Prime Business Alert!

Welcome to Prime Business Alert! This bimonthly e-newsletter examines essential issues for business people, regardless of your industry, your responsibilities, or whether you are starting in the mailroom or have a corner office. Prime Business Alert! explores the psychological, interpersonal, leadership, and team contributors to success in today's highly competitive and demanding corporate world. The goal of Prime Business Alert! is to provide you with the deep insights, useful information, and practical tools you need to perform at your highest level consistently and achieve your goals.

Prime Business Alert! is drawn directly from Dr. Taylor's work with CEO's, senior management, and corporate organizations in a wide variety of industries, including finance, technology, and manufacturing, as well as, with professional athletes and coaches (learn more).

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Previous Issues of Prime Business Alert!

Prime Business:
A New Perspective on Corporate Performance

January, 2008

What level of performance do you want to attain? Do you want to achieve "peak performance?" For many people in the business world, that is the goal to which they aspire. Peak performance has become part of our language of achievement, first used by coaches and athletes, it has since been adopted by businesspeople, consultants, and motivational speakers. People typically think of peak performance as performing their best, as being at the top of their game. That sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to achieve peak performance? And when I came out of graduate school, peak performance was what I thought people should achieve.

Yet, as I became more experienced as a psychologist and a writer, I came to appreciate the power of words and that it's important that the words we use be highly descriptive what we’re trying to communicate. And I decided that peak performance was not highly descriptive what I wanted people to achieve.

There are several problems with peak performance:

• A peak is very small, so you can't stay there long. Would you be satisfied if you had one good day of work and three poor ones, or closed one deal, but lost out on several others within your reach?
  
  
• Once the peak is reached, there's only one way to go—down!—and the drop is usually precipitous. Have you experienced those big swings in performance, where one week you’re totally “on your game” and the next you’re completely off it?
  
  
• You may arrive at the peak too early or too late, missing a chance for success. Have you felt the frustration of lost opportunity because you weren’t as on your game as you were the week before?

A New Perspective on Corporate Performance

So I spent several years unsuccessfully looking for a concept that was highly descriptive of what I wanted people to achieve. Until one day I had one of those rare meetings of timing and readiness. I was walking through the meat section of a supermarket when I looked down at a piece of beef and on it was a sticker that read, "Prime Cut." I had one of those "ah-ha" experiences; I knew I was on to something! I went back to my office and looked up “prime" in the dictionary. It was defined as, "of the highest quality or value." I finally had the concept, Prime Performance (in the corporate world, Prime Business), that would become the foundation of all of my work and the goal that I believed was truly descriptive of what I wanted people to achieve.

I define Prime Business as: performing at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions. There are two key words in this definition. First, consistently. I'm not interested if you have one great performance and then some poor ones; you probably don’t remember the people in your business who built the one big project or made that one big deal then were never heard of again. What makes the great ones great is their ability to perform at a high level day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, for years on end. Those people are the superstars in your field that you remember.

The second key word is challenging. I'm not interested if you can perform well under ideal conditions when you’re at your best (e.g., rested, relaxed, focused, totally prepared); anyone can do that. What makes the great ones great is their ability to perform their best under the worst possible conditions, in an incredibly important situation, faced with immense demands, under great stress, and when they aren't at their best. Prime Business is truly a goal worth aspiring to!

How to Achieve Prime Business

Harnessing Prime Business involves maximizing six essential areas:

1. Essential information. Gathering the necessary information is the initial and most obvious contributor to Prime Business. Without this foundation of data, none of the other contributors will be of use in achieving your goals.
   
   
2. Task-specific knowledge and skills. Gaining the requisite knowledge and skills is the next influence on Prime Business. At every level of your education, training, and immersion in the business world, most of your time is devoted to identifying and developing those areas that will enable you to maximally fulfill your responsibilities.
   
   
3. Crucial resources and tools. In most parts of the business world, success doesn’t occur in isolation. Rather, success involves a gathering of resources and tools (e.g., people and equipment) that is necessary to accomplish your goals. The ability to take advantage of these often separates great producers and outstanding leaders from those who are merely good at what they do.
   
