weekly sales/executive meeting ends with each individual declaring what they will accomplish over the next week

• What’s Good/What’s New… an exercise to start each team meeting where members toss a small ball or hacky sack. If it is tossed to you, you quickly state what is good and what is new then toss to another

• Any kind of activity or process that inspires individual performance

• Any kind of activity or process that manifests “collective thought” or “group mind”

Focus Rituals are a very effective performance tool that your team can use to maximize performance.  Successful sales executives have a pre-appointment ritual or closing ritual.  When performance counts… focus rituals bring clarity to your efforts.

Mark McGuire was fascinating to watch as he prepared for his “at bat”. His eyes would gloss over as he created a stack of thought particles across the screen of his imagination. Immersing and engaging himself among the distinctions that gets results. This is focus... and it creates champions.

Celebration Rituals, Identity Rituals, and Focus Rituals give you an arsenal of power that directly effect teamwork and give you a competitive advantage.  When you improve the human experience of your company culture, your labor force will respond with immediate and positive action.

High Performance Ritual #1-Celebration Rituals(Part 2 of 4)

Seldom in life do we find anything that carries the energy of success.  Celebration rituals allow us an opportunity to powerfully embrace this energy and use it to direct meaning and performance.  Because of the “time deprivation” of business and life, the other side of this coin is unfortunately the case for a large percentage of organizations.  They are so busy achieving, that successes, big and small go relatively or even completely unacknowledged. Fueled by the socialized belief that achieving market share projections and other mandates are more important than taking the time and energy to celebrate, organizations are depleting the energy levels of their players… leaving them empty of everything valuable… especially creative energy.

As a performance consultant, the best piece of advance I can offer any person or organization is to focus on your strengths, talents, and successes… no matter how small or insignificant they might seem.  I have worked with several organizations that are so focused on fixing what is wrong, that they forget to acknowledge, much less celebrate what is right.

Simple celebration rituals inspirationally force your entire team to rally around behavior and momentum that move you in the direction of accomplishment. 

Examples of Celebration Rituals:

• Sales Reps ring a bell with each signed contract; team members respond with “Good job”, “You Rock”, “Way to go”, etc.

• Executive Team Meetings are ended with each department taking 20 seconds to communicate what their team has accomplished in the past week and then everyone making their way around the room with high 5s and supportive rhetoric.

• Formal acknowledgment of individuals to include: work term anniversaries, high performance, industry certifications and/or credentials, marriage anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, etc.

• Yearly ceremonies, 90 day initiation ceremonies, and formal acknowledgement of company, location, department, and division accomplishments or milestones

• A series of forearm bashes from team mates signifying appreciation for the generation of results

High Performance Teams Consistently Celebrate Even the Smallest Successes.

Right now many of you are saying, “I do that”… and deep down you know I am talking about a deeper process than one of simply acknowledging success.  I am talking about a specific behavior set, of celebration protocol that is precisely and consistently executed to create a sustainable system.

This means on-going training, orientation and consistent attention that teaches and reinforces your staff on a “system” of celebration and why it is an important element of your company culture.

If your executive team personally and consistently engages in Celebration Rituals, you will have a dynamic labor force that feels recognized, involved and appreciated.  You will have the beginnings of a High Performance Culture.

The 3 Rituals of High Performance

High Fives, forearm bashes, and testosterone oriented grunts are a part of every game we play and fill me and my teammates with energy.  For the last 15 years I have been a weekend warrior softball player.  Softball is in my blood… I truly love the sport. 

With a little introspection, one can recognize that being part of any type of sports team has real significance and meaning.  Not only is there joy in executing the game itself, but there is an abundance of rituals that you naturally participate in… usually without even thinking about it.

By choosing to deliberately observe these rituals and their impact on performance and meaning you can start to use rituals as a results generating tool.

Rituals are about managing energy and as highly respected Sales Communication Specialist Blair Singer of Sales Dogs says,“Highest Energy Wins!”

Highest Energy does win. 

In a game this past season my team and I were down by 3 runs in the 5th inning of a 7 inning game.  The opposing team consisted of pompous smartasses with obnoxious attitudes.  This obnoxious attitude fueled our energy… and with this surge of energy… things started to happen.

