We are not in an Economic Crisis, we are in an Economic “Righting” of what’s been unchecked for two decades!
Yes I said it. And if one wants to see how to kill true unrestricted entrepreneurial performance, one not need look far for signposts to disaster. A corporate executive makes outlandish bonuses and pay and we persecute the executive – it is the Board that allows this to happen. A laborer makes significantly more than minimum wage for a minimum wage job and becomes an internal terrorist to the health of an organization, and we get angry at the co-worker – it is the Union that allows this to happen. Political leaders are elected to positions that represent a raise to their income level, serve in positions that far exceed their resume, and the electorate gets mad at them. Find a mirror – it is YOU who allow this to happen. Athletes assume no personal responsibility for the celebrity-dome – yet their owners continue to reward them for their behaviors with pay…and the stories continue on and on.

Since the 16th Century, the world has seen a global recession about every sixty years. In the United States, for the past three hundred years it has been about every fifty to sixty years, right on track. So where we are today should be no surprise to our exceedingly educated financial institutional leaders and Congressional oversight committee elders. Yet it has seemed to catch everyone off guard? Well, we have finally arrived in our self-made reality. Enjoy the trauma of what some call our “economic crisis” or “massive employment fallout” and any of the other localized business, employment, or prosperity issues that are traumatizing us. We created it!

“The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money!”
- Lady Margaret Thatcher
Don’t read this column if you are a fan of overpaid, under-performing, whining individuals. Don’t read if you like organizations that do not grasp the fact that we have come into a new global economy and work place dynamic that is yelling “all of the old rules of employment expectations, laws, compensation, and entitlements from employers are gone” and new rules must be written to survive or even thrive once again!

It is time for true performance execution at every level. In PERFORMANCE EXECUTION: Why Most Organizations & People “SUC” & Six Things You Can Do Immediately For “SUCCESS”! I detail twenty-plus years of research on the best-of-the-best individual and organizational success and reveal exactly how to transcend from crisis to success. Consider:

Performance Cancer Cells: Garbage in, garbage out. We have arrived at a pure partisan news world where people with very limited resumés manufacture the daily one-sided and biased information flow from which people make decisions.
SOLUTION (1) For every informational intake, make sure that if it is one-sided, you get equal intake from the other side before making a decision. (2) FCC Chairmen impose significant daily fines on this out-of-balance, fabricated news world. Ensure that every outlet maintains at least a fifty-percent threshold of balanced (positive to negative) information, stories, features, etc.

Performance Cancer Cells: The Gallup Organization recently shared research which indicates that fifty-six percent of current employees actively report that they are “disengaged” in the workplace, and more than fifteen percent report that they are “actively disengaged”. WOW, more than 70 percent of employees are just taking up space (this was subsequently reinforced by an even more alarming survey done by the Conference Board, a private research group based in New York)! SOLUTION (1) Start coaching better with regular, real performance reviews on a weekly or monthly basis (Want a copy of power performance assessment instrument? Email Jeff@JeffreyMagee.com and ask.). (2) Start terminating the pathetic. (3) After recently spending a week on Jury Duty, I learned that judges need to start throwing out the ridiculous. (4)Laws that impede performance need to be repealed.
Another example, despite the economic, media-inflated crisis in America and the globe, Women Business Enterprises (WBE) and a 2007-2009 economic survey conducted by the Women’s Business Council indicated their 2008 revenue would be up by twenty-six percent or more or more, with forty-five percent estimating their year-end revenue would be at least fifty percent higher than last year.

Over the past twenty years, I have worked inside of the absolute top performing businesses and associations in North America. I have seen why the best are the best and how some of the best have fallen. Interested? Check yourself against these seven Performance Cancer Cells and recognize the (albeit tough) solutions.

Benchmark yourself personally and organizationally against these SEVEN PERFORMANCE TRAITS to high-impact performance execution:

1. Develops, maintains, and fosters a healthy atmosphere for a forward-oriented constructive positive ATTITUDE and thus, a climate of positive self, internally and externally, among others!

2. Understands how PASSION feeds OWNERSHIP and continuously places themselves and others into the circle for victory and never-ending enthusiasm for self and what one projects towards others as their body-of-work. This is the baseline for performance execution!

3. Possesses the unwavering objective ability to assess oneself and others to ensure that the OBJECTIVE PERFORMANCE CAPABILITY level of one’s self and others is always ahead of market needs!

4. Ensures all commitments, undertakings, and actions are compliant with five integrated MISSION STATEMENTS of all balanced individuals and organizations. Each independent of one another, yet dependent upon one another!

5. With these four foundational elements in play, the ability to execute decision making becomes our accelerator for success. A fundamental differentiator between successful people and organizations and others is that successful people and organizations do what others hesitate to do, and that comes down to performance execution – decision making. The fluid ability to facilitate a decision flow (and in the 1980s we crafted the STOP® four-step DECISION MAKING MATRIX®) is critical!

6. Pulling away from the crowd, the ability to accentuate one’s UNIQUE SELLING & SERVICE FACTORS (USFx2) distinguishes you from others. I have found four elementary ways to position one’s self to project to others more value proposition than they presently have or can get elsewhere. Performance execution is dependent upon one’s ability to finesse these to out-perform others!

7. Recognizing that how one talks internally frames one’s operating belief system for any given moment in time. That internal dialogue directs the behavior that comes outwardly and which others can see, monitor, and from which they can benchmark. This self-talk can be likened to an internal Board of Directors. Imagine making a fist with your hand, as if you were holding a list of individuals who influence you. Would that be a powerful fist of performance execution-oriented people or a group of excuse makers for maintaining the status-quo a little longer? I call this your MENTAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS. The never-ending process of encircling one’s self with mental positive references ensures you will accelerate your performance ability (for more on this one performance idea go to www.ThePerformanceMagazine.com, download edition V. 15, I. 1, and read page 21!).

Performance execution and getting yourself and those around you aligned for meaningful success once again is a doable reality. Performance execution is about exactly that. One performs and one should be rewarded – earned not entitled. There is the long-term answer to your short-term needs!