MOORE LEADERSHIP & PEAK PERFORMANCE: 2012

Avoid Mediocrity By Overcoming Your Nature

How can you prepare to be at your best when your best is needed? To be cheerful, happy and prepared to handle the obstacles, adversity and hassles of a normal day? The answer to these questions will assure you of not being mediocre? Make no mistake, mediocrity creeps up on you when you aren't prepared. It happens to those who are to busy to learn, grow and improve. No one ever sets out to be mediocre, it just happens while they are seeking comfort and making excuses. There is a starting point if you want to avoid mediocrity...Peak performers all start by understanding and using the power of their intentions.

When you wake up in the morning you have an expectation or intention for your day. Your expectations and intentions are the first choice you make that begins to separate mediocrity from extraordinary. What are your intentions or expectations for the day ahead? I've asked individuals and groups, large and small, this question over the past two decades and the overwhelming number one answer is, “I want to have a good day”. When I ask people to define a good day, the definition is, “A day with little to no problems or hassles”. When I ask them how many days a year this intention or expectation is met, they usually answer, “None”. Yet, they wake up each day and repeat this behavior without changing their expectation or intention. The vast majority of people start each day with an unrealistic expectation or intention, that when not fulfilled, makes them frustrated, upset and unhappy. When we set expectations that aren't met, we are usually disappointed.

Managing your own intentions and expectations drives your daily emotions and state-of-mind. People who become mediocre focus on their circumstances and not their solutions. This makes their circumstances the driver of their emotions. This puts their emotions, or state-of-mind on a roller coaster ride of peaks and valleys that sabotages their ability to create the results or life they want.

First, let’s look at why people set an intention or expectation of no problems, no hassles and no worries, and defined this as a good day. When we wake up each day we have a choice to make, “Better or Comfortable”. Our human nature seeks comfort before improvement and is satisfied to be comfortable. We don't want to be average but have to choose to do things we don't want to do if we want to be extraordinary. We don’t wake up each day driven to be better human beings or to make things in our life better. So, the challenge is how to overcome our human nature and stop sabotaging our own lives.

When we define a good day as no problems, no hassles and no adversity and then meet the first problem of the day, how do we react? If you said, “Frustrated” you'd be right. Your expectation or intention has set you up to be frustrated. Not the best state-of–mind to handle life or work problems. This pattern of behavior begins a downward spiral of poor emotions. These emotions make you less capable of handling the next problem. Maintaining this emotional cycle may even make you avoid, withdraw or quit trying to overcome the obstacles in your day. The end result of this is mediocrity, at best.

How can you change your expectations or intentions to change your results? Remember, "Everyday the choices you make, make you". When you start your day, change your expectation or intention by changing your definition of a good day. Let’s revisit the idea or definition of a good day. If your choice is comfort you define it as “no problems”. Think about when you feel best about yourself. Your self-worth or self-esteem is best when you overcome adversity, solve problems and help others. So to change your results, to develop the emotional state-of-mind to make a difference in your life, you need a new definition of a good day.

This new definition can help you make a better first choice as you wake up each day. Define a good day as one where you find, meet and overcome problems and adversity. Yes, you need to wake each day looking for problems. Problems to solve that will help people. Just a note...You shouldn't be looking to make problems...that won't make for a better life. You need to look for and find existing problems, and then help solve them. If you are part of a problem, stop complaining and start finding solutions. This definition will help you to stop avoiding conflict and endure difficulties with the proper emotional state-of-mind. Armed with this new definition, when you find problems, you will be eager to meet them head-on and won't become frustrated. You'll become an overcomer and not a victim of your circumstances.

Adversity and problems are the obstacles that stand between where you are and the results or life you want. The first step to overcoming adversity and problems is to develop an attitude or emotional state-of-mind that can overcome the obstacles. Our attitudes are most affected by our intentions and expectations that create our daily choices and allow us to choose to be better rather than comfortable. This thinking will even start to help you embrace change and stop fighting to hold on to a status quo that may be keeping you average as well.

Redefine a good day, expect problems and hassles. Become an overcomer, a solution finder, and then you'll begin to experience a, 'Good Day'...everyday. This cycle of behavior will make your life is a journey of solutions that serve others and rewards you with the results and life you want.