   
4. Physical health. Maintaining your physical health is an often-disregarded, yet fundamental, contributor to the enduring success associated with Prime Business. If you’re working your way up the corporate ladder, being healthy and fit—all else being equal—will help you outperform those who are also climbing up the increasingly crowded ladder of success. If you are a business leader, living a healthy life and encouraging your team to do the same pays performance dividends in terms of consistent productivity, performance under pressure, and long-term team retention. Though, admittedly, if you look at many successful people in the business world, you will find many who are unfit, overweight, and lead unhealthy lifestyles. In fact, pursuit of corporate success often creates a lifestyle that leads to an unhealthy life. I would argue, however, that the inability to master the ever-present physical demands of business life will ultimately take its toll on health, performance, and life in general.
   
   
5. Psychological and emotional capabilities. The hallmarks of Prime Business, consistency and the ability to overcome challenges, are grounded in your ability to respond positively to the psychological and emotional demands that are a daily companion to those in the business world. Skills such as staying motivated and confident, mastering stress and emotions, and maintaining focus are necessary to achieve Prime Business.
   
   
6. Interpersonal skills. Anyone who aspires to a leadership role must possess the interpersonal skills to work effectively with and direct others. True leadership takes empathy, assertiveness, communication, inspiration, decisiveness, and the ability to build a team, among other essential qualities.

Just like an athlete, you can achieve some success by maximizing a few of these areas or by being pretty good at all of them. But, just like world-class and professional athletes, the best in your business have developed each of these six areas deliberately and completely. The first three contributors are an accepted part of the education and training of those in the business world. Physical health is another factor that is gaining recognition as a key component to the success of a company (note the widespread presence of corporate wellness programs and in-house exercise facilities).

Interestingly, whenever I ask businesspeople if the psychological and interpersonal aspects of corporate performance are less than, as, or more important than the other four factors, the majority say as or more important (as the baseball legend and noted misanthrope, Yogi Berra, once said, “90% of sports is mental, the other half is in your head”). But, to be honest, as a performance psychologist, I don’t even believe that. All of the mental skills in the world won’t help you succeed if you don’t also have the necessary information, knowledge, skills, resources, and tools to get the job done. But the mental side of business is an essential piece of the puzzle. Yet, despite its professed and real importance. Attention paid to the psychological, emotional, and interpersonal skills ranges from complete neglect to periodic exposure; certainly not the investment that should be made given their importance. Prime Business Alert! begins your journey into this often overlooked, yet all-important, area.

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Prime Business Pyramid

March, 2008

As I discussed in the January, 2008 issue of Prime Business Alert!, Prime Business is defined as “performing at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions.” Prime Business is a goal toward which everyone in the business world strives, the result of which is maximizing performance, productivity, and profitability. But few individuals or companies clearly understand the information and strategies they must use to achieve that goal. Nor do many have a structure and a process for working toward Prime Business. And even fewer have the wherewithal to implement such important change. The Prime Business Pyramid provides both a framework and a means for identifying and developing the key contributors to individual and organizational performance.

This issue of Prime Business Alert! will create the foundation of knowledge on which you can optimize performance and strive effectively toward your goals. The Prime Business Pyramid is comprised of seven psychological factors that most directly impact performance in the business world and, in fact, life in general (see figure on right).

These factors can either facilitate or interfere with performance. Your goal is to understand your relationship with each of the seven factors and develop strategies and a plan of implementation for alleviating the weaknesses and building the strengths from which Prime Business will emerge.

Prime Business Progression

The Prime Business Pyramid is ordered in a purposeful and logical manner. Its order is based on the sequence in which the factors impact business performance. The first three factors (self-knowledge, motivation, and confidence) have a preparatory influence that readies you for performance, while the next three (stress, focus, and emotions) provide a direct effect as performance begins and proceeds. Ego has an overarching impact on every phase of performance and has a particularly strong influence during periods of challenge and conflict.

