In This Chapter

The rich get richer and the healthy tend to stay healthy even at advanced ages. Meanwhile the best at getting things done learn from the best, hence the adept get more adept. Early on, by luck or circumstance, potential high achievers recognize the importance of associating with and learning from other high achievers. Further, they read biographies of people from the last century like Edison, Disney, and Curie, as well Hewlett, Packard, Grove, Gates, Jobs, and the current throng of digital and broadband pioneers.

Top-achieving individuals have the requisite energy to succeed, but it’s not frantic energy. These trail-blazers face the onslaught of information and communication overload much like any other career professional. In both thought and deed, however, they are not inclined to rush around the office, wolf down sandwiches, or jam-pack their schedule to fill every minute. They develop a form of “relaxed” energy that allows them to maintain stamina, tackle complex problems, focus on the matter at hand, and get things done.

Deborah Benton, author of Lions Don’t Need to Roar, is a leadership-developmental expert based in Fort Collins, Colorado. She’s observed many hundreds of CEOs, COOs, and company presidents with an eye on what enables them to get so much done.

She finds that while it’s essential to be competent in one’s position, inspire confidence in others, act accordingly at business functions, and become adept at maneuvering within the firm, “empty suits” don’t make it to the top, or anywhere near there. Benton says “top people are not magical, blessed, or dramatically different from you or me. They simply have skills and outlooks that the rest of us don’t have, but can get,” such as taking calculated risks and enhancing their “people” skills.

Top achievers understand that staying put can be risky and so they take decisive action. In their book, Surfacing the Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business, authors Richard Pascale, Mark Millemann, and Linda Gioja argue that “equilibrium is a precursor to death.”

The people who get things done have the guts to speak in front of others, take calculated risks—realizing that the experience will be invaluable—and make that phone call that others would rather avoid. Benton knows of executive managers who have called individuals months after they were fired from their firm to “see how they were doing.”

One company executive remarked that when he evaluated a job candidate, he would get leery if the candidate appeared to be too good. “If I see no failures, I assume he’s had it too easy.” Could this mean that, on the path to accomplishing a lot, now and then you’re going to have some failures? Absolutely.

A popular stereotype holds that those high achievers tend to be stodgy types. However, Benton finds the situation to be the opposite. Get-it-done type executives laugh and smile often, are fond of telling stories as long as they convey a point, and know how and when to physically touch others. They’re also well-skilled in the ability to ask for favors and they fully realize how important that makes others feel.

Regardless of how high-tech society becomes, people make deals, make products, and provide services. As we’ll cover in Part 6, pacesetters learn the essential elements about interacting with people that many others never do. A veteran manager in one manufacturing company allocates a portion of his day to making personal contact with the people who report to him and the buyers in client companies. He cares, and he wants his employees to care, about their company and customers.

Get-it-done types in larger organizations< learn to “read” others in great detail and to recognize the importance of paying attention to others’ needs. By “observing aggressively” anyone can learn to read people, and by reading people, work better with them. Meeting those needs enables successful people to negotiate deals skillfully, manage employees responsibly with the least amount of stress and resistance, gain information, or enlist people to support their cause. The crucial characteristic required in this process is that of aggressive observation.

When two people meet, aggressive observation requires that a person take action, carefully listening to the content of the conversation and watching for signals in body language.

One of the widely observed traits that high achievers possess is resilience. Getting big things done at work, or even winning a long-term personal struggle, requires resilience that is demonstrated through patience, alertness, and steadfastness. These behaviors set the stage for adaptation and action.

Why is resilience fundamental to dealing with upheaval in our professional or personal lives? Because, quite simply, those who have resilience flourish!

Resilient people are able to establish a balance—they believe they’ll succeed. They sharpen their focus on the tasks at hand, they stay loose, and they roll with the punches. They maintain orderliness and self-awareness largely to avoid becoming overwhelmed and confused.

While resilient individuals are as vulnerable to the anxieties of change as anyone else, they’re able to regain balance quickly, stay physically and emotionally healthy, and remain productive when confronted by confusing or gloomy situations.

