Performance Blog

Richard S. Johnson is a professional golfer.  He and I get together several times a year to discuss his professional progress and development.  Our goal has remained the same over the years–discover ways for Richard to maximize his performance on the golf course.

We recently sat down for lunch at the Medalist Golf Club in Jupiter, FL to review his progress over the 2011 Season–not one of his better seasons.  Richard was not playing well over the last few months of the season.  There were a number of reasons for this.  He had a nagging injury from earlier in the season; he was making some equipment changes; and the persistent lack of any real success was beginning to wear him down at the end of a long season.

Among any other characteristics I love about Richard is his absolute honesty with himself.  He is never afraid to take a long, hard look at himself when searching for ways to improve.  He has a powerful desire to be the best he can be–both on and off the golf course.  He has high standards and expectations for himself.  And at the end of this past season he was not meeting his playing standards or expectations.  We talked about this and we worked on this.  Here’s how:

Experience: can work for you or against you.  You can use the knowledge gained in experience to make better decisions and be prepared for more variation in future events.  Our skills become honed in a way only experience can provide.  You can also bear the burden of poor performance by bringing those memories into current events.  All people tend to focus more intently on and are more deeply affected by disappointments, poor decisions, and inadequate performances. We tend to remember our mistakes and often dwell on them. We aren’t nearly as good at remembering the good performances, the smart decisions or the unanticipated successes.  Why?  Because we expect to perform well.  We have studied, practiced, and may have even done the same performance well before.  So when a performance doesn’t come off as expected, we often get angry, disappointed, or upset with ourselves.  This is especially true for elite level performers who aspire to perform at the very highest levels.

Interestingly, we tend to dwell on the negative rather than the positive.  Not all people, but most.  We seem to make a habit of beating ourselves up when we don’t get the results we expect.  And when this happens consistently, we tend to start expecting to fail–and do–which leads to further frustration, anxiety, and anger.

Oddly, most people tend to over exaggerate the consequences of a poor performance, while at the same time underestimate the importance of a good performance.  We might do well with something 9 out of 10 times, but it is that 1 time we screwed up or something didn’t go as intended that we remember, focus on, and worse of all–carry into our next performance.

So what is the solution?  Three strategies can help you duck the punches of a self-inflicted emotional beating:

1.  Savor the Good.  Make a special effort to balance ‘the good with the bad’.  In other words, when you catch yourself stressing over a poor performance realize this has negative consequences, and begin thinking about something you did well.  Recall the good and enjoy it, savor it, and realize that it doesn’t always happen and should therefore be appreciated when it does.

2.  People Make Mistakes–even You.  No one is perfect, and everyone eventually experiences a performance slump.  Recognizing you will make mistakes leads to being patient and forgiving with yourself.  That is not the same thing as lowering your standards or reducing expectations.  Rather realize even the best sometimes miss, and so will you.  The best thing you can do with a mistake is learn from it and move on by using this new knowledge to improve future performances.

3.  Try Something New.  If you are consistently making the same mistake, or poor performances are becoming the norm rather than the exception, it is time for something new.  A change in preparation, new information, a different approach, using different skills, perhaps seeking the guidance of a valued mentor are all ways of shaking up the old with something new.  But rather than making change for change sake, look for consistencies in the poor performances and seek new ways of approaching the deficiencies in your performance.

Note:  In his first tournament of the 2012 season, Richard finished in the Top 30 at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship–in a field that included Tiger Woods and Luke Donald, currently the No. 1 Player in the World. Well done Richard.

Had you been a student at Cornell University in the fall of 1946, you may have witnessed a food fight in one of the dining halls, or perhaps even joined in.  A young professor named Richard was there, and as objects streaked through the air, one plate caught his attention.  For you see, that plate had stamped along one edge the University insignia.  As the plate spun through the year, Richard noticed that as the spinning of the plate decreased, the wobbling of the edges increased.  Most of us would have been more concerned with avoiding the flying objects than noticing their rate of spin and wobble.  This moment was, however, an epiphany for this young professor.  As a physicist, the spinning plate piqued his curiosity as he wondered if the same phenomenon occurred in the electrons of atoms.  His thoughts and exploration following that food fight would lead years later to Professor Richard Feynman being awarded the Nobel Prize for his fundamental work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.