A final thought for leaders...You are responsible to teach, prepare and help people set expectations that will allow them to live and work towards a better life. Helping people understand how their expectations and intentions are empowering them or sabotaging them is a good first step.

Change your expectations, to prepare for the hassles of life, to increase your happiness and improve your results. Expect more of yourself and less of others...These is one of the top traits of leaders, peak performers and the extraordinary.

By Mike Moore

Locker Room Leadership

I've learned many things from great coaches about leadership. The first and place becoming a winner starts...Winning is about more than the score.

Coaches who win are leaders, and leaders don't measure winning by the scoreboard. They measure winning by the positive effect they have on people's lives. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, anytime they keep score, it's important to play to win. Playing each game, day or event in life to win, making the effort, exhausting oneself in the pursuit of a worthwhile cause, is what exposes the opportunities to learn, grow and become the person who can win the bigger battle of developing into a lifelong winner.

Leaders, coaches and mentors view the score as a lifelong process, a marathon not a sprint. Don't ask them what today's outcome was...Ask them in 10 years how the people they led are doing, judge them by how they have influenced the people they led. Vince Lombardi, yes the one the trophy is named after, once said, "The most difficult thing I do is getting them ready to play each week". Winning in sports, business and life is more about who you are than your strategy or tactics...People make things happen and leaders help people become those who make the best things happen.

My father was a football coach, teacher and leader. He raised me, taught me and prepared me to become a coach and teacher. In the processes he taught me leadership. I grew up in his coaching office watching game film, on the practice field and in the locker room. I spent time with him learning to game plan and plan practices to prepare athletes to execute these plans. I watched him prepare his players to perform and was on the sidelines and heard the in-game coaching, halftime adjustments and post game speeches. These were always to get them ready to perform again.

My father exposed me to many of the great coaches of the past 50 years and I learned from all of them. Coaches like Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Tom Landry, Red Auerbauch, Don Shula and Chuck Knoll.

As time passed I studied coaches like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Cox, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlinson, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. The one who influenced me the most after my father, was in my opinion the greatest coach of all time...John Wooden.

The last time I spoke to legendary Major League Baseball Manager and family friend, Bobby Cox, he reminded me that I was doing what my father raised me to do...In business and life, rather than in sports.

My Dad spent my childhood, teenage years and early adult life preparing me and helping me refine my coaching insights and skills. He and I talked for hours on end about how to apply what we both knew about coaching to business leadership and management. We found that all he had taught me applied to coaching, executive leadership, sales management and salespeople. In addition, I learned something from every coach I ever played for, every person I ever worked for and every client I every consulted with or trained...Every single one of them!

I found that life and business are both a performing experience, just like sports. I also learned that people performed best when 'coached up' by a leader. I believe that sports are important to society not because of who wins or loses but because of the lessons we can learn about peak performance, coaching, teamwork and leadership. Don't get me wrong, winning makes playing the game more fun, just as achievements make life more fun, and coaching and leadership is about preparing people to have more fun!

After using all I had learned to lead, coach and manage people, I began writing, speaking, teaching and training people about what I had learned that would help others prepare to perform to their peak and produce their best results.

I was blessed in 1996 to have John Wooden take the time to meet with me. We spent hours discussing coaching, leadership and teaching. John graciously spent those hours at his home in Encino, California where we shared ideas about how leaders should view winning, losing, relationships and life. He opened up and shared his wisdom and insights and patiently answered all my questions. I lost my father, Charles Moore, in 1992 and John in 2010. I miss them both and feel very fortunate to have called them my mentors and coaches...I love them both.

Their influence and impact on me, and many others is their legacy and the reason they will never be forgotten. The lessons I learned from my father, John Wooden and the other great coaches have served me well and helped me serve others.

Now, I am teaching leaders, managers and coaches how to build businesses, teams and individuals that can keep growing, learning and improving their peak performance. The following are some of the high points I teach in my 'Locker Room Leadership' seminars and coaching sessions.

