CHAPTERS
How to be a Champion
The two-minute Champion
The Cultural Champion
Champions – Winners and Losers
Champion’s testing time
The Motivational champion
The Leadership Champion
The Team-Building Champion
Challenge solving techniques used by champions
How Champions deal with impossible people and control their emotions
How Champions display Assertiveness and Honesty
Negotiating and Selling skills for Champions
Champions as Behavioural Coaches
Transferring communications into commitment, - the Champion’s way
Interviewing techniques by Champions
Listening skills of Champions
The Champion’s guide to successful Performance Management
Life-time goals and The Wheel of Life
Employees must always come first
A summary of the best practices of Champions
1
How to be a champion
You!
Yes you have that something special within you that can one day make you a champion.
But, Championship does not come easily. It is never given, only earned. However, here is the good news – champions are not necessarily of high IQ, of great educational prowess, in possession of wonderful physical abilities, creative or full of innovative ideas.
Nor are they people with the best possible connections, enjoying sound common-sense, deep emotional stability or happy family environment.
But, all champions possess one common personality trait. They are persistent. They never give up! My message to you, gained from my many years of coaching, mentoring and managing people is a very simple one:
If you have a positive attitude and if you are persistent,
I guarantee you will become a champion
How can I guarantee this? Well, let’s start from basics. What is it that makes a person successful in any job in the world, - be it president or cook, athlete or shoe-shine boy? Success equals championship, championship equals success.
Each and every occupation job or task requires three things, the knowledge of what is necessary to be done, the skill to do it and a positive attitude to ensure success. Is knowledge needed most? Did President Obama reach the White House because of his political and world-scene knowledge? Hardly. His skill maybe? Well, he is a skilful speaker but what other skills of statesmanship does he really possess or display? He’s not too bad I suppose, but he falls indisputably a long way short of JFK or Bill Clinton or indeed so many others in the past
and current world scene.
No, it’s Obama’s persistence; call it attitude or passion if you like, that got him there. No, call it persistence, both positive attitude or passion may be short-lived. But persistence? Never.
Persistence makes champions
If you still have a remaining doubt, then maybe the past 50 years of study by the Business faculties in Cambridge and Boston universities might convince you. In their studies of successful people, of champions, especially in business, they consistently record, year after year, that just over 80% of a person’s success, - in any job, in any walk of life, is due to the maintenance of a persistent attitude, an unshakeable belief in self.
Who is always the star sales person, the champion among all the others? All of whom are similarity skilled and knowledgeable. It is always the most persistent person, the one who never gives up!
When were you at your most successful period in your life? Of which task are you the most proud? Was it years, months or weeks ago? Or is it today?
Whenever the time, when you remember that success, what was it above all things that made the event successful? Whether a family, school, university, work-related, sports or dramatic event, why was it such a success?
I can answer for you in one word, Persistence.
You persisted at whatever you were doing until you became a champion. Right? – Even if you thought, at the time, that luck played a strong part in your success, it was your persistence that won through.
Sure, there is luck in life. People win the lottery; but, how many times, how persistently do they play the lottery before they win? There will, of course, always be an exception, a lottery winner the first time he or she has ever bought a ticket, but such an exception proves the rule. It’s persistence that counts.
Sir Winston Churchill, arguably Britain’s greatest ever statesman, was asked, post second world war when he became Prime Ministers once again, to make an inspirational speech to the undergraduates at Cambridge university. He was introduced; he stood up, took a breath, paused, and then said;
Never give up. Never! Never!
Never give up!
then he sat down again.
2
The two-minute Champion
It is well accepted, even well proven, that if you mix with negative people, if your work-mates, family members or friends have a consistently negative view of life, if they constantly complain about the weather or traffic conditions for example, or bemoan their lack of opportunity or poor salary, their negativity will eventually invade your soul and your mind and create a negativity in you. So, - cast them off!
Mix only with positive people. The ones who always say a cheery “hello” or “good morning” to their workmates, the ones who walk with purpose, back straight, head held high. The ones who follow my two-minute rule.