You could feel the momentum shift as batter after batter hit the ball low and hard.  A deep ball hit to the fence resulted in several runs and a dramatic play at the plate… “He’s out!” shouts the ump.  Then the ball rolls out of the catcher’s mitt…”No…he’s safe!”

The team explodes with energy… running out to the plate with high fives and forearm bashes.  We are fired up! 

At this very moment, every single player on the team is focused, engaged, and ready to perform.  We score 17 runs in three innings crushing our opponents 21-9.

We managed our energy and rode the wave of momentum to victory… and you can do the same thing with your team.

Whether it is a sales team, a marketing team, executive team, venture capital team or softball team, the dynamics of team synergy and energy management remain the same.

Energy management for a performance oriented team starts with the use of 3 distinctive types of High Performance Success Rituals;(1) Celebration Rituals (2) Identity Rituals (3) Focus Rituals

In my next post we will be discussing Celebration Rituals

The Next Generation of Excellence

Everything in business and in life has become so damned complicated.

Even washing your car requires sophisticated loops of technology that simply take my time and energy. With all of the advantages that come with technology, we seemed to have lost our sense of simplicity.

No wonder people don't take your sales calls or want to do business with you... just to comprehend the value you offer takes a significant amount of time and energy... of which people have very little of.

             The Next Generation Of Excellence Is Among Us

The Next Generation Of Excellence consists of those who have developed styles, systems, and protocols of communication with the ability to capture and hold the busy professional's attention. Business has become complex, yet we must remember to keep it simple.

People have a need, problem or desire that they need attended to... the secret is to meet the need, solve the problem, or fullfill the desire quickly and effectively.  Often we get so caught up in our pursuit to strategize and theorize that we forget the very reason people will do business with us.

We meet their needs.

Sometimes beating the competition requires complex strategies and solutions, but let's remember for our customer's sake to keep it simple.

Ego Identification... & the Secret to Fulfillment

Since the ego cannot take our power, it must convince us to lend it. Because it cannot keep our power, the ego must continually persuade us. It does this by constantly sending us messages on the wings of desire, each of which solicits us to empower its belief in lack.

Process of change

The real goal is to distinguish the underlying beliefs in separation and limitation that we have empowered. Once we bring these beliefs to consciousness and see their effects in our lives, we

start to become aware of the choices we make to empower them.

Empower a reality where you don't NEED
something that is "missing" from you

Defining a sense of being

The needs and desires that we used to feel are thus replaced by experiences of HAVING and BEING what we used to "need." Having these things, we no longer feel desire for them; they are now simply a part of us. Thus, where once there was the feeling of a lack of love, and a desire for love, now there is simply the presence of love, as a part of one's being.

The Victim Chooses To Empower The Reality

That He Is Powerless To Choose

What Reality He Empowers

Someone who is not a victim might have the same thought, but say, "I may FEEL powerless, but I know that it is always my choice as to which thoughts I will agree with and empower, and which ones I will ignore, and I know that to FEEL powerless is different that BEING powerless."

When the voice of desire speaks to you, do not hear the voice of your ego telling you what you do not have and cannot be; hear instead the voice of your Greater Self, reminding you of what you have forgotten you always have, and always are.

Let the voice of desire remind you of the separation you have chosen to empower, and let it remind you to choose consciously what you would create now.

Let it remind you that you seek to understand what you have created, so that you may release it and free yourself to create anew, to create consciously.

Pay My Outside Sales Reps How?

Before you know it you are swept away as the chocolate cherry cheesecake touches your tongue and alters your mind.  The experience is so damn gratifying you stop to take it all in... letting each taste bud relish in the moment. Your senses are truly indulged and you know you’re balancing on the brink of sin. The powerful combination of sugar and ecstasy rush to your temples... taking you to a new state of bliss... And you said you’d never “get high” again. 

