WHAT IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED in sports is not always taken into account in everyday professional life. In football, baseball, soccer, tennis, or golf, the only thing that counts are the results. If you play beautifully and lose, the reference to the “beautiful game” is usually not very meaningful. If you deliver an exceptional presentation and don't get the job, or don't convince your superiors, you have lost. This is why the principle of result orientation is so important. Successful people always focus their thoughts and actions on results. They already have the end in mind at the beginning.

There are many parallels between top athletes and consultants, which is why top sports can serve as a model of success for professionals. Especially when it comes to understanding the principle of result orientation and integrating it into a professional's everyday work.

You might object at this point that the results will not always meet your client's expectations and ask yourself what the use of the principle of result orientation actually is? In this case, it is especially important because you're already in the mindset of how you can “sell” an “undesirable” result in a positive way. If you start thinking about how the client might react to the result of your work only shortly before the presentation, you have lost valuable time during the preparation.

Outstanding successes of top athletes at the Olympic Games, playoffs in the NFL, NBA, or NHL are duly celebrated by the public. There is extensive media coverage. Journalists often scrutinize and analyze the success factors behind these extraordinary athletic achievements. For the daily application of the principle of result orientation, it is advisable in a first step to point out similarities between top athletes and professionals. In a second step, essential traits and characteristics of successful top athletes are presented. Finally, in a third step, essential success factors of top athletes are shown, which are also valid for successful professionals.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN TOP ATHLETES AND PROFESSIONALS

At world championships, Olympics, or other sporting events, athletes go through a process that typically comprises three phases. Figure 2.1 illustrates the process and lists key activities:

The transferability to the processes of professionals is immediately apparent. Audit and consulting projects as well as trials have to be prepared, assignments are conducted and, finally, new consulting assignments should follow the completion of projects.

The ability to analyze successes and defeats accurately and to draw the right conclusions for the future is another common key component among successful top athletes and successful professionals.

Those who seek explanations rather than excuses have also already taken the first step toward a fresh start. For German goalkeeper legend Oliver Kahn, a defeat is a single image of success. It creates an opportunity to think everything through again, to review and possibly realign everything once more. For Kahn, the setback provides important clues as to where one needs to make improvements, or what one might do completely differently. In this way, the setback creates the prerequisite for being able to really take off. The principle of personal responsibility should apply to both top athletes and professionals.

In sports as in business, there are rules of the game to be observed. Fair play wins. Most world‐class athletes have observed this important principle in competitions. Those who observe the rules of the game and behave fairly in their dealings with their competitors win twice. Fairness pays off. Fair play and top performance do not have to be opposites. Respect and honesty are a better basis for success.

CHARACTER TRAITS AND TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL TOP ATHLETES

There are certainly a variety of traits and characteristics that distinguish top athletes. The following can be observed in world‐class athletes in a wide variety of sports.

• Passion and enthusiasm
• Perseverance and discipline
• The ability to “fight”
• Self‐confidence and self‐assurance
• Winning mentality and concentration

The biographies of successful athletes show that passion and enthusiasm are an important source of energy for them. Top performances are no coincidence. In the beginning, there is usually passion and enthusiasm for a certain goal. Oliver Kahn says that it is the love for something, the intensity with which we dedicate ourselves to it, and the degree to which we identify with what we are doing that makes us successful. Beyond that, passion and enthusiasm are infectious. We can only inspire others if we are enthusiastic ourselves.

Passion and enthusiasm are an essential driving force to deliver the necessary perseverance and discipline to achieve certain goals. A person who wants to win a gold medal or become a world champion needs perseverance and discipline. They must be able to overcome obstacles and train with discipline towards the goal.

Closely related to the ability to muster endurance and discipline is the willingness of a top athlete to fight. With fighting strength, hurdles and crisis are overcome. In soccer, sports commentators often credit victories primarily on the team's fighting ability. Combative athletes' characteristics are patience and a high tolerance for frustration. When we fight, we act. Action makes us confident, which increases the chances of success. Often, these athletes fight for every single point.

Self‐confidence and self‐assurance are important characteristics of successful top athletes. If you don't believe in yourself, you have lost already. Successful top athletes believe in themselves, even when their backs are against the wall. Self‐confidence and self‐assurance go hand in hand with past sporting success. Having already successfully mastered difficult situations in training, or other competitions is the basis for the necessary self‐confidence in critical competitive situations.