            Self-knowledge. At the base of the Prime Business Pyramid lies self-knowledge, which is the first factor because, without an in-depth understanding of who you are, your strengths and weakness, (i.e., what makes you tick), personal and professional growth will be, at best, haphazard and, at worst, nonexistent. Gaining a keen sense of “what you bring to the table” as a person, high-level performer, leader, and team member will enable you to use that information to implement necessary change to achieve your goals.

            Motivation. Next on the Prime Business Pyramid is motivation, which is the second factor because without the determination and drive to take action in pursuit of your goals, all efforts would stop and any other contributors to performance, whether the acquisition of information, skill sets, resources, or physical health would be moot. Motivation ensures that you do everything you can to be totally prepared to achieve your goals. Essential to developing motivation is understanding what motivates you to work hard toward your goals.

            Confidence. From motivation and preparation in pursuit of your goals, you will gain the foundation of confidence on which success is built. Having put in the necessary time and effort, you will have a strong and resilient belief in your ability to achieve your goals. You will have confidence in your:

• Knowledge, experience, and expertise,
• Ability to fulfill your roles and responsibilities, and
• Capacity to overcome obstacles, handle setbacks, and react constructively to challenges.

            Stress. From confidence and an abiding faith that you can succeed, you will have the ability to respond positively to the significant demands and high stress that are an inevitable and constant part of the business world. This healthy reaction means seeing stress as a challenge, not a threat and, as a result, wanting to face it head-on rather than avoid it. Part of your confidence comes from a metaphorical toolbox you develop that you can reach into for information, strategies, and tools to help you turn stress into an ally when it is an enemy for many around you. Your goal isn’t to just manage stress, but to master stress and use it as a tool to propel you forward rather than hold you back. The benefits of emotional mastery can be found at every level of your business efforts including psychological, physical, and interpersonal.

            Focus. With a clear mind that comes with stress mastery, you will have the essential ability to stay focused and avoid distractions while others are consumed by the chaos that often exists in the business world. Effective focus means being able to focus intensely on the task at hand, shift focus when the demands or the tasks change, and block out performance-interfering distractions that are ever present in business. Focus is especially important when faced with complex responsibilities, multiple tasks, deadlines, and uncertain outcomes.

            Emotions. Developing the five previous Prime Business factors provides you with the foundation for emotional mastery, perhaps the most challenging of the pyramid’s factors. Emotions lie at the top of the Prime Business Pyramid because I have found that they are the ultimate determinant of your ability to perform consistently under the most challenging conditions. Emotions also contribute significantly to your abilities as a leader and a team member. The business world can provoke a broad spectrum of emotions, ranging from inspiration, pride, exhilaration, and contentment, to fear, frustration, anger, and despair. Emotional mastery doesn’t involve not feeling these emotions—as human beings, that’s impossible—but rather identifying, understanding, and expressing the emotions you feel in a healthy way. Most powerfully, emotional mastery gives you the power to use emotions as tools to facilitate individual and team performance rather than weapons that hurt you and others.

            Ego. Overlaying the entire Prime Business Pyramid is ego, an attribute that is the most intriguing and misunderstood, yet least talked-about, contributor to corporate performance. When most people think of ego, they think of bad ego—megalomaniacs, narcissists, and control freaks. I offer a different and nuanced perspective on ego as an essential quality that all people possess and that can be either affirming or destructive. Acknowledging bad ego takes courage and strength, yet is an essential part of achieving Prime Business. Developing good ego involves self-exploration and a profound desire to not only be a great performer, but also good person, leader, and team member.

What Lies Ahead

With an understanding of the most essential psychological contributors to individual corporate performance, you now have the framework from which to explore them in your own personal and professional lives. The Prime Business Pyramid should now act as the foundation for the process of change and growth that will allow you to maximize your performance and achieve your goals.

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Prime Business Credo

May, 2008

A credo is a “system of principles and beliefs” that provides direction and impetus to your life. It acts to guide your attitudes, decisions, and actions in everything you think, feel, and do. You can think of a credo as a manifesto for your life; it espouses what you most profoundly believe. To not have a credo means to go through life without defined purpose, clear focus, or identifiable direction.