Great leadership, coaching, teaching and managing is an act of will.
Leadership is something you do with people, not to them.
If you stop learning you'll stop leading.
In a locker room, boardroom, sales office or any group, if you pay attention, you can hear and feel the attitudes of the people.
If you pay attention you can tell if people are ready to perform.
Peak performance is a Spirit (Attitude), Mind (Knowledge and Skill) and Body (Actions) experience...To win in sports, business and life, they have to always be in that order.
Leaders don't worry about averages or excellence they raise the standards...The lowest form of behavior that's acceptable.
Who you are as a coach or leader is the lowest form of behavior you except...It's not your average or top people's performance but your lowest producing performers...That's who you are as a leader.
Winning coaches spend time with the people they least want to engage...The people who need to improve the most.
Leaders assign, monitor and teach to generate improvement.
Leaders manage the atmosphere...the air! They do this by managing attitudes because attitudes create behavior that results in winning.
Leaders inspire, motivate and hold people accountable to be their best.
Leaders challenge people to change their average thinking, so they can grow and improve.
Leadership skills can be taught, learned and improved but need insight, intuition and a personal touch to become most effective.
Great leaders love people...That's where their insight, intuition and personal touch comes from.
Most managers and coaches sabotage the results they want by trying to manage the results.
When you manage results you’re too late to lead.
Results, the score and winning, can’t be managed. Winning comes from preparing the spirit, mind and body.
Results, the score and winning come from the intentions, attitudes, skills and actions that were present long before the results.
Intentions, attitudes, behavior and skills can be taught and managed through the discipline of preparation.
Winning will take care of itself when leaders manage the things that create the score.
Leaders lift people to accomplish beyond their own expectations through preparation.
Never forget that your standards define who you are as a coach or leader.
Leaders never compromise their standards, instead they use them to teach, motivate and inspire.
Leadership is about people first but no one person is more important than the team.
Treating everyone the same is the fastest way to show favoritism.
It takes courage to treat each person the way they deserve to be treated…The way that's best for them.
Leader’s help people grow and become their best by working with them, to get them to do the things they don’t want to do, that will create the results they both want.
Leaders manage people’s intentions, attitudes and dominant thoughts that create the behavior that produces the results.
Leaders pay attention and listen to manage the atmosphere by managing the attitudes and state-of-mind of people.
Great leaders get uncommon results from common people by requiring them do the work to become uncommonly prepared.
In the absence of leadership, mediocrity will lead and failure is assured.
You won't know how good a job you've done until you see how the people you've led, mentored and coached turn out...Sometimes that takes years.

By Mike Moore

Leadership, Coaching & Building Teams

Winning coaches understand if they want to keep winning they can't focus on the score. The score can't be coached or managed. Instead, they have to identify the causes that produce the score they want and start coaching and managing those causes.

Are you running an organization or managing people. Are you an executive who needs to improve their company's results? It's fairly simple, even easy, to identify the results you want or need to produce. However results can't be managed. Improving areas or generating new results requires identifying the causes that produce them and coaching and managing those causes.

The first thing to acknowledge is that all working people are like performing artists. They're really the same as athletes, actors or musicians who need coaching or direction to produce peak performance. Once you acknowledge this you can begin to understand their need to be coached. In fact, you will start to understand what's missing in most organizations. IT'S LEADERSHIP AND COACHING!

Here are the areas and some specifics for you to get started if you are going to stop being a frustrated traditional executive or manager and become a successful leader who coaches people to their peak performance.

Create A Performance Culture
Instill an attitude that their work is a performance art. Build a team of passionate people who care about customers and helping people while being an advocate for their profession. This will require the full force of your will. You'll need a firm belief that you are working to leave a legacy, not just working to produce results. I used to advise my clients to only hire people who already had a passion to pursue being their best and had an outstanding work ethic. This doesn't work any longer because you won't find enough people that possess these traits. We've experienced too much of a deterioration in what's considered average. Our standards have fallen. You need to be prepared to develop and inspire people to grow and improve if you want to be a successful leader or coach.

Recruiting
Do you know your next employee? Do you have a bench, feeder system? Do you know where to look for your next employee? A coach's first action is to recruit people. This has two purposes. First, performers should know if they don't perform they can be replaced. This is the first step in instilling a performance culture. Second, and more obvious, you need to find the people you want to work with. You want to do this differently than your competition so you have a better chance of hiring people you can coach who will create a winning organization.