So how much of the “pie” should you be paying your sales people?  For the sake of profit I hope it’s enough to be mind altering.  The sales professional is definitely an odd individual that is usually money motivated and finds it a little difficult to “fit in” to your culture, especially the culture of a small business.  But ask yourself; doesn’t it take an odd individual to endure an average 14.6 rejections a day?  How much would you expect to get paid to endure day-in and day-out rejection like that? During the start up phase of a sales professional new to your business or industry, relationships have not yet been established. During this time, it’s not uncommon for even a seasoned sales person to hear an average 63 rejections to every one legitimate contract.  Would this make you feel like you are off to a good start for the company that just hired you?

“The landscape of sales is changing so drastically...

...that it’s enough to kill any good buzz.”

I can hear the echoes of delight from your new hire, “Oh my new sales job is great, I haven’t gotten one appointment this week, no one returns my calls, my customers are rude, and I my boss wants immediate results.”

Your sales department is the most complex system within your business and to orchestrate this system with grace and finesse, it seams you need the skills and experience of a “Winning Coach” fused with the patience and insight of a Practicing Psychiatrist. As the bearer of bad news I’m here to tell you, “The landscape of sales is changing so drastically... ...that it’s enough to kill any good buzz.”

COMPENSATION

How many sales people are you going through each year? Do you truly understand what it takes to be successful in sales?  Do you know the most common objection your new sales rep is going to get their first day representing your firm?  Is there is a consistent level of turnover within the sales department?

These frustrations are more indicative of a breakdown or flaw inherent in the structuring of your sales job opportunity than in your hiring choices. You might hire the right person, but your sales model is geared toward failure. Small business owners as well as big business aren’t structuring selling opportunities compelling enough to keep or develop the “BIG FISH”. To achieve success in the changing landscape of sales you need a school of “BIG FISH”. The days of hiring a “ROCK TURNER” to knock on doors and discover interest is over.  Competition is so stiff, that your sales people need a comprehensive program that assists and supports all of their sales efforts while simultaneously communicating the point of difference that your product or service has over the competition. Without this system, your new associate will have challenges in simply landing appointments... and without appointments... comes the powerful feelings of failure. The nature of success in sales today is only accomplished with a system that honors your customer and spans through time.

So what does this system look like? We’ll cover the details in tomorrow’s post but these are the ingredients; Innovative Job Description, Compensation Package, & Success Coaching Management.

Ego... As A Challenge To Personal Development

Do you have to manage or lead someone who has tremendous potential but has a sense of lack in their life? Like something is innately wrong with them. This is an emotion that dictated the course of my life for probably 25 or 30 years and only within the last few have I got a handle on what it really means and how to actually handle it.

This is the very emotion that drove me into personal & professional development. To date I have spent close to $180,000 dollars and over 1500 hours trying to overcome this feeling of lack.  Fortunately I learned some amazing skills along the way and in the process learned a shit-load about myself. 

I no longer am “engaged” with this on-going internal struggle.  I have freed myself from the illusion and I’ve learned how to manage my emotions and internal dialog quite well. This change did not come down upon me like a lightning bolt, it kind up snuck up on me, a little bit at a time, when suddenly I noticed I wasn’t beating myself up any longer and I was choosing to be happy and feel good. The change occurred when I stumbled upon the single most empowering awareness of my life…

Before one can empower the reality of being fulfilled and complete,

one must first stop empowering the reality that one is not.

This was a bold realization for me because I felt deep inside of me such a talent for teaching, communicating, and researching, but I felt like a failure and broken at the same time.  I now am able to draw on these challenging and painful experiences when helping others to grow and develop.

When I work with teams, I am able to instantly move each team member to higher productivity because I know how to help them manage this feeling of lack. It is part of just about every professional I meet. The level of Ego identification that top level Executives are challenged with no longer surprises me.  They in turn often find themselves very grateful for the personal transformation.

As Professional Development expert, I have experienced first hand the draw of skill based solutions and have an extensive library to show for it. There was a time where I was reading 2 books a week and listening to self-improvement CDs 15 hours a week. I’ve been to most of the trainings on excellence that exist as well as worked with “gurus” and “millionaire mentors”. I now realize none of that was needed, but for me… it was a necessary part of my journey and has given me the tools and wisdom to truly impact the people who are drawn to my work.