Because of the powerful influence that a credo has, you should develop a credo that accurately reflects the principles and beliefs that guide your professional life. To assist you in this process, I have provided below the Prime Business Credo that I have developed through my work with business leaders that can form the “superstructure” of your professional life and from which you can build the business career that you want. This issue of Prime Business Alert! will conclude with an exercise to help you to create your own business credo.

Values

There is nothing more important in your life and career than your values. They establish priorities, guide the choices you make, and affect everything and everyone in your life. Your values act as the road map for the direction in which you take your life.

• I have given deliberate thought to and chosen the values that guide my life. Gaining clarity on my values ensures that I know what my values are, why I hold them, and how they direct my life.

• I live in accordance with my values. The ultimate governor of my behavior are my values (i.e., integrity, trust) and my ability to choose and act on positive values when faced with conflicting values (i.e., ambition, the bottom line) in my professional life.

• Living a value-driven life gives my life meaning, satisfaction, and joy. A professional life that is based on my deepest values will be one filled with a deep sense of purpose, fulfillment, and contentment.

Perspective

You can think of perspective as a lens through which you see yourself and the world in which you live and work. Your perspective impacts what you think, how you feel, and how you act toward whatever life presents to you.

• I take a long-term view of my career. Business success is a marathon, not a sprint. Short-term results are less important than doing what I need to do in the present to get where I want to go in the future.

• My career is important to me, but it’s not life or death. Seeing my work as a part of life, not life itself means I feel less stress, am more productive, gain more satisfaction, and make better decisions that will lead me toward my professional goals.

• I maintain balance in my life. Though I am committed to my professional success, I also understand the value of having other sources of gratification in my life, including family and friends, physical health, and spiritual and cultural activities.

Understanding

To perform at your highest level and achieve your goals, you must have a complete appreciation for everything that impacts your efforts. A careful analysis of your own capabilities and the demands of your current and future career paths will help you gain this knowledge.

• I know myself, strengths and weaknesses alike. My willingness to gain a deep understanding of myself will provide me with the self-knowledge necessary to grow and achieve my professional goals.

• I know what it takes to reach my long-term goals. I have a clear understanding of everything I need to do to attain my career objectives, including my education, knowledge, experience, skill sets, and resources.

• I am open to learning new things that will help me achieve my goals. The only way to become successful is explore all avenues of my work life and continue to grow and develop new skills.

Priorities                     

The priorities you establish in your life act as the foundation for the direction your career takes, the quality of your work, and the level that you attain. Giving thought to your priorities will help ensure that your career path is one of your own choosing.

• Performing my best in my work is a high priority in my life. I have chosen to make my career a central part of my life and one that takes precedence over most other avenues might take.

• My lifestyle supports my goals. Because my career is important to me, my personal life buttresses my professional efforts by living a healthy lifestyle.

• I make decisions in my life that will help me achieve my goals. Though I value many aspects of my life, I make deliberate decisions about how I devote my time and energy that further my career goals.

Responsibility

Responsibility is two sides of the same coin; you can’t take responsibility for your achievements and successes unless you are also willing to take responsibility for your mistakes and failures.

• I have ownership of my career and my life. I have chosen the career path I am on and, as a result, am highly invested in my professional success.

• I take responsibility for all of my actions in my work. Only by holding myself accountable for both my successes and failures can I be assured of achieving my career goals.

• I take control of anything that impacts my business performance. I know what affects my professional efforts and make sure that I have the power to influence those efforts.

Commitment

Perhaps the single most important predictor of success in the business world is the commitment made and motivation directed toward your goals.

• I have an unwavering commitment to be my best. I know how difficult it is to become successful in business and I am willing to give everything I have to reach my goals.

• I give my best effort in all aspects of my work. Only my full and consistent effort will enable me to realize my professional goals.

• Every day I focus on areas in which I can improve. By directing efforts into my weaknesses, I know I can overcome them and raise my level of performance.

Challenges

The road to the top of the corporate ladder is a bumpy one and those who traverse that road successfully are able to, when faced with challenges, stay clear of mind and calm of body, and find solutions that enable them to continue down that road.

• I expect obstacles, setbacks, and down periods in the pursuit of my goals. I anticipate that I will have difficulties in my pursuit of business success, so these roadblocks will not surprise me and I will be better able to continue down my chosen road.