Coaching...Attitudes
Attitudes produce actions that generate results. Attitudes are dominant thoughts and beliefs that make up a person's state-of-mind while raising their ability to perform to their peak. Top coaches manage attitudes that create the company's atmosphere or culture. Coaches instill dominant thoughts that create positive attitudes and high emotional intelligence. This requires making personal contact daily with your people to check their attitudes. This allows time for you to support positive attitudes or coach them up to make sure they are ready to perform.

Teaching...Skills
Coaches are always teaching. They teach to improve the skills and knowledge of their people. They train people by holding them accountable to learn and improve. It's a coaches responsibility to make sure people train so they are prepared to perform to their peak. Being a teacher and trainer is an ongoing part of being a coach. So, coaches have to study, learn and grow regularly if they are going to be a successful leader. Regular scheduled education for learning and growth are a coaches responsibility but creating a culture where change, learning and growth are a habit is the real requirement for success.

Managing Actions
Managing actions is the exercise of assigning and monitoring the work of your people. The people who don't want to improve won't like being held accountable and they often call this micro-management. It's not micro-management, it's responsible management. There are two distinct purposes for monitoring work. The first is accountability. The second, and most important, is to create real life opportunities to coach attitudes, teach skills and knowledge while assigning actions to be taken that you can monitored and do this all again. This is the circle of coaching, teaching, training and managing to coach teach and train that will produce the improved results you desire.

These are just some of the skills a successful leader and coach must master and practice daily. Peak performing management and coaching are often the missing links in a company or organization. I have been coaching, teaching and training executives and managers for more than 20 years. I was first taught these traits by my father, a football coach, and later had them reinforced in one-on-one sessions with John Wooden. I have since practiced, polished and developed them in real life business environments while by implementing them with my clients.

By Mike Moore

The Tale Of A Coach's Son

"The most difficult thing I do is getting them ready to play each week." Vince Lombardi.

CHARLES MOORE

My father, Charles Moore, was a coach and leader. He raised me, taught me and prepared me to become a coach and teacher. I grew up in his coaching office watching game film, on the practice field and in the locker room. I spent time with him learning to game plan and plan practices to prepare athletes to execute his plans. I watched him prepare his players to perform and was on the sidelines and heard the in-game coaching, halftime adjustments and post game speeches which were always to get them ready again. Then I spent time listening to other coaches exchange ideas and heard coaches speak at coaching clinics. I am a coach's son, raised to be a coach and thankful for the lessons I learned.

The last time I spoke to legendary Major League Baseball Manager and family friend, Bobby Cox, he reminded me that I was doing what my father raised me to do...In business, rather than in sports.

My father exposed me to many of the great coaches of the past 50 years and I learned from all of them. Coaches like Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Tom Landry, Red Auerbauch, Don Shula, Chuck Knoll. Then I began to study coaches like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Cox, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlinson, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. The one who influenced me the most after my father, was in my opinion the greatest coach of all time...John Wooden.

THE HARBAUGH'S

I found that life and business was a performing art, just like sports. I also learned that people performed best when 'coached up' by a leader. I believe that sports are important to society not because of who wins or loses but because of the lessons we can learn about peak performance, coaching, teamwork and leadership. Don't get me wrong, winning makes playing the game more fun, just as achievements make life more fun, and coaching and leadership is about preparing people to have more fun!

After using all I had learned to lead, coach and manage people, I began writing, speaking, teaching and training about what I had learned that would help others prepare to perform to their peak to produce their best results.

JOHN WOODEN

Now, I am teaching leaders, managers and coaches how to build businesses, teams and individuals that produce their best results. The following are some of the high points I teach in my 'Locker Room Leadership' seminars and coaching sessions.

