{"id":492,"date":"2008-01-20T10:44:41","date_gmt":"2008-01-20T17:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drjimtaylor.com\/blog\/?p=492"},"modified":"2008-01-20T10:44:41","modified_gmt":"2008-01-20T17:44:41","slug":"business-prime-business-a-new-perspective-on-corporate-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/business-prime-business-a-new-perspective-on-corporate-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Business: Prime Business &#8211; A New Perspective on Corporate Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What level of performance do you want to attain? Do you want  to  achieve &#8220;peak performance?&#8221; 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\u2019t it? Who wouldn\u2019t want to achieve  peak performance? And when I  came out of graduate school, peak performance was  what I thought people  should achieve.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, as I became more experienced as a psychologist and a   writer, I came to appreciate the power of words and that it&#8217;s important  that  the words we use be highly descriptive what we\u2019re trying to  communicate. And I  decided that peak performance was not highly  descriptive what I wanted people  to achieve.<\/p>\n<p>There are several problems with peak performance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A  peak is very small, so you can&#8217;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?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Once  the peak is reached, there&#8217;s only one way to  go\u2014down!\u2014and the drop is usually  precipitous. Have you experienced  those big swings in performance, where one  week you\u2019re totally \u201con your  game\u201d and the next you\u2019re completely off it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>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\u2019t as on  your game as you were the week before?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>A  New Perspective on Corporate Performance<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>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, &#8220;Prime Cut.&#8221; I  had one of those &#8220;ah-ha&#8221;  experiences; I knew I was on to something! I  went back to my office and looked  up \u201cprime&#8221; in the dictionary. It was  defined as, &#8220;of the highest  quality or value.&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>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, <em>consistently<\/em>.  I&#8217;m not interested if  you have one great performance and then some poor ones;  you probably  don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>The second key word is <em>challenging<\/em>.  I&#8217;m not  interested if you can perform well under ideal conditions when you\u2019re   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&#8217;t at their best.  Prime Business is truly a  goal worth aspiring to!<\/p>\n<h3><strong>How  to Achieve Prime Business<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Harnessing Prime Business involves maximizing six essential   areas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Essential       information<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Task-specific       knowledge and skills<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Crucial       resources and tools<\/em>. In most parts of  the       business world, success doesn\u2019t 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Physical health<\/em>.       Maintaining your physical  health is an often-disregarded, yet fundamental,       contributor to  the enduring success associated with Prime Business. If       you\u2019re  working your way up the corporate ladder, being healthy and fit\u2014all        else being equal\u2014will 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Psychological       and emotional capabilities<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Interpersonal       skills<\/em>. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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).<\/p>\n<p>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,  \u201c90% of sports is mental, the other  half is in your head\u201d). But, to be honest, even with a Ph.D. in Psychology , I don\u2019t even believe that. All of the mental  skills in  the world won\u2019t help you succeed if you don\u2019t 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. <strong><em>Prime Business  Alert!<\/em><\/strong> begins your journey into this often overlooked, yet   all-important, area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What level of performance do you want to attain? Do you want to achieve &#8220;peak performance?&#8221; 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}