The most successful athletes have a winner's mentality and have the ability to focus completely on the moment in certain situations. They have the ability for what is called “tunnel vision.” This is about completely surrendering to the situation and acting intuitively out of the situation. This is the state of “flow.” Flow is the highest level of concentration in one's own performance. It is a trance‐like, meditative state, the result of correctly dealing with one's own emotional and thought world. Oliver Kahn describes this state in the final match of the 2001 Champions League when taking a penalty kick as follows: “I was no longer aware of anything except the ball and the shooter. It was as if I were in an empty, silent room. I didn't hear anything from the 80,000 spectators in the stadium. I left everything to my intuition. I was completely in the flow.” Professionals who possess the same traits and characteristics as athletes are more successful than others who do not. These are characteristics that you can also learn or train for.

SUCCESS FACTORS OF ACCOMPLISHED TOP ATHLETES AND PROFESSIONALS

Top athletes use six central factors to be successful. Figure 2.2 shows an overview of these six factors and the principles and techniques behind them:

In the following, these important success factors of top athletes are explained in more detail, and it is shown how professionals can use them profitably for themselves.

GOAL CLARITY AND WILLPOWER

Clarity of purpose and willpower are the first success factors of particularly successful top athletes and professionals. Ever since he was a child, Tiger Woods dreamed of becoming the best golf player in the world. Boris Becker also knew when he was still a child that he wanted to win Wimbledon one day. With an unshakable will, both worked towards achieving their goals. Both top athletes and professionals should clearly know what goals they want to achieve. The clearer the goal, the easier it is for the subconscious mind to help achieve those goals.

As a child, or teenager, athletes are usually unaware of the motives and motivation behind their actions. Often it is fun, passion, and enthusiasm for a certain sport as well as the talent necessary for success that can lead children to top performances at an early age. It is only in adulthood that some athletes become aware of their motives and motivation as part of a process of self‐discovery. In any case, sustainably successful professionals should be aware of their motives and the motivation behind their consulting activities. Those who do not know why they work as professionals or do so solely for monetary reasons should not be surprised if sooner, or later “burn‐out” syndrome appears.

TRAINING

The saying “practice makes perfect” comes from sports and is equally valid for successful professionals. Anyone who conducts a certain consulting activity (e.g., business valuations) once a year should not expect results better than those of an amateur athlete who plays golf or tennis once a year. Successful world‐class athletes specialize in a particular sport and train for it until they reach the world championship. No top athlete would think of wanting to win Wimbledon, or the US Open in tennis and become a Formula 1 world champion at the same time. In essence, this applies equally to all athletes in all classes. With this in mind, all generalists in the consulting professions should ask themselves whether they want to know a little about each of many areas, or an above‐average amount in one specialty. Who would want to have heart surgery performed by a general practitioner? Probably nobody. Anyone would prefer a cardiologist, who specializes in heart surgery, for such a procedure. Any generalist who can credibly convey to their customer that they have the necessary specialized professional knowledge in all of these fields is an excellent salesperson, but not really a good consultant.

STRONG TEAM

When you ask top athletes about the reasons for their success, they often point to their team. In both individual and team sports, the success of an athlete is closely linked to the performance of the entire team. Ultimately, however, in my opinion, the team does not only include coaches, doctors, physiologists, and psychologists, but also the family and private environment. An intact family environment is an essential basis for athletic success. The private environment supports and protects in crisis situations.

In today's consulting environment, high‐performance teams also deliver exceptional performance. In almost every major consulting assignment, teams of consultants provide the services. It is necessary to select the right “mix” of consultants for the project. The professional working as a “lone wolf” quickly reaches his limits. He cannot fall back on ideas that creative teams develop but is always on his own. Likewise, he cannot use the group dynamics and the feedback from other project members during the consulting project to the benefit of his customers. Finally, he runs the risk of lacking important resources that high‐performance teams have.

MENTAL STRENGTH

Mental training is a valuable tool not only for top athletes, but also for professionals, which is why we will discuss this tool in detail in Part Three. The goal of mental training is for you to become mentally strong. For top athletes, it is the crucial tool to focus on results. Meanwhile, many successful athletes, or teams have hired mental coaches. Time and again, athletes and coaches are quoted as saying that games, or competitions are won, or lost in the mind. We constantly send thoughts from our subconscious to our conscious. These are not always constructive thoughts. Negative beliefs and thought patterns have a decisive influence on success. Only those who really believe in success will succeed. In this context, everything we have absorbed from conception through birth to the present day has an unconscious effect on our actions. This includes, for example, our upbringing, our biographical experiences (successes as well as failures), and our convictions and belief patterns. This is why the ability to control one's thoughts and to put oneself in a state of deep conviction and confidence is so important. This is where mental training comes in, which we discuss in detail later under Tools.

Visualization techniques are most commonly used in elite sports. The idea is that optimal movement sequences, or game situations are anticipated in the mind as often as possible so that they can be called up in competition situations and the desired results brought about. Success is to be programmed deep into the athlete's subconscious. The goal is to intensely visualize the desired victory, or success over and over again. Our brain cannot distinguish between the imagined and what is actually experienced, because both are activated by the same brain areas. This topic is also deepened during the mental training.