Great leadership, coaching, teaching and managing is an act of will.
Leadership is something you do with people, not to them.
If you stop learning you'll stop leading.
In a locker room, boardroom, sales office or any group, if you pay attention, you can hear and feel the attitudes of the people.
If you pay attention you can tell if people are ready to perform.
Peak performance is a Spirit (Attitude), Mind (Knowledge and Skill) and Body (Actions) experience...To win in sports, business and life, they have to always be in that order.
Leaders don't worry about averages or excellence they raise the standards...The lowest form of behavior that's acceptable.
Who you are as a coach or leader is the lowest form of behavior you except...It's not your average or top people's performance but your lowest producing performers...That's who you are as a leader.
Winning coaches spend time with the people they least want to engage...The people who need to improve the most.
Leaders assign, monitor and teach to generate improvement.
Leaders manage the atmosphere...the air! They do this by managing attitudes because attitudes create behavior that results in winning.
Leaders inspire, motivate and hold people accountable to be their best.
Leaders challenge people to change their average thinking, so they can grow and improve.
Leadership skills can be taught, learned and improved but need insight, intuition and a personal touch to become most effective.
Great leaders love people...That's where their insight, intuition and personal touch comes from.
Most managers and coaches sabotage the results they want by trying to manage the results.
When you manage results you’re too late to lead.
Results, the score and winning, can’t be managed. Winning comes from preparing the spirit, mind and body.
Results, the score and winning come from the intentions, attitudes, skills and actions that were present long before the results.
Intentions, attitudes, behavior and skills can be taught and managed through the discipline of preparation.
Winning will take care of itself when leaders manage the things that create the score.
Leaders lift people to accomplish beyond their own expectations through preparation.
Never forget that your standards define who you are as a coach or leader.
Leaders never compromise their standards, instead they use them to teach, motivate and inspire.
Leadership is about people first but no one person is more important than the team.
Treating everyone the same is the fastest way to show favoritism.
It takes courage to treat each person the way they deserve to be treated…The way that's best for them.
Leader’s help people grow and become their best by working with them, to get them to do the things they don’t want to do, that will create the results they both want.
Leaders manage people’s intentions, attitudes and dominant thoughts that create the behavior that produces the results.
Leaders pay attention and listen to manage the atmosphere by managing the attitudes and state-of-mind of people.
Great leaders get uncommon results from common people by requiring them do the work to become uncommonly prepared.
In the absence of leadership, mediocrity will lead and failure is assured.
You won't know how good a job you've done until you see how the people you've led, mentored and coached turn out...Sometimes that takes years.

By Mike Moore

Leaders Are Impatient & Unrealistic

Leaders believe things can be done more quickly and that more is always possible. They understand there are limits but are always looking for ways to exceed them. They see obstacles as a sign they are on the right path to accomplish significant results because obstacles stand between mediocrity and their destination.

This often makes them hard to deal with if they aren't servant leaders who realize people come before results, because people produce the results.

Being decisive and taking action are key traits of these top leaders. They don't wait for the perfect plan because they know it doesn't exist. Instead, they are flexible so they can take actions to implement their plans and perfect them as they go along. This produces positive results while others are working to perfect their plan. It also creates a culture of change, adaptation and flexibility within the people in the organization they lead. In addition, it provides the opportunity to coach, teach and train people as they implement and adjust their plan.

These top leaders aren't quick to make decisions because they are rash or rush to judgement. It's because they are always paying attention, have a vision, purpose and mission that drives where they are going. This helps give them understanding, insight and intuition that enables them to be decisive and take action.

They adjust as they go because they are confident enough in where they are going so their ego doesn't get in the way. This allows them to be flexible by not worrying about being right, but instead, focusing on doing what's best to get where they are headed.

So, leaders know where they're going, pay attention and make decisions with ease. They challenge their followers to the point that they are often seen as unrealistic and impatient but these traits serve to produce superior results.

By Mike Moore

Tips & Traits Of Peak Performers

LEADERS EARN RESPECT...BEFORE APPROVAL OR FRIENDSHIP!

TIP...BUILD TRUST

Be accountable...Take responsibility

Create an open, positive, risk taking environment

Focus on solutions, not fault finding and assigning blame

See unwanted results as an opportunity to improve individuals and the organization

Don't be defensive...

You don't have to have all the answers...Just help people find them

TIP...SET & HOLD HIGH STANDARDS

Raise the bar...The lowest form of behavior you allow is who you are as a leader

Blur the lines between job assignments...The mission is everyone's job

Don't allow average behavior

Assign and monitor all work to teach and coach using specifics

Hold people accountable

TRAIT...CARE MORE ABOUT PEOPLE THAN RESULTS

Manage people's attitudes before they become actions and poor results

Don't allow people to accept average behavior

Care enough to challenge people to get them to do what they don't want to do

Don't overreact...Make people more important than results and the results will improve

Teach, coach and mentor to help people grow

TRAIT...SUPPORT & VALIDATE PEOPLE

Make taking time for people a priority

Be respectful...Pay attention and listen

Ask people's opinions...Pay attention and listen

Reward extra effort...Pay attention

Make people feel important...Pay attention

Did I mention...Pay attention

TRAIT...EMBRACE CHANGE, MAKE IT A RITUAL

Be a change advocate...Lead the change

Encourage change...Ask people how they and the organization can improve

Question everything...Never except or settle for the status quo

Help people change to improve...When they don't, change your people

Be mindful that people will treat each other and your customers the way you treat them!