When you can, as young professor Feynman did, perceive subtleties in the environment that have significant importance you begin to see like an expert.  Everyone in that dinning hall on that day witnesses plates flying through the air.  Only Feynman detected a critical subtlety. Thousands of hours of experience and sizeable knowledge have hone experts’ perceptual radar to the point where anomalies are readily detected. In the business world, possessing a keen sense of timing that comes from an intimate understanding of how that industry and organization work leads to seeing the critical nuances in events. With an inability to discern the important from the unimportant, people on the lower steps of expertise struggle to effectively identify, and thus respond to, the most critical factors in the situations in which they find themselves.

Business is a dynamic process where many people with different responsibilities, backgrounds, skills and interests are engaged in the myriad activities of an industry. While understanding business machinations is essential, the challenge of focusing on the individuals and events that have the greatest effect on the outcome is critical.  Being able to correctly interpret the significance of the unfolding events in business allows the top performers to recognize the winds of opportunity in a meeting, market or industry and adroitly change the course of action in a direction leading to greater success.  It is all in how you see it.

Charles Darwin based his theory of evolution on the principle.  It determines which organizations thrive and which don’t survive.  And last night it determined which team won and which team lost a National Championship.  The principle is this: you either adapt to your environment or you die.

You can’t control the weather, but you can control your response to it.  You can dress for it, you can modify your actions (e.g., drive more slowly in a downpour), or you can choose to stay in a climate controlled indoors.  So while you can’t control the environmental factor of weather, you can determine your response to it.  The same can be said for most any environment.

Kodak, a proud and historically successful manufacturer of camera film is on the verge of bankruptcy, while International Business Machines (IBM) just completed one of its’ best years yet.  In the age of digital photography, Kodak is still making camera film.  In an age of inexpensive and an over abundance of personal computers, IBM no longer sells pcs–a product they essentially invented.

Last night in New Orleans, the University of Alabama football team had an unproven quarterback, no premier receivers available and an inconsistent running game and went up against one of the most powerful defenses in college football-Louisiana State University.  Alabama adjusted and scored 21 points.  Louisiana did not adapt, and scored no points in the entire game–the first time a team has been held scoreless in a National Championship game.  The team that adapted won: 21-0.

So when and how do you adapt?  When the reasons you were or could be successful no longer exist is when you adapt.  If you are running a race, and the energy is no longer there it is time for an energy bar or drink (or even just before the energy goes away–preparation is powerful tool in adaptation).  In business, if customers are not coming through the door or visiting the website, it is time to adapt–or die.  How you adapt has to do with the reasons you are not finding success.  While people are no longer buying camera film, they are still taking pictures.  Kodak did not or could not adapt to the changing market.

Top performers understand their environment, and they constantly study it and monitor it for changes. When changes and nuances are detected, they are analyzed in attempt to exploit them.  IBM realized that while selling business machines was no longer truly profitable (e.g., see the performances of HP, Dell, Tandy), the information generated from those machines was still needed by large organizations–but large organizations didn’t know how to integrate the manufacturing data with the sales data with the shipping data with the financial data, etc., etc., etc.  But IBM did.  They went to school and learned or developed the cutting edge technology for information storage, integration and retrieval (e.g., the cloud) and then sold this knowledge as consulting services.  IBM has a future because it adapted to changes in its’ business environment.  Kodak will soon be a memory in a museum; a proverbial “Kodak moment” in time, because it couldn’t adapt.  This morning in Louisiana, I’m sure there are football coaches wondering how they could have adapted last night.  Adapt or die.  Darwin knew.