• Every experience I have, positive or negative, is an opportunity and a lesson. Though setbacks and failures are never enjoyable, if I view them as experiences to make me better, then I will be better equipped to overcome them.

• Whenever I am faced with adversity, I respond positively to it. Only by staying confident and focused, and remaining committed to my goals will I be able master the many challenges I will inevitably face in pursuit of my goals.

Support

The road to the top of the corporate ladder is also not one that you can take alone. There are many people in both your personal and professional lives that contribute significantly to your success.

• I show respect and gratitude for the people who help me achieve my goals. I realize that any success that I achieve, in addition to my own efforts, is borne on the backs of others who helped me get there.

• I listen to and learn from my mentors, peers, and support team. I am thankful for the opportunity to gain experience and knowledge from the people who came before and those who joined me along my journey toward success.

• I never lose sight of the importance of my family and friends in my career and life. Whatever success I attain, I always remember those people who care about me most and were willing to make sacrifices so I could get where I wanted to go.

Objectives

My work with business leaders indicates that those who have a clear vision and specific objectives of what they want to accomplish are more likely to fulfill their goals.

• I endeavor to have a career and a life that is of my own design. Though luck and happenstance do play a role in career development, I strive to be captain of my life’s ship and direct it where I choose.

• I strive to achieve professional success and personal well-being. I believe that success without well-being is not success at all. Instead, I strive to weave success and well-being into the fabric of my life.

• I aim to succeed while making a meaningful contribution to the world. Personal success, no matter what level I achieve, isn’t truly meaningful unless I also make a significant contribution that leaves the world a better place.

Design Your Own Credo

A business credo is a personal statement that will come from your most deeply held beliefs about your career and life. I would suggest that you give yourself time to develop your credo, allowing the ideas to take root and grow until you have created a business credo that truly reflects your professional vision and objectives. Use the following to help shape your credo:

• What areas do you want to include in your credo (you can use those I identified above and create others that also have meaning for you)?

• What values, attitudes, beliefs, and actions do you want to include in your credo?

Once you have developed your business credo, read it, think about it, internalize it, and live by it until it becomes the guiding force in your professional life.

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Prime Business Challenge

July, 2008

I assume you’re reading Prime Business Alert! because you’re looking for every edge to get ahead and you have learned that the psychological aspects of business are essential to your success.  I’m going to assume that you already work hard and you believe that you’re doing everything you can to achieve your goals.  Yet is there more to be done? I say, absolutely! So I want to present to you the Prime Business Challenge to see if you can take your efforts to a new and higher level.

Why the Prime Business Challenge?

The Prime Business Challenge, in its most basic form, is to RAISE THE BAR! Why the need for the Prime Business Challenge, you may ask.

In the last decade, there has a been a tectonic shift in the business world. With the emergence of international competition and the advent of new technologies, we live in a truly global marketplace where not only do companies have more competition from more places than ever before, but individual businesspeople do as well. As the best-seller author, Thomas Friedman, suggests, “the world is flat.”

In this highly competitive and demanding environment, there is no room for less than maximum effort and stratospheric goals. Ask yourself what your competition is doing right now. Because if you’re not doing everything you can to succeed, the chances are that there is someone out there, either in the U.S., China, India, or another country, who is willing to do what it takes.

Here’s a simple axiom: If you keep doing the same thing, you will continue to stay where you are. The Prime Business Challenge will stimulate growth by creating greater commitment, energy, and focus in your efforts. The Prime Business Challenge will motivate you to get to the next level and, to get to that next level, you can’t just do more of the same harder and longer, you must do something different.

New Performance Mindset

A performance mindset is the attitude and expectations you hold about your performance and productivity. In my work with businesspeople and companies, I have often seen a performance mindset that was self-referenced (meaning you compare yourself only with your own past performance) and that could be bet characterized as having a focus on “reasonable” progress. For example, one company I worked with was content with annual growth of 5-15 percent in a global industry that was growing at a much faster rate. The goal of reasonable progress is, of course, reasonable success. Perfectly reasonable, wouldn't you agree? The benefits to reasonable growth is that it is safely attainable with little risk. If you aim for reasonable growth, you have a very high probability of success. But the costs cna include progress that is too slow to keep up with your competitors.