The first two minutes of just about anything you do in life are the most important, indeed vital, to yours and other peoples’ feelings of positivism or negativism, of success or failure.
Getting up in the morning, you have a choice. Rise out of bed with a smile on your face, with a happiness to greet the dawn (even a grey one) and a pleasant warm word for the person beside you. Or, crawl out of bed, scratch and moan about well – just about everything and you are immediately on a losing streak.
Arriving at work, you can be cheery and happy or surly and discontented. A manager, especially a senior manager must act, even when his stomach is upset, his wife is having an affair and his teenage children hate him, whilst readily spending all his money. He must act, for at least the two minutes it takes him to get to his office; acting as if he is happy, secure, trustworthy and highly motivated. If he doesn’t, then he, even saying nothing, simply by his negative body language, will pull everyone he meets down; down, down, down.
The two minute rule relates to everything you do; the way you begin a meeting, drive a car, return from lunch, play a round of golf, actually… even that too!
Think about your spouse at home, having prepared a tasty dinner, waiting for you with gin and tonic or a glass of your favorite wine in hand and you enter the house and say,
God! I’ve had such a shitty day! I don’t know why I bother working there; I’m killing myself for nothing. The traffic home was terrible and it’s raining again. Bloody hell!
Today was a nightmare!
OR (acting again?)
Hi, Darling! It’s nice to be home after my day. How was your day? Let’s have a great evening together. Is that my glass is your hand? Thanks! You really are wonderful!
In these first 2 minutes you have either killed her or made her feel the best person in the world. You are her champion or you are her failure.
Charles Dickens was rejected by so many publishers, so many times, despite his persistence, that in the end he decided to transform this persistence into creative self-publishing. The rest is a glorious history, Colonel Sanders took his recipe for special fried chicken to almost 1,000 companies over many years before one decided to take a chance on him and Kentucky Fried Chicken hit the streets of the world. Look at Richard Branson, his tremendous ups and downs in life; his successes, his failures. Sheer persistence kept him going until he reached the top.
Success rarely comes easily, even to the less worthy. The aggressive footballer has, usually, worked hard all his (relatively young) life; the newly discovered actress has been through her own hell and will go through much more to be where she is today and to remain there.
Persistence pays off
Persistence makes champions
Some people are lazy, too lackadaisical to be persistent. Those people, unless they change, cannot become champions. They always like to do the easiest first. When they make their daily ‘to do’ list, they may indeed put everything on it; the difficult, the easy, the enjoyable. Then they say, “I’ll do the simple stuff first, get rid of it and then move on to the difficult issues.”
What happens? Having spent their time doing the easy and enjoyable stuff, there is insufficient time remaining today to do the difficult task, so it is added to tomorrow’s list. The circle goes on. It is the exceptional person, our champion who decides to do the difficult first, puts it behind her and then moves on to the easy stuff that can rapidly get done.
Thus, the champion completes all.
The champion prioritizes the difficult first and gets on with it.
3
The cultural champion
The cultural champion looks for the similarities rather than the differences in cultures and, whilst rejoicing in differences, recognizes that all people of all cultures seek love, respect, happy family life, friendships and material wealth to ensure comfort.
The cultural business champion, on taking up a new position in a foreign country will bring all his/her staff together and, rather than telling them what s/he expects of them, will ask them to tell him/her:
What do you expect from me?
Why do you think I have been placed in this position?
What is it you would like me to achieve?
Here is your cultural champion!
During my cross-cultural awareness coaching over the years, especially in Asia, in companies as diverse as HSBC, DHL, Hana Bank, Corning, Solvay, Panalpina, Marriott and Holiday Inn hotels and resorts and a hundred others, I have often used the following pyramid and then asked the coachees to create their own cultural pyramid, both for their country and for themselves as individuals. The results are fascinating in expressing how, and to what extent we differ and where we are the same.