With the start of the New Year, it is a common practice to consider the future by crafting a few goals to help us navigate a successful and satisfying year. It is, therefore, a good time to review the characteristics of good, or SMART goals.  SMART goals are:

• Specific. Clear goals provide better guidance than vague goals. ” I will exercise for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings” is better than “I will get in shape.”
• Meaningful. Goals should represent important steps toward fulfilling your needs, desires and aspirations. If you are in a service industry, a goal to “devote 10 minutes every afternoon to emailing one former client I have not heard from in 6 months” may go a long way to fulfilling your desire to increase your repeat business.
• Achievable. The goal must be tied to actions directly under your control. Because you cannot control how someone feels, a goal to make someone happy or feel appreciated is not as achievable as a goal to give a colleague a warm greeting every morning, or to send a hand written thank you note to people who perform services you appreciate.
• Realistic. Your goals must be within the limits of your abilities. If you have never run a marathon before, setting a goal to win a marathon is not as realistic as setting a goal to compete in 3 marathons in 2012, with an improved time in each race.  The later goal does not rule out the possibility of winning a marathon, but it is more realistic in terms of accomplishment.
• Time-oriented.  Putting your goals on a time line creates a sense of immediacy and urgency.  “Someday I will write a book” doesn’t get it done like “By June 1, 2012 I will have completed the first draft of my book “How I Overcame Procrastination.”

This week I’ve been working on my new book, How to be Your Best When it Matters Most, co-authored with friend Dan Thurmon.  Specifically, I’m currently writing the chapter Conquering Performance Anxiety–that strange feeling that comes over you resulting in shaky hands, sweat beats on the brow, and that churning feeling in your stomach. We’ve all had it, and we will all experience it again. It often leaves a drastically negative impact on our performance.  The major reason for performance anxiety is the feeling of being out of control. Therefore, most solutions to this problem lead to gaining a sense of control over the situation.  In doing the research for this chapter, I discovered several successful strategies for conquering performance anxiety.

Preparation

Because feeling under-prepared leads to being unable to adequately meet the challenges of performance, good preparation is an effective strategy for conquering, or at least controlling anxiety.  Feeling prepared comes from thorough planning, practicing essential skills, researching critical knowledge, and gaining experience in situations with lower risks.

Confidence

As has been found for athletes, self-confidence protects against debilitating performance anxiety.  The advantage of developing high self-confidence is that it leads to feeling in control even as anxiety increases during a performance.  Confidence is believing that your skills, preparation and desire to do well will carry you through.  It takes no talent at all to give something your very best, and if you have given something your very best effort you cannot ask any more of yourself.  You’re human.  Recognize that you will make mistakes, but so will everyone else.  Confidence comes in knowing that even though there may be others with more skill, knowledge or experience, there is no one with more desire to do well in this situation than you.

Physical Control

It is often difficult to control external factors, such as equipment malfunctioning, other people’s actions, or the weather, but it is possible to exercise control over your physical comfort and reactions.  The onset of anxiety usually leads to rapid, shallow breathing. This type of breathing zaps the body of necessary oxygen.  Therefore, seizing control by taking long, slow, deep breaths will not only provided the needed oxygen for optimum performance, but also will reduce anxiety.  Additionally, dressing comfortably and ‘for success’ will contribute to feeling that you are ready to give the situation your very best.

Purge Negative Thoughts

How often have you found yourself just minutes away from an important event–sales call, walking down the marriage isle, or the start of an important athletic event–and negative thoughts begin to flood your brain.  “What if I trip?”  “What if I forget his name?”  Thinking of negative events and outcomes not only increases anxiety, it also leads to the likelihood that those negative events might just happen. An effective anxiety reducing strategy is to purge those thoughts with self-talk.  As they begin to appear, recognize them as negative, and force yourself to talk to yourself about something positive.  Describe yourself being successful, report a similar situation in which you were successful, or if that is challenging, talk to yourself about something that brings you happiness–a hobby or a loved one–anything that gets those negative thoughts out of your head and makes you relax a bit.  Self-talk is more active than just thinking positive thoughts, and therefore it is more powerful in conquering anxiety.