When you watch a colleague or one of your employees in the throws of this internal conflict, simply put a hand on their shoulder and say, “Your beliefs about yourself are false… I believe in you and want to help you believe in yourself”.  Giving a person permission to believe in them self is a foundational belief of All About Teamwork and is a fundamental principle to motivation and increased performance.

As a business owner you will learn that leadership has some subtle yet powerful nuances that help people become more of who they are meant to be... but that’s a blog topic for another day.

R U Killing Your Results?

Here is the formula to consistently getting results in sales, in leadership, in employee development, and yes... even in life.   

STOP BEING PREDICTABLE! 

If you want to be known as someone who gets results then make the decision to constantly mix things up. Its not enough to "think out of the box" you've got to move into a completely different box. Consistently approaching things with a new perspective is a mandatory skill in the “New Economy”.

Today I was having lunch with someone from my BNI group and we started talking about her employer's tendency to overlook the power of an outside trainer.  As a corporation they follow the "business as usual" mantra of using an HR in-house trainer to build their team and reinforce their skills.

Every few months or so I offer my virtual community of subscribers an 8-page PFD report, Download GettingTheMostValueFromYourTraining.pdf where I explain the dynamics of professional development and how to invest your resources so that your team can maximize their  ROT, “return on training”.

Both in-house and contract trainers have their strengths and the key is to know what they are and how to use them in conjunction with each other.

As an extension of human resources, in-house training is best when it teaches employees about the company culture and how to execute the business systems that have been put into place. Most of the time however, those attending the training, or worse yet, the in-house trainers themselves  have had few positive experiences of your company culture and have very little understanding of why certain business systems are in place.

In-house trainers rarely have the in-depth understanding of how to “sell & resell” the value of your company culture”.   Training must go beyond skill acquisition to include the reinforcement of the very values and beliefs that increase and sustain high performance team dynamics. If this single distinction doesn’t profoundly resonate within you... this blog and the Human Capital Philosophy behind it will never serve you as the transformational resource it is. You simply have a different way of looking at things... and you are probably stuck looking at this from the “same as usual” box.

Student-Teacher Is A Special Relationship

When you need strategic applications or the desire to change or enhance your business, in-house trainings are often part of the problem.  To transform an organization, you must transform the relationships within that organization. What is the relationship your labor-force has with your in-house trainer? For learning, transformation, and passion to ensue... students have to respect their teacher’s skills, knowledge, and training style. Great consultants and trainers have an aura about them that serve as a very persuasive and influential persona.

In-house trainers generally regurgitate antiquated information that your staff simply finds boring and irrelevant... so attending or organizing another one of these trainings creates no internal buzz or sense of excitement... and “burn-out” ensues.

Outsourcing or contract trainers bring a fresh perspective and a level of respect that is often lost by in-house trainers. You can create “An Event” out of the upcoming training that specifically speaks to the heart of your labor force. Conversely, it doesn’t make logical or financial sense to have an outside trainer executing orientation and other trainings that can be facilitated effectively from within.

So... my BNI friend was quite discouraged because this afternoon she had to go another “boring” training. Her and her colleagues where complaining about it earlier. This complaining illustrates one of the unconscious yet powerful “rituals” that people establish when a culture is left unattended.

Remember, you have to mix things up, do things differently, and stop being so predictable. Try this approach with your next meeting, review, or company memo. What the hell... try something different when you greet your spouse (my spouse loves it when I match the energy of my dog Buddy and show more excitement to see her than him)  When you can do this, you will see real energy and excitement within your labor-force, and with that, the results that training should be providing.

Team Conflict... No Problem, Just B.I.P. It

Even the great teams like what we just witnessed in the Rose Bowl, the Texas Longhorns and the USC Trojans have team conflicts. As I continue to work with teams and observe their team dynamics, it becomes more and more evident that conflicts are the doorway to high performance and self-discovery.