When nothing is working, resilient individuals still manage to figure out how to get back on track. They apply such ingenuity to daily tasks, long-term projects, group or team relations, or problems with the boss. If they lose a client, they’re willing to undertake the rigorous assessment as to why. If something’s going wrong on a project, they jump right in to see why. They consider the possibilities, take each one and follow it through for whatever insights may emerge.

Resilient people are adept at managing sudden, significant, and complex change with minimum dysfunctional behavior. Their capability can be a marvel to behold.

Rather than shrink from controversy, they’re more likely to dive into the fray. They take a stand-up role, admitting where and when they were wrong, if that be the case. They assess the choices they made that led to the result and what other choices they could make to achieve a more desirable outcome.

When they find themselves boxed in on all sides, they don’t get down or feel sorry for themselves—at least not for long. They’re willing to record their feelings, brainstorm, or even clean out the file cabinet, knowing that such activities can be therapeutic. Perhaps most vital, they determine what they can accomplish right now, today. They know that the act of getting things done, in and of itself, generally proves to be an uplifting experience, however small the deed.

So, who in your workplace is great at getting things done, seems to roll with the punches, and doesn’t come unglued in the face of setbacks? That’s the person you want to emulate.

While resilient types have or develop flexibility and know when to roll with the punches, in many instances they are better than average at overcoming attachment to a place, a piece of equipment, a method, or even a business philosophy. They seem to understand that, particularly in the workplace, virtually all arrangements are temporary. For example, your office or work space, the equipment you use, the people to whom you report, the people who report to you, the customers or clients your company serves, the products or services you offer, even the methods of operation, eventually, are all subject to change.

As a lot, resilient individuals don’t seem to be as flustered by bends in the road. If they’re thwarted in some aspect of a project, they make forward progress in other areas. They use what they have to get what they want.

High achievers are in the habit of recording or writing everything down. They understand that, like the late Earl Nightingale once said, “Ideas are like slippery fish.”

Nightingale was a soldier stationed on the USS Maine when it was attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor. Later he went on to become a high-achieving sales professional, motivational speaker, and audio pioneer. He co-founded the Nightingale-Conant Company, which for several decades was a leader in self-help audio cassettes and CDs.

Nightingale knew that if you were, say, in a conference and it suddenly struck you that arranging your desk in a new way could make a dramatic improvement in your productivity, you’d have to write down that thought if you wanted to be sure that later you’d take action. If you didn’t write down the thought and left it to simmer in your busy mind, it might simply slip away. If you didn’t act on the thought, you’d probably end up just working the same old way.

The ruthless reality about novel ideas, especially those that seemingly come from nowhere, is that most that slip away will not come back. You rarely experience the same moment of brilliant inspiration twice. Such moments are what Professor Stephen Hawking refers to as singularities.

Some high achievers routinely tap their passions and harness them as the driving force to get things done, particularly when working with others. Many organizations, including yours, have the same basic equipment, technology, resources, and even expertise among their employees.

What, then, makes one company or one branch more productive than another? A growing number of human resource professionals point to the passion that prevails within the organization.

In his book The Passion Plan at Work, Richard Chang cites six tangible benefits that an organization can derive as a result of the passion that its managers imbue upon the staff.

On an individual basis, many managers can muster significant levels of passion when it comes to facing competition, meeting a sales quota, or some short-term campaign. The passion discussed here, though, involves making a leap from being a reason-based manager to one who is also a passion-driven manager, not that there’s anything wrong with reason.

Too often, managers lose touch with the passions that they once drew upon to energize themselves and those around them. Chang says when you re-clarify what you want to achieve and find that your purpose is in alignment with your core passions, it will become a sustaining element of your work.

Be on the lookout for what Chang calls “purpose by default.” If your purpose fails to reflect your true, underlying passion, this can lead to a lack of focus and less-than-desirable performance on the part of you and your staff.

Once your passion begins to take effect, you may find it easier to influence staff who wish to be involved with the energy that derives from your passion. Go ahead, ride the wave—we all know take-charge types who, with their positive infectious attitudes, have been able to amass support from others with seemingly little effort.

Stick close to your passion. You may have abandoned it once before—it’s all too easy to fall back into becoming a totally reason-based manager. Use your passion to help others latch on to your ideas and to what you want to achieve. Stay close to your passion and diligently seek to preserve it.