The Road Ahead...New Leadership Required

We are headed for more trouble as many of you are witnessing and sharing with me daily. The majority of stories shared with me include faltering hopes, negative attitudes and a sense of doom from those on the front lines of business...salespeople. Frustration is mounting among many salespeople that their daily reality and their companies leadership approach aren't aligned. In fact, many salespeople feel their companies leadership is detached from their reality.

We are, and have been, in a transition to a 'new age of business' for many years. As a point of reference, the 'digital age' wasn't a transition to a new economy or age of business, it wasn't an age at all. It was the addition of advancing technology to the industrial age. The transition we are in now is a transition as significant as the one from the agricultural age to the industrial age and includes a shift to a 'new economy'. We have been experiencing the pain of this transition since 2008 because it was seen as part of the old cyclical economy instead of a major transition or shift.

Leaders responded with old solutions to past cyclical downturns, instead of reacting to the transition with new ideas, thinking and actions.

Many business leaders are still suffering from 'economic normalcy bias'...They believe because it's never happened to them before it won't happen now. Their past experience and comfort clouds their vision. What they're experiencing is very much like the people who believed the earth is flat...Their belief didn't make it true, it only held them back and robbed them from exploring what was possible. It took new thinkers with a vision of a new world and the courage to fail, to explore the truth and succeed...Just as it will today. Mainstream economists are starting to acknowledge that we're not in a downturn but have entered a 'new economy'.

Too many leaders and almost all followers are waiting for and banking on a recovery that isn't coming...I am not sharing this with you as bad news, it isn't doom and gloom. In fact, this transition is good news!

Great news, in fact, for those with clear vision, courage and the right attitudes to take advantage of the opportunities a 'new age of business' presents. The leaders in this 'new age of business' will experience great new successes just as those in the past did.

Struggling with this transition shouldn't come as a surprise though. It happened before. It's hard to be a successful leader from one age to the next because what made you a success in one doesn't assure your success in the next.

Contrary to most, I don't believe change is painful...I believe it's the resistance to change that causes the pain. The evidence of this is seen when we embrace change and become reenergized with new vision for the future or resist change and suffer in the fight to maintain our comfort with our status quo and past successes.

The old cyclical economy is broken and there is no recovery coming but there are many opportunities for new leadership to succeed today and in the coming years .

What we are experiencing is different, unique in fact. Changes in demographics, business and work ethics, consumer attitudes, economic debt, technology and globalization have all come together to drive this transition. There will be many winners in the 'new age of business'. The question is will you be one or will you get caught holding on until it's too late?

For those leaders holding on to the old economic model, the temporary short-term successes experienced, read or heard about, just help them hold on to the status quo a little longer and postpone their successful transition.

For those with vision, who trust their instincts and truly believe people are a businesses greatest asset, new achievements and success are just around the corner.

Change, real change, is coming and it's bringing with it new amazing opportunities for those with the courage to truly put people first, hold them to a higher standard, embrace new thinking and take bold new actions. These people will become the leaders in this 'new age of business' and begin to writing the next chapter in history.

Welcome to the 'people first age of business'.

By Mike Moore

Leadership... The Power Of Caring

After a leader decides their job is to serve people, the greatest power they possess is caring for the people they serve. Make no mistake. Caring is a choice leaders have to make. They may not always like all the people they serve but they have to choose to care about them or they are not a leader, just a manager doomed to produce average results.

No one will trust or follow someone they think cares more about money, things or results than they do about them. People accept direction, guidance and teaching from a person they believe cares about them, wants the best for them and is willing to hold them accountable to a higher standard than they hold for themselves. They develop loyalty and a willingness to follow someone who demonstrates their concern for them and wants what's best for them. They instinctively know that someone who cares about them believes in them.