How does your team deal with conflict?  If they are like most... they don’t... words, opinions, and emotions get overlooked in an effort to keep the peace. A team that consistently engages in this kind of avoidance behavior will never dominate their industry, work together effectively, or enjoy the experience of contributing to a winning team. Oh sure, you'll have some successes, but my work is about creating for people a hyper-life and part of a hyper-life is sharing in the pursuit of career aspirations and work that matters.

A Conflict Management Process of High Performance Teams

Once a team understands how to deal with the anxiety and discomfort of conflict, they can start to be honest with each other; with this accountability loops necessary for high performance begin to establish themselves. It’s amazing because teams recognize when they have entered this space... things feel different. For the very first time a group feels like a team and like the jolting of a tectonic plate, they are experiencing their first significant shift in corporate culture.

This is a critical and exciting time for a team, because they begin to see a new horizon where fear of retribution is replaced by mutual respect and accountability. Most leaders have a very difficult time leaving room for mistakes.  The “Old School” mentality of managing through fear is still very prevalent… yet many also realize that it is becoming less and less effective.  The biggest barrier to high performance is the fear of failure. To be more precise, it’s the fear of looking foolish and/or losing your job.

In my consulting, I must consistently take executive teams through exercises that illustrate the real purpose of failure.  Reframing failure in their mind is a process that requires established conditioning loops. We have been so socialized to see failure as something to avoid.  In reality, failure is the only way to improve…

Most organizations get so caught up in assigning blame or avoiding conflict that they can’t use mistakes and failures as opportunities for improvement.  Once you and your team understand that mistakes and failures have a cost but are also unavoidable, you can use this simple process I created to massively impact your team. Use it every time you need to something occurs that you didn’t plan or anticipate.

Once your team realizes that mistakes are necessary as stepping stones to growth and development, they can use the B.I.P. it process to avoid blame and improve performance.

The next time someone on your team makes a mistakes, ticks off a team-mate, or just simply blows it... teach the team to B.I.P it.

B.I.P. it is an acronym that stands for Blameless Improvement Process and involves a team debriefing using four simple steps:

When I use these four questions to debrief teams in conflict, something magical begins to occur.  They start to realize that within their existing team is the capacity to effectively problem solve and really increase performance.  With that simple realization, their performance improves.

Once you have a leadership core that adopts this process as a tool of effective leadership, huge gains within your organization will occur in a matter of weeks. This is adrenaline to your labor-force and you will realize that everybody wants to be a part of a winning, high performance team that dominates the competition... they just have to be shown how.

 

Its Getting Harder & Harder To See...

It’s an afternoon when you could use a good sugar buzz and caffeine jolt.  The thought of that effervescent snap and pop inside your mouth causes you to salivate.  Are you reaching for a Pepsi or a Coke?

Maybe you don’t care for soda but the lessons that we can glean from these corporate monsters come at us like ripples in pond.  So let me toss this pebble in  the waters of small business... ...what is your competitive advantage?  What are you doing to separate yourself from your competition?

Communication Is Changing Communication

In the late 80’s and early 90’s it was so much easier to identify your competitive advantage. We didn’t have nation of hyper-connectivity where one could instantly share their opinion with friends across the globe.  Within moments of a customer’s experience with you, a chain reaction of 1000s is set in motion via e-mail, text message and more recently global blogs.

If you say your competitive advantage is customer service, or location or even price, I hope for your sake you have they business and human capital systems to back it up.  Over 88% of small business owners claim customer service as a priority of business, yet less than 10% have written plans that consistently communicate this to their staff as a priority.  Even less have a system of measures to ensure that the customers’ experience mirrors that of their efforts.

Any Claim You Make Not Backed By A System

Spells D-A-N-G-E-R

If you claim anything as a priority to your staff or customers and don’t deliver it, the nature of today’s hyper-connectivity means that the masses are hearing that you don’t mean what you say. They are hearing that you are in-authentic. OUCH! We are in a world of BUZZ that is so over-stimulated with unsubstantiated claims that our hearts are crying for authenticity. Employees are disgruntled and frustrated with their employer’s lip-service and customers no longer believe what you say.... Everyone is looking at what you do.  Business models that specifically design your competitive advantage are quickly becoming the only way to build a sustaining and fruitful enterprise.