Warm Up

Every and any performance can be improved with a warm-up.  Warm-up is not practice to improve, but rather an opportunity to engage the skills and knowledge necessary so that when the actual performance begins those skills are ready to serve you.  Musicians, actors and athletes all warm up before a performance, and so can anyone else.  If your ‘performance’ requires you to speak, as in a job interview or sales call, warm-up by talking as if you were meeting your clients or potential employers.  A good warm-up goes a long way in making you feel ready and in control!

This was the email exchange between my friend Mike Wien and myself this past weekend.

Friday night:

Paul: Are you and Nannette available for dinner with Diana and I Sunday evening?

Mike:  Just landed in Seattle. Back late Sunday night. 10k team nationals tomorrow.

Paul: How come I never get a message from you saying “Hi Paul, I’m in Kroger’s buying eggs and milk.”?  ;-)  I love it Mike!  Best wishes for success.

Saturday morning:

Mike: Hi Paul, I am sitting in my hotel room working on a report for a client and waiting for the sun to come up.   I have to leave in a minute and see if I can find a banana and some Gatorade.

Saturday evening:

Mike: To my family, closest friends and training buddies,

First, let me provide some perspective.  I wrote the following e-mail to Jack Spartz, my training buddy, yesterday afternoon as I was flying  to the National 10K Cross Country Team Championship in Seattle as part of the Atlanta Track Club Masters team.

Jack  -  I am on the plane to Seattle and here is my pre-race thinking.   I know I am ranked number four out of five on our 60+ ,masters team.  I am thinking that I need to stay with my top 3 teammates tomorrow to form a pack and push each other. Only the top three score points. That is realistic.  My dream goal tomorrow is to try to out run all three and lead the team to a championship.  May not be realistic, but most of my dreams are not realistic (that’s what makes them dreams.)…and actually being able to live an unrealistic dream is the best.

Mike

So here is what happened.   In the team championship, each team is given a starting box, one person wide.  We lined up in our order and the gun when off.  Jerry Learned (1) took the lead among our team with Kirk Larson (2) right behind him.   I quickly passed Bill Moore (3) and Jerry, Kirk and I ran together in that order for the first three miles. After three miles, I passed Kirk who stayed right behind me as I tailed Jerry.  At 4 miles , I passed Jerry and took the lead for our team.  The next two miles, I heard spectators yell, “Go Mike, Go Jerry, Go Kirk”, all in one breath.  I knew we were still all together pushing each other to go faster.   At 5 ½ I caught two other 60 + runners, Bill Dixon from Massachusetts and Keith Woodson from Vermont .  We all had to wear an age group identifier on our backs so I knew they were competitors.  I passed Keith and then Bill, who saw my age and picked up the pace and passed me back.

As we approached 6 miles, Keith made a break and passed me and moved to pass Bill.  I went with Keith and we both passed Bill.   Bill responded with 100 yards to go and accelerated past both of us to take third place.   I took fourth and Bill took fifth, Kirk took sixth and Jerry took seventh.   (I knew I gave it everything at the end, when I threw-up shortly after crossing the finish line.)  Our 4th, 6th and 7th place finish was good enough to win the national championship, a nice metal, a free beer coupon at the party, a beautiful team trophy and a USA Track & Field National Champion patch for my warm-up suit.

It was a great day and a great team effort for the Atlanta Track Club.   And for the third time since I turned 60 nine weeks ago, I got to live another dream.   Tonight I am feeling so lucky to have such a wonderful support group and so many training buddies that have help me make the last nine weeks be so special.

Thank you!

Monday morning:

Paul:  No, thank you Mike.  Thank you for showing me by your thoughts and actions that we can live our dreams–no matter how unrealistic. As I often tell my athletes, students and clients, it is from dreams that we shape our reality.  Our greatest satisfaction comes in making dreams real.  Viva dreams and the courage to live them!  Congratulations on winning the National Championship Mike!  Congratulations on living your dreams!  So, are you Nannette available for dinner this Sunday?