My cross-cultural societal pyramid (which could be said to be typical of the US or some European countries) is:
THE SUCCESFUL
BUSINESSMAN, MUSIC
OR MOVIE STAR
DOCTORS, LAWYERS POLITICIANS
MID-LEVEL
BUREAUCRATS AND
BUSINESSMEN
RELIGIOUS
LEADERS; TEACHERS, POLICE GOVERNMENT
OFFICIALS
A typical such pyramid from my work in Korea (for example) shows:
Look at the differences and the similarities.
A typical such pyramid from Thailand, will show the King right at the top, closely followed by senior Buddhist monks, these being people to be admired as champions and they are far above businessmen, movie stars or politicians.
The world is a fascinating place for cross-cultural champions
We all have our cultural stereotypes; we think, at least the British do, of the French as arrogant and Americans as superficial. One wonders what stereotypical view these two races have of the Brits! Stuffy but with cool accents?
Almost everyone I have ever met thinks of the Brazilians as fun loving, Australians as lacking sophistication and Koreans as being rather less than gentle. Yet, we all know that many individuals in these and all other races are atypical and become excellent caring and interesting friends and acquaintances.
Some cultures traditionally live to work (Korean, Japan?), whilst others work to live (Italy, Philippines?).
The cultural champion never disputes the right or wrong of these disparate attitudes, he/she embraces them, endeavors to understand them and never decries them. Factors that drive cultures apart are often of the more fanatic variety, particularly where religion is concerned. Others however, particularly prevalent amongst Americans and British, is a misplaced feeling of superiority, which has its roots in colonialism and the fact that these races don’t really need to learn a foreign language as they can freely travel the world and do business in their mother tongue. Such misplaced ethnocentricity and ‘superiority” must be dispelled by the culture champion. However, there is a somewhat converse view that relates to the feeling of loyalty in Asian races; to family, friends, bosses and employers that may often transcend honesty. That’s when our cultural champion needs to make a stand.
Social hierarchy at the apex of cultural pyramids is fascinating, especially where it compares and contrasts a monarch (Thailand) to a successful businessman or movie-star (many Western societies). Rather than making a comparison, the cultural champion develops an historical and sociological understanding, to be enjoyed!
What is your own social pyramid?
Is it Championship material?
Some social cultures pull companies operating in that culture towards social and team goals rather than towards individual success and company profitability. Korea tends to be in the former category, the US in the later. The cultural champion must find ways to bridge the gap, most especially if he/she is working in a joint venture company with these disparate cultures, especially where members of host countries fundamentally believe that their own culture and values are infinitely superior to those of any other country. Here is the dilemma for the cultural champion, and with it comes the resolution. Uncontrolled ethnocentricity, a passionate belief that “ours is best”, leads inevitably to feelings of racial superiority, cultural elitism and thereby, reduced productivity and employee dissatisfaction.
Moreover, our cultural champion implicitly appreciates that when a native of a third-world country is requested to perform a sophisticated first-world task, that the quality understanding quotient and required environmental standards are often vastly different from what the “visitor” has been accustomed to. Thus when he/she is heard to remark:
“I’m exceeding”
The host’s reply is:
You’re only half-way there!
Cultural champion, bridge that gap!
A person can become a champion at any age, in any walk of life, however it is a truism that in most Asian countries old age, in and of itself, competent or not, is viewed with much greater respect than is common in the Western world. Potentially therefore it can be said that there may be a discrepancy in the recognition of championship depending upon geography and culture.
For a person to become a senior executive before the age of 45 or 50, most especially a CEO, in many Asian societies, especially Korea or Japan, is almost unheard of. “How can he (and it’s almost always still “he”) be allowed into that position? He is not old enough!” This is often a problem for Western multi-nationals in sending their brightest businessman to act in a senior position in such traditional countries.