The pressures of today’s hyper-connectivity are only slightly outbid by the onslaught of messages about what it means to be successful.  It’s like the anxiety one experiences late at night, on a dark and icy road when your car takes on a life of it’s own, sliding across your lane and into on-coming traffic... ...your life flashes before you and you are forced... ...to deal with the urgent.  Life has become a bundle of emergencies that need our immediate attention at the loss... of what is truly important.

The world of business in the new millennium is forcing your business and mine to be more than cola.  Mainstream is no longer enough for customers to be impressed.  In this GLOBAL economy we have the “Wal Mart factor” to deal with, that ability to choose and to do so at a better price.

The Future of Small Business Lies in the Owners’

Ability to Create and Communicate

a Competitive Advantage.

The best thing one can do today to chart this course, is to set sail for a new horizon of thinking.  We can’t think out of the box, we need to leap into a completely different box.  One from which we can make a paradigm shift.

Your business must become an idea factory, one where you and your staff work in harmony to create a symphonic melody of thought and action.  Most small businesses are full of employees who are caught up in the whirl-wind of urgency. Their lives are simply more important than your outcomes as a business owner.

What a great opportunity to create an environment of authenticity!  As a small business owner you have power in the palms of your hands to shape the lives of your staff.  Are they working a job or building a life?  In their minds... ... what does your company stand for? And what does this have to do with their individual and/or career aspirations?

A wise choice you can make today is to focus on skills and attitudes of your staff.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a staff full of self-initiated go-getters that want to make a difference in the world?

Guess what, everyone wants to make a difference in the world... but they must be given a vehicle that allows that expression to become a part of their everyday experience.

Your execution of developing in them the skills & attitudes that create a dynamic company culture and high performance team synergy will illustrate to everyone within your organization that the tools for change and improvement are right in their newly tailored job descriptions.

The time has come for your business to be designed to make this world a better place.  If you think you have already established this with your business, take a moment to look at your staff... ...how motivated are they by your vision?

The world is changing faster than we are, and if you create a home for the hearts of your customers and staff, you will have the biggest competitive advantage of them all.  TEAMWORK!

If this post inspires you, check out my website @ www.AllAboutTeamwork.com... Where you can learn to... “Boost Profits... Using Teamwork as your Competitive Advantage.”

Let Us Marvel At The Power Of Human Belief

It started so innocently decades ago... ... stereotypical lab coats, scientific medical experiments, a white sugar pill and the power of human belief. It was the discovery of the placebo effect... ... the dynamics of which have marveled scientists for years.

Because this is such a powerful phenomenon, the emergence of “Persuasion”, “NLP”, “Executive Coaching”, “Professional Development Curriculums”, “Corporate Change Strategies” and other “improvement movement” ideologies into our society is sweeping the country at the tune of close to $200 Billion a year.  How many of these really carry the substance of human change and life altering benefits?  Some of them do, yet as an industry, the “improvement movement” and many of its icons base their entire ability to create change... on their ability to set an expectation of that change.

WordNet at Answers.com gives this exquisite definition of Placebo Effect: any effect that seems to be a consequence of administering a placebo; the change is usually beneficial and is assumed result from the person's faith in the treatment or preconceptions about what the experimental drug (or training) was supposed to do; pharmacologists were the first to talk about placebo effects but now the idea has been generalized to many situations having nothing to do with drugs

                                    

The last sentence of this definition even illustrates a propensity to incorporate the placebo effect into other applications, and now you'll see it being used in business circles.

If you are the kind of person that really gets inspired by personal and professional development, you need to be aware of the powerful applications of the placebo effect. If you are an executive who leads people and invests in professional development training for your staff, you need to know how to apply the placebo effect to increase your results.

A Brief History

The knowledge about the placebo effect significantly expanded with the medical need to perform controlled clinical trials, a scientific methodology largely used to determine the therapeutic effectiveness of new medicines.

The power of the placebo effect is evident and naturally occurs in every clinical trial.  What is... this powerful phenomenon is based on? 

It is solely dependant on the depth of one’s expectations... ...simply said, the power of human belief.