Monday afternoon:

Mike:  Nannette and I would love to join you on Sunday night.

Arthur was looking smart in his navy blue pinstriped suit.  It isn’t normal attire for a graduate student.  But this wasn’t a normal day–not for Arthur Hinton.  Today he stood behind a podium prepared to present his culminating research project to his committee.  Arthur’s study had analyzed the impact of selected everyday tasks on gait and balance.   To assess this, Arthur first had his participants walk normally on force platform (a mat with sensors to measure force displacement).  They were then asked to repeat the task at a rapid pace (‘as if you were late’).  They then walked on the platform several more times while performing various routine tasks.

Arthur’s findings were intriguing.  When asked to walk and carry a tray of cups, or walk while talking on a cell phone, both gait and balance were adversely affected.  In both instances, the participants’ walk slowed (gait) and they turned their toes out to maintain their balance. In other words, multitasking diminished performance.

Numerous studies have found that talking on a cell phone while driving greatly increases the chance of being involved in an accident.  Texting while driving is a death wish.  Same principle: doing more than one thing at a time makes it unlikely that you can do anything well.

The take home lesson for me was this: if what I am doing is really important, I have to concentrate on the singular task at the exclusion of all others.  If what I am doing doesn’t need to be done well, then I can combine it with other unimportant activities and multitask.  The multiple tasks will get done, but with minimal quality.  You can’t divide your attention if your intention is to perform well.  You can’t walk and talk at the same time.

The future comes down to your performance in the next six days. That is Q-School on the PGA Tour.  It isn’t so much a “School,” although everyone leaves with a bag load of unforgettable lessons.  It is a Qualifying Tournament.  The results of which determine who will and who will not play on the PGA Tour next year.

One hundred and seventy three players will tee it up this morning in LaQuinta, CA.  Every one of the them do so in the hopes to be the player who walks off the course on Sunday having taken the fewest shots to complete the 6 round tournament, 108 golf holes in all. That person will not only be the victor, but will be granted the greatest number of opportunities to play in PGA Tour events in 2012.   Six rounds.  A normal Tournament is a tough 4-round marathon that drains even the most seasoned veteran.  Q-School is a marathon and a half.

The top 25 players (plus ties) will earn the right to play the PGA tour.  Those finishing lower will earn the right to play on the Nationwide Tour and those finishing below that will play on the developmental tours.  So this week comes down to the chance to eat well, to eat, or wonder where your next meal will come from in 2012.  And if you have a family, what is on their plates will also be determined by your performance this week.   Feeling pressure?  It can be suffocating.

173 players.  173 very good players.  With the exception of the top money winners on the 2011 PGA Tour, these are the best in the world.  Among them are 4 major championship winners: US Opens, British Opens, and PGA Championships.  One of the competitors, David Duval, is a former Number 1 player in the world.  Tough competition?  It doesn’t get tougher.  The players are that good, the tournament is that demanding and the stakes are that high.

Of those 173 players, 2 are players I know well and have worked with for years.  Both have had their successes and their setbacks this year.  They wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t.  They have both been here before.  But being here and doing well here can be two different things.  They will endure moments of pain, moments of exhilaration, moments of frustration, and–hopefully–moments of success.  They have worked hard to hone their craft and prepare their bodies and minds for the next 6 days.  Win or lose, these will be 6 days they will never forget. The lessons of Q-School have begun.

This morning, Charlotte sat before her examining committee.  She was to demonstrate for the committee that she had not only learned the substantive lessons from her graduate program, but had and would competently apply those lessons in her professional practice as a teacher.  As she began her confident, informed and enthusiastic responses, my mind wandered back to the Fall 2008. It was Charlotte’s first semester at the University of Georgia.

After completing a degree in recreation management, Charlotte took a position in “Corporate America’” as she described it.  After 6 years of grinding out an unrewarding, but well paying, daily routine, Charlotte made the decision to change her horizons.  She was going to look at life a different way.  That change included finding work that at the end of the day would make her feel that she had done something meaningful; that on this day she had made a difference in this world. She resigned her position and entered our teacher education program.  In August 2008, she came to University of Georgia to pursue a new direction in her life.