The longer and more intensely you can concentrate, the more constant and higher your performance will be. Lack of concentration always occurs when your thoughts digress from what is really important. Only absolute concentration will enable professionals to withstand the pressure in critical situations. In this context, physical fitness has a significant impact on the ability to concentrate.

PHYSICAL STRENGTH (FITNESS)

It is obvious that the top athletes have to be physically strong in order to be successful. However, Tiger Woods, the world's best golfer, has shown in his most successful times the significant importance of the mental strength described above. Although doctors advised him against starting at the US Open in the summer of 2008, he played five days with a fatigue fracture and torn cruciate ligament in what is probably the toughest golf tournament in the world. Tiger Woods said before the tournament, “I'm going to play, and I'm going to win.”

Although the injury worsened during the tournament, Tiger Woods did not give up. Golf Journal magazine praised the achievement as follows: “The possibility of giving up on a tournament is obviously beyond his imagination.”

It is certainly not the norm for an athlete who is not in good health to perform exceptionally well. Fitness is assumed in athletes. But are all professionals physically fit? Many are so professionally active that they think they have no time for activities that lead to physical strength and fitness. But given that the time in a week is the same for all professionals with 7 days of 24 hours each, it is obviously a matter of priority. There are three starting points to significantly strengthen the physical fitness and consequently the concentration ability of consultants:

• Exercise
• Healthy diet
• Sufficient sleep

Those who exercise regularly, learn to switch off and often have the best ideas during or afterwards. These should be aerobic sports (running, cycling, etc.) performed at a reasonable heart rate. Regular exercise and the physical fitness that comes with it prevent illness and create reserves of strength and energy for everyday work.

Other lifestyle factors can also contribute positively to physical fitness. This includes a healthy diet and sufficient sleep. Performance absolutely needs breaks and rest. Fitness, sleep, and proper nutrition are the foundations of the ability to concentrate.

REGENERATION PHASES

Neither top athletes nor top consultants can perform their activities without any breaks. They need to recharge their inner batteries, both physical and mental, from time to time. This requires regular regeneration every working day as well as a vacation period after exhausting months of intensive work. Only those who perform their job with 100% commitment of body and mind are at the top of their game. This total exertion must be followed by an equal relaxation in order to achieve regeneration and thus re‐emergence (Latin “regeneration”). The following applies: Those who are in good physical condition recover more quickly. In elite sports, the rhythm of activity and active rest form the core of all training methods worldwide. Periodic instead of linear loads enable success here.

Energy is recovered at the same rate it is expended. The right work‐life balance, which I present later in Part Three, Tools, can help significantly in achieving this. The difference between successful consultants and less successful consultants is their effectiveness and efficiency. Top consultants create a balanced ratio between input and output, which is proven by the quality of their results. Extremely long working hours of consultants are no proof of above‐average performance and can often indicate exhaustion.

CONCLUSION ON THE PRINCIPLE OF RESULTS ORIENTATION

The principle of results orientation is recognized in sports and is the dominant principle. Winning comes first. Preparation, competition during the game, and regeneration after the game to prepare for the next game are always oriented to the result. Action is focused on the results. In this respect, top‐level sport serves as a model of success for successful professionals. The similarities between successful top athletes and professionals have been highlighted. The traits and characteristics as well as central success factors apply equally to successful athletes and top consultants.

In the meantime, personnel managers are increasingly looking at applications to see whether the applicant was or is active in sports. Particularly successful athletes with the same qualification profile are given preference over other applicants. HR departments now know that certain characteristics are already present in athletes and do not have to be developed first. Many top managers were at one time also exceptionally good athletes. Zittelmann's dissertation on the “Psychology of the Super‐Rich” found that there was no correlation between performance at school and university and the degree of their financial success. With a few exceptions, however, all of the interviewees were either far above‐average amateur athletes, or even competitive athletes. “As such, they learned to deal with victories and defeats and to prevail against competitors, they acquired a tolerance for frustration, developed self‐confidence in their own ability. Team athletes learned teamwork skills. But most interviewees were not team athletes, they were individual athletes.”

Malik and Drucker agree with the principle of results orientation as a crucial factor in successful and effective managers. In his expanded new edition, “Leading, Performing, Living,” Malik says, “A consistent pattern in the thinking and the actions of competent managers is their focus on results. They are predominantly – occasionally exclusively – interested in results. Everything else is secondary, or of no interest to them.” “Management,” he says, “is the profession of making results happen. The touchstone is achieving goals and accomplishing tasks.”