As a baby boomer child the socialization factors of success and identity were bombarded upon me.  As a young adult I entered the wonderful search for meaning, and identification and found it in the world of personal development... ...I alone funded the “improvement movement”. In the last 17 years, I have invested over $175,000 and close to 2800 hours in some kind of personal/professional development genre. From seminars and retreats to workshops and coaches I have seen and experienced it all... a lot of which was a significant waste of time and money.

About five years ago I had a mentor tell me to stop pursuing knowledge and to apply what I have learned and make it my own. In all my years of education and development, this was the best lesson I ever received. I have been to 24 day intensives, and weekend workshops, but the lesson I needed most was elegantly presented to me by a right minded, well intentioned mentor. He helped me clarify my identity and this launched me into significant levels of success as a consultant and speaker. Clients really value my knowledge and experience, they use it to change and improve their lives and careers.

A Mindful Eye

The “improvement movement” and all of its facets is an amazing field, full of self-discovery and growth. But like any industry with a high demand and huge financial gain, there are those skilled in the subtleties of smoke and mirrors. If you have an Executive Coach... or consistently invest in other forms of professional development, that is awesome... but remain mindful of the placebo effect... I want you getting more from life than just a belief of what your life can be.

As an organization, you should have developmental plan for your labor-force that goes way beyond the typical application of your best practices... they should make your employees better men and women. Assess the personal and professional needs of your staff, ask the tough questions of your contract trainers, and explore training options that will resonate with the needs of your business... then ensure that you apply what everyone has worked so vigorously to learn.

The 5 Mandatory Conditions of High Performance Teams

                        

I love team sports... the competition... the execution... the blood, sweat and tears. There is very little in this world as satisfying as a team struggling through toil and effort to find themselves on the other side... VICTORIOUS.

When you watch a Super Bowl caliber team, you can see their strengths, commitments, focus and determination... what most people don’t see is the quality relationships among teammates.

If you are a weekend warrior football, baseball or basketball athlete and consistently play on a regular team, you’ve experienced that connection... Now imagine how strong those emotions would be when your life long dream of becoming a Super Bowl Champion is within your grasp.

Obtaining High Performance

As I layout for you the 5 Mandatory Conditions of High Performance Teams, notice how prevalent these are in sports teams, but how much they lack in business teams... probably even yours.

1.      KNOW, LIVE, & SEE THE SAME PURPOSE: How do the individual parts fit together to form a synergy of action... everyone must know how their role is significant to the outcome of the team? Advanced teams have members that intuitively know how to maximize the team’s results by synergizing their efforts among each other... thus, Team Synergy.

2.      KNOW, POSSESS OR OBTAIN THE NECESSARY INDIVIDUAL SKILLS: What are the necessary steps, what order are they in, and when must they happen for us to achieve our purpose? What do I need to learn to execute this to the highest degree?

3.      EVERYONE MUST REPLACE PERSONAL COMFORT WITH HARD WORK: When each team member recognizes, acknowledges, and commits to the discomfort of high performance, the team will begin to accelerate toward accomplishing their purpose.

4.      EACH TEAM MEMBER MUST COMMIT TO WORK TOGETHER: With this type of commitment, there is no room for personality conflicts, personal differences are put aside for the good of the team. Individual members find a way to commit and take the necessary actions to work together. NO EXCUSES!

5.      ACCOUNTABILITY TO PERFORMANCE STANDARDS: Members hold themselves and each other accountable to a higher level of performance.  If this level of performance is not met, someone else will be given the opportunity to meet or beat these expectations.

When possible make everyone feel like they are an MVP.  Give praise publicly, in front of their colleagues and give constructive criticism in private. Acknowledge the risk takers’ decisions boldly and publicly when their decisions are right and support team philosophies. Give leaders the opportunity to teach and mentor their up and coming colleagues.

Motivating a group of talented individuals to become a high performance team is a teachable and learn able skill. Give yourself permission to take a few years to learn the subtleties that make a significant difference. You may not yet know how to implement any of the 5 Mandatory Conditions of High Performance Teams, but  with continued study and observation will find the distinctions that builds champions.