Leaders also understand that people don't always like their leader when they are holding them accountable. In fact, I believe the phrase micro-mangement was created by followers to try and get leaders to stop paying attention to what they were doing, leave them alone and let them be average.

Leaders don't accept average behavior or people who accept being average. They understand that not everyone wants to be exceptional...If you are in a leadership position and you believe your responsibility is to help everyone become exceptional, then you're fighting a losing battle. Not all people want to be exceptional and you don't need them to be for your organization, company or team to be extraordinary.

You only need your people to be above average by executing your plan with enthusiasm, commitment and concern for each other, to create an extraordinary company or organization. When this happens, and only when this happens, do they become a true team. Until then, they're a group of individuals working for you and it's the leaders job to serve them until they become a team.

When you care about people you are committed to making them the best they are willing to be. This gives you the courage to challenge them, hold them accountable and accept that they will not always like you but they will respect you and eventually call you a mentor.

In this position you will be teaching continually. That's what leaders do. They are tireless teachers committed to helping the people they serve to learn, grow and improve. To do this, leaders have to develop the habit or ritual of continual learning.

When the choice to care is made, leaders stop wanting all their people to think alike, or think like them. They become less defensive of their position, open up and begin to embrace the differences, strengths and weaknesses of the people they serve. They are better able to evaluate people's talents, skills and self-discipline so they can put them together to produce the best results.

After all, no winning organization is ever made up of all 'milk drinkers', people who all think and act the same. It takes a diverse group of people with different skills to win and it takes a leader who cares about them to bring them together. The best way to make this happen, is to choose to care more about the people you serve rather than your plans or results. When you do, they will follow you and become a team who cares about each other and your plans.

They will be a team on a mission with a 'people first' leader who cares about and serves them. This is the best way to get a group of mostly average people to rise above mediocrity and produce extraordinary results.

By Mike Moore

No One Sets Out To Be Average

How can you prepare to be more cheerful, happy and prepare to handle the hassles of a normal day? How can you assure yourself of not being average?

When people wake up in the morning they have an expectation or intention for their day. It's a choice that separates average for extraordinary. What are your intentions or expectations for the day ahead? I've asked individuals and groups, large and small, this question over the past two decades and the overwhelming number one answer is, “I want to have a good day”. When I ask people to define a good day, the definition is, “A day with little to no problems or hassles”. When I ask them how many days a year this intention or expectation is met, they usually answer, “None”. Yet, they wake up each day and repeat this behavior without changing their expectation or intention. The vast majority of people start each day with an unrealistic expectation or intention, that when not fulfilled, makes them frustrated, upset and unhappy. When we set expectations that aren't met, we are usually disappointed.

Managing your own intentions and expectations drives your daily emotions and state-of-mind. Average people focus on their circumstances and not their solutions. This makes their circumstances the driver of their emotions. This will make their emotions or state-of-mind a roller coaster ride of peaks and valleys that sabotage their ability to create the results or life they want.

First, let’s look at why people set an intention or expectation of no problems, no hassles and no worries, and defined this as a good day. When we wake up each day we have a choice to make, “Better or Comfortable”. Our human nature seeks comfort before improvement and is satisfied to be comfortable. We don't want to be average but have to choose to do things we don't want to do if we want to be above average. We don’t wake up each day driven to be better human beings or to make things in our life better. So, the challenge is how to overcome our human nature and stop sabotaging our own lives.

How can you change your expectations or intentions to change your results? Remember, "Everyday the choices you make, makes you". When you start your day, change your expectation or intention by changing your definition of a good day. Let’s revisit the idea or definition of a good day. If your choice is comfort you define it as “no problems”. Think about when you feel best about yourself. Your self-worth or self-esteem is best when you overcome adversity, solve problems and help others. So to change your results, to develop the emotional state-of-mind to make a difference in your life, you need a new definition of a good day.

Change your expectations to prepare for the hassles of life to increase your happiness and improve your results. Expect more of yourself and less of others...These is one of the top traits of leaders and peak performers.

By Mike Moore

Peak Performance...On Demand

When your opportunity to perform presents itself, will you be nervous and falter, or eager, excited and ready to perform to your best? Will you take full advantage of the opportunity? Peak performers are always ready when their opportunity comes. Champions rise to the occasion and their best comes out when it is needed. How does this happen? Are some people just luckier than others?