As anyone can imagine, such decisions are never easy, nor ever made with complete confidence.  There are a great many ‘what ifs’ and unknowns.  When Charlotte came into my office for academic advising that semester, the woman before me had a great many more questions than she had answers.  It was clear, however, that she had courage.  That was easy to see.

When the semester was drawing to a close, Charlotte returned to my office to collect advice on what to do in the ensuing semester.  We talked, and she confessed she “just wasn’t sure this was the right field for her.”  Fair enough.  If you want to explore teaching, it isn’t best done by sitting in a University classroom. So, we did something a bit unorthodox: we made arrangements with a local teacher, Pauly, to take Charlotte under her wing and let her try her hand at teaching.  There are some lessons only experience can teach.

In her time with Pauly, Charlotte found that she indeed was walking toward the horizon of new promise.  She returned to the classroom, finished her degree requirements, and as of this writing was just a few weeks short completing her student teaching and walking the stage at commencement to receive her masters degree.  She will then begin working teaching children in public schools.

As I listened to Charlotte continue to competently and confidently field the questions her examining committee put to her, I couldn’t help think of all the people who might be inspired by the story of this young woman of uncommon courage.  How many people feel trapped by their circumstances, but cannot find the mettle to make a move–to change the direction of their life to new and more satisfying horizons?  As the examination concluded, I congratulated Charlotte on her success and asked her “Your decision to become a teacher was the right decision after all, wasn’t it?”  Through a brilliantly bright smile she replied “Yes it was!”

After several days of volatile weather that forced torrential rain into you from every angle, including up, the sun finally reappeared making a sunny summer Sunday at Muirfield, Scotland. It was nearing noon, and after a morning of following around our few remaining players in the final round of the 2002 Open Championship, head Swedish coach Peter Mattsson and I ducked into the players lounge for a quick bite of lunch. As is typical on the final day of a golf tournament, the lounge was about half full of players with their families and coaches. As we stood in line for the buffet, I noticed the tall, strapping figure of Ernie Els come through the door. Ernie was leading the tournament and consequently, would tee off last that day, so he was getting lunch before warming up for his final round.

As he made his way to the lunch line, I heard someone call to him “How you feeling Ernie?” His reply caught me by surprise. “I’m not feeling all that confident,” he said in the languid South African accent of his. Champions were suppose to be confident–supremely so. The day before I had watched (and listened to) Tiger Woods’ supreme confidence never waiver while he shot the highest round he would ever shoot in a major tournament. While Tiger’s score climbed, his confidence never seemed to fall.

And now, on the very next day of the same tournament, the leader Ernie Els wasn’t “feeling all that confident.” As a coach, that was one of those moments that I could neither explain or ever forget, because you see, Ernie went on to win that tournament after 5 extra play off holes. Responding to a question about his thoughts during his final round, Els confessed “I was asking myself, is this the way you want to lose another major? Is this the way you want to screw up an Open championship?” Not the thoughts one normally associates with winning major championships. Certainly not what I would hope any of my players would be thinking or feeling in the final round of a tournament. Ernie’s confidence-challenged championship has long remained a mystery to me.

Until earlier this week. I came across a research report in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports that shed some interesting light on the long held believe that confidence is a pre-requisite for success. In studying elite sport climbers, it was found that climbers with higher levels of pre-performance anxiety were actually more successful then those with lower levels of anxiety. It appears that the anxiety made the climbers more cautious, particularly over the most difficult sections of the race routes. Because of the caution, they made fewer mistakes and had better overall times. Could this have been Ernie’s secret weapon? Did his lack of confidence lead to a more conservative, less-risky route on the course and with fewer mistakes he prevailed over those who took risky chances? Perhaps someday I will have the chance to ask him. In the meantime, I’ve seen confidence in a very different light when it comes to competition. I’d rather have it than not have it, but it clearly isn’t a necessary ingredient for success.