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Why do few people consistently perform exceptionally well?
Don’t ask the high performer, because chances are he won’t know, either, says Howard A. Westphall, vice president, J. W. Newman Corp., Los Angeles. The high performer may tick off some common answers, such as talent, hard work, intelligence, training, education, experience, and luck.
All of these are important, but there is still the disturbing observation that many people have these characteristics, yet they still don’t rise to the top.
The key, believes Mr. Westphall’s firm, is attitudes which enable the release of human potential. Human potential, he explains, consists of talent, education, and motivation. The last is defined by Mr. Westphall as a "natural, built-in, universal quality of all human beings which can be squelched or restricted—but never destroyed.”
It is possible to have a great deal going for you in talent, education, and motivation and still not accomplish much. "Attitudes are the way you feel about yourself and your world,” points out Mr. Westphall. "Most of what we do is much more a function of how we feel than of what we know.”
J. W. Newman has identified 14 attitude patterns— common denominators of excellence—which are manifested by high-performance people. Everyone has these characteristics, but the high performer has developed them to a markedly higher degree. No matter where a person stands on the performance ladder now, he can further develop and strengthen these attitudes.
The firm describes these attitudes—also called patterns of thinking—as follows:
► Self-esteem This is the foundation of high performance behavior. You see yourself as valuable, worthy, and capable. You stand for something that is good. You know you can accomplish just about anything you set out to do. You deserve success, because the decisions you make and the actions you take are good. You eagerly seek out the new and the challenging. And you know that you can change and control the conditions which lead to your success.
► Responsibility You know that you are a self-made person. You have put the events into motion which account for your successes, and your failures. When things seem to go right or when things seem to go wrong, when things seem to drift along or when things seem to zoom ahead, you acknowledge your
accountability. You reinforce the reasons for your attainments and correct for the errors.
► Optimism To the degree that your self-esteem and responsibility reach optimum levels, you expect things to be even better tomorrow. Because you know that you guide your destiny and that you are competent and worthy, there’s every reason to expect that your future will be bright, good, productive, and profitable. You invest your time and your talents in full measure today because you’re certain of harvesting the benefits tomorrow.
► Goal orientation Many people set goals, and often nothing happens. If you are a high performer, you use your goals differently. It’s what you do with your goals after you set them, the way you program your goals into your system, that counts. You’ve learned to keep your goals before you continually, to live with them so they motivate you and direct your behavior.
► Imaginativeness By habit, you focus your imagination on the positive, constructive images toward which you want to move. You aren’t limited to what you have done before. You can imaginatively experience new and profitable situations for yourself before they happen. You dwell in your imagination on all the good things you want for yourself. (High-performance people do not cope with change; they cause it!)
I Awareness You absorb more information from what’s going on around you. Because you know where you are headed, you are alert to the "road signs,” and you are more aware of opportunities which can help you meet your goals. You see and make use of more signals, clues, and cues—in your business, your community, your home life, your leisure activities.
► Creativeness You’re certain there’s a better way to do just about everything. This attitude keeps you searching for new opportunities, new approaches, and new ways to implement your new approaches. You have learned how your creative ideas flow more spontaneously and more fruitfully.
► Communicativeness You know that your success is largely rooted in your ability to get your ideas across and to understand what the other person is trying to say. Thus, you take full responsibility to make sure the message gets through in both directions. You know it is profitable for you to under-
Attitudes: The Secret of Superperformers 77
stand how other people look at the world, so you’ve developed your empathy skills and use them as the foundation for all your communications.
► Growth orientation You know it is impossible to stand still in a world of change. You’ve chosen to grow, rather than sink slowly toward eternal rest.
(The "pro” in every field of endeavor searches constantly for more effective ways to grow and develop.) The more you can learn about yourself, the better. You give high priority to the task of getting ready for your future. You welcome the chance to trade old, unproductive habits for new, profitable thought patterns.
► Positive response to pressure When deadlines close in, when a family crisis develops, when a decision is called for, when pressures of all kinds grow severe, you actually function better, more smoothly more efficiently. You know that pressure and life are synonymous. Because you expect pressure, you’ve learned how to use it as a trigger to set off constructive responses. You’ve programmed yourself so that you peak up—rather than cop out—when hostile conditions surround you. You actually welcome times of pressure. Often, when everything is going along smoothly, you will "stir things up” by creating pressure because you know you function better.
^ Trust In every area of your life you feel an atmosphere of trust. You believe that people don’t, as a rule, deliberately try to do badly. You’re comfortable tossing the ball to another member of the team; you trust that person to act responsibly. This feeling of trust gives your communications with others honesty, directness, and openness which set the tone for genuine cooperation throughout all your relationships.
^Joyfulness You feel a real enjoyment in whatever you do; it feels good to work, ro relate, to communicate, to achieve. You enjoy your activities and the people you work with. Your energy is contagious. It radiates from you; others pick up your enthusiasm, and they, too, begin to work with more enjoyment and involvement. You’re proud of your contributions to your own goals and those of the company.
^ Risk-taking Life is not made up of guarantees. Because you realize and accept the idea that all activity involves some degree of probability, you are ready and willing to reach out and take reasonable risks. Your objective is excellence, not perfection.
And when you begin a new project, launch a new product, or diversify your activities, you weigh the probable gains against the probable losses.
► Nowness As the high-performance characteristics approach summit levels together, you feel a sense of nowness. You make decisions now, and you take actions now, not because you have to, but because you want to. You enjoy it. There’s a continuous excitement, intensity, and urgency in the air. You reflect a sense of power, motion, accomplishment, and enthusiasm.
Groups, observes Mr. Westphall, function in much the same way individuals do insofar as these attributes are concerned. Groups of people, companies, athletic teams, any kind of organized group have the same attributes and characteristics as the individual, and the greatest resource is the people who make up the team.
The image of the company controls the behavior of the organization. To the degree that you can further sharpen and strengthen the self-image, the company will develop that image into a coherent, cohesive, high performance self-image. Then the company will achieve goals more rapidly and much more easily on a consistent, spontaneous, free-flowing, high- performance basis than thought possible.
Essentially, J. W. Newman’s approach is to help people release their potential and to teach them "how to get out of their own way.”