The Prime Business Challenge dares you to change your performance mindset. I want you to raise the bar in your performance mindset by striving for “unreasonable” progress, which means higher standards, more aggressiveness in pursuit of your goals, and generally getting out of your performance comfort zone. Also, if possible, create a competitor point of reference in your performance mindset, which means identifying your biggest competitors and working to surpass them. The goal of unreasonable progress is “spectacular success.” The benefits of attempting unreasonable progress are a sense of purpose and excitement, as well as the possibility of spectacular success. The costs include more effort and stress, higher risk of failure, and the possibility of disappointment in not achieving such success.

The thought of unreasonable progress and spectacular success can be, at the same time, energizing and intimidating. Great success is, I’m sure, what you want, yet you also don’t want to fail. But to mitigate whatever anxiety you may feel about striving for something that is unreasonable, I can state with great confidence that if you commit fully to such a lofty goal, though you may not achieve spectacular success, you will far exceed your reasonable progress and success.

Obstacles to the Prime Business Challenge

The Prime Business Challenge wouldn’t be a challenge if it were easy or free of obstacles. There are three obstacles that I find more prevalent in my work with businesspeople and companies.

• Comfort and complacency. When you’ve done something the same way for many years, it’s easy to get comfortable and settled in your ways. And your current  approach may have worked pretty well (i.e., reasonable success), so it’s also easy to get complacent.

• Fear of change. Few people like change; it’s unpredictable and you can never be sure how you will change or what the result will be. So it’s safer and easier to just keep doing what you’re doing rather than face the uncertainty of change.

• Inertia. Newton’s First Law of Motion, inertia is defined as “a body in motion tends to remain in motion and a body at rest tends to remain at rest unless a force is exerted on it.” People are also subject to inertia, such that you will stay in your current state of performance and productivity unless some force—a change— is exerted on you.

Needs For the Prime Business Challenge

To meet the Prime Business Challenge, you must understand and fully develop every area that impacts your work performance.

• Knowledge. From education and experience, you will gain an understanding of all of the relevant knowledge areas in your work. Typical business knowledge areas include finance, products, services, sales, marketing, and competitors.

• Skill sets. Regardless of your specific professional focus, it’s likely that you need some combination of goal setting, preparation, time management, organizational skills, communication, and teamwork.

• Psychology. Spectacular success in business begins and ends inside your head. Developing mental areas, such as motivation, confidence, focus, and emotions, are essential for maximizing your performance and productivity.

• Support. Success in the business world rarely comes without help. Important support areas include collegiate relationships, mentoring, coaching, training, encouragement, problem solving, and feedback.

Meet the Prime Business Challenge

Meeting the Prime Business Challenge is a deliberate process that involves understanding what you need to do to take your performances to the next level and then taking active steps to get there.

• Be “unreasonable.” To achieve spectacular success, you have to be a little unreasonable, which means setting expectations and goals that are a bit out of reach.

• Understand what you are selling. What—or who—you are selling is yourself! To best position yourself for spectacular success, know what your capabilities are and what added value you bring to your work.

• Understand your competitors. If you’re in a competitive marketplace—and who isn’t!—then you need to know your competitors, their knowledge, skill sets, and capabilities. With this data, you can develop strategies to set yourself apart from them.

• Identify obstacles. If, despite what appear to be your best efforts, you are not achieving your goals, you need to understand why. By identifying the obstacles that are holding you back, you can remove them to clear your path to spectacular success.

• Best practices. The best way to achieve spectacular success is to study and emulate those who have already attained such a lofty level. Just like young athletes studying elite athletes, you can identify the best people in your line of work, study what has made them successful, and develop those areas in yourself.

• “Gotta want it bad!” Of all the qualities I have seen in the many top performers with whom I have worked over the past 23 years in business, sports, medicine, and performing arts, the one absolutely essential attribute was an attitude in which they wanted it more than anyone else and they were willing to do anything necessary to achieve their goals.

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