The answer is simple...I didn't say easy, just simple. Peak performers, champions and those that sustain peak performance and enter the Hall Of Fame in any industry, have no secret formula. They didn't find a short cut to success. It doesn't exist.

They do possess a special ingredient...One that average performers lack. They develop and depend on self-discipline, they know it's what separates average performers from peak performers. Self-discipline...The will to prepare, the ability to do the work to be at their best when their best is needed. You can become a peak performer, a person who finds and stays in the 'zone' but you'll have to do the little things to be prepared.

You have to put in the time and do the work to know that you're ready. Preparing to perform requires your commitment to do the things that most people avoid. Peak performers invest in themselves by doing the things they don't want to do, that produce the results they want. This is the difference between average and excellent, winning and losing or peak performance and 'choking' when your opportunities present themselves. In addition, opportunities come more often to those who are prepared than to those who are waiting for them to happen. So, self-discipline leads to more opportunities and peak performance.

Peak performance requires preparation spiritually, mentally and physically and this requires self-discipline and the understanding that these stay in that order of priority. Preparing to perform, being healthy and whole, demands all three in the proper order. Until you learn this, and practice the self-discipline to prepare, you will not become a peak performer. When you do, you'll reach new heights and set new standards for yourself.

Self-discipline is the first requirement if you are to be prepared. It is the key step to developing your attitudes and skills. It is the driving force to taking action when others become paralyzed or 'choke'. Self-discipline leads to self-control which creates self-confidence and produces the self-realization of your peak performance. It is the human power that allows us to overcome the odds, perform the incredible and accomplish the amazing.

Because peak performers are prepared to perform they have an unwavering belief they were meant for the key moments in their lives. They have the confidence and faith to take the risk to fail because they know they can perform. In fact, they believe it's their purpose and their mission to be their best when their best is needed. This makes them eager, excited and ready when their time comes. They enter their peak performance zone easily and execute what they believe they were meant to do. They perform to their peak on demand!

Develop your self-discipline, prepare yourself spiritually, mentally and physically and become a peak performer!

Leaders Set, Raise & Maintain Standards

Leaders set, raise and maintain standards. Let's be clear what that means. It's not the averages...It's not your best...Standards are the lowest form of behavior you will accept.

At the end of the day the lowest form of behavior you accept, is who they are as a leader. Think about that for a minute and let it sink in...Re-read it!

Once you accept that who you are is attached to the lowest form of behavior you accept, once it truly sinks in, it should motivate you to deal with that person or persons who has been lagging behind or causing you to be frustrated. It should also make you look at the bottom and work to raise the standards not just celebrate the top and hope that the bottom 'Gets It'. This understanding will motivate you to stop sending subtle messages and start communicating openly, honestly and directly. Making direct communication your strength is a key component to becoming a 'people first' leader. This will help make the standards clear to those who have to perform to meet them.

Focusing on setting and raising standards motivates leaders to spend their time working on their lowest performers . This means they have to invest their time in the people who they'll least want to spend it with. Until you decide your job as a leader is to improve the lowest performers you'll avoid them and spend too much time with the top performers. That's often what managers do, but leaders know and understand it's the bottom performers that drag the organization down so they invest their time in them.

Leaders are always teaching people to do what they don't want to do, to get what they want and it starts with you...If you do what you don't want to do, what you'd put at the bottom of your 'To Do List' first, then you'll get what you really want...Higher standards and improved performance.

Celebrate success and enjoy your top performers, but invest in those that can improve the most.

Raising the standard will raise the performance of your middle performers because they don't want to be too close to the bottom. This in turn will drive the top performers as they will rise to the occasion and maintain their position at the top while setting new highs.

Setting and raising standards increases everyone's pride in their position and organization. Most people may not be motivated to be extraordinary, but no one wants to be average...Maintaining high standards will improve everyone self-image, personal pride in their organization and motivation to not accept average behavior.

Setting and raising standards is where the hard edge of leadership comes in. No compromise is acceptable or it isn't a standard, just a suggestion.

Standards are met or there are consequences...The first consequence is more attention, coaching and teaching. The last consequence is replacing people to maintain the standard. Invest your time in the bottom performers , raise the standards, help people change to meet them...or change your people.

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