Championship may sometimes be geographically and age determinate
However, following the championship route, the CRT route, Caring for people around them in whatever walk of life, Respecting themselves and others, especially those in other cultures and with different creeds, Trusting people and gaining their reciprocal trust, will most likely bring us to the pyramid of successful cross cultural championship:
4
Champions – Winners and Losers
Real progress can only be made by unreasonable people
Because “unreasonable” people challenge the status quo, look at worn bureaucracy and remove it, find newer, quicker ways to solve problems and do not respect positions, rather, they respect competence.
Once you begin to engage someone in conversation you can very soon discover whether you are talking to an actual or even a potential champion.
Life is good to me!
He or she says. Actually, they are really saying: ‘I make my life good, no rather what comes to assail me; I face it as a challenge, not as a problem and I overcome it by persistence.’
The loser, the non-champion will conversely mutter:-
Nothing ever goes my way
And believe me, with that attitude, it never will!
The Champion tells you:
Yes, I will
I will find a way, I will help you. I will rise to the challenge, meet it and overcome it. The non champion whispers:
Perhaps…I’ll see
This is rather like saying, “I’ll try”.
Did you ever try to pick up a pencil or try to be a better husband or wife, or try to be a calmer driver. You DON’T try! You either do it or you don’t! You pick up the pencil or you leave it on the floor or desk. You behave better towards your spouse or you don’t. It’s up to you.
If I could I would remove the word “try” from the English Language, from any language come to that. It is the loser’s creed, “I’ll try”. The champion always says:
I will!
I’ll find time to do it
Says our champion, whilst our loser hides behind the loser’s creed:
I don’t have time to do it
A few years ago I had the good fortune to be at a breakfast meeting in Seoul, Korea with John Howard, ex Prime Minister of Australia. We were discussing what makes champions and how they display leadership characteristics. We developed a little empathy, - both sharing the same name although his was a surname - he said:
Champions prioritize and have balance. I hate people who tell me that they have no time for lunch and must skip it. That’s not championship material. They are simply admitting their inability to prioritize, to plan and to achieve a balance in their lives. Definitely not someone I’d want working for me. Definitely not a champion!
The Champion is a good listener, displaying this ability by making encouraging sounds and with positive body language; making his speaker believe that he is absorbed 100% in what she is saying. Bill Clinton has this down to a fine art form; other politicians and business leaders lag far behind, Kaddafi, for example, was never really too good at listening! The Bills of this world, the listening champions, also possess the perspicacity to employ the phrase:
Tell me more, that sounds exciting!
I began this chapter with a rather unusual, to many, phrase. I truly believe that it is only unreasonable men and women who create change. Why? Because so called “reasonable” people are willing to accept the status quo, the existing rules and regulations that govern society or work place. It is only the champion change agents who, being “unreasonable”, change the world.
Columbus, setting sail on what was at that time regarded as a flat world, was unreasonable. Fortunately, he didn’t fall off! More up-to-date, Virgin airlines making you buy your own food from young, mini skirted girls was to many, ‘unreasonable”, so it was to have the idea to put a man on the moon or to have a motor propelled vehicle travelling at more than 30 miles per hour! All unreasonable. Every one of them the work of a champion!
Champions always get more done than other people. They are always busy, but never too busy to take on another challenge; they rarely spend time sitting in front of a television. Their paradox is that they always work harder than non-champions, yet they always have time to give to others. Non-champions are always too busy to do this.
Champions know when to fight hard, especially if it is against ‘the system’, whatever that system is, particularly when they perceive that an injustice is being perpetrated. In so doing, the champion earns the respect of others. Non-champions do not buck the system and frequently give way on important matters.
Champions wish to constantly learn
And to improve themselves, believing that they can learn something from almost anyone. Non-champions have already decided to accept a plateau to their learning curve and thus, instead of remaining where they are, actually will go backwards as knowledge is ever increasing.
Losers are afraid of making mistakes; champions have the courage to learn from their mistakes.
A champion is honest, has a positive attitude, is hard working, has complete integrity, is confident, a great listener, a learner, always enthusiastic and outstandingly loyal. So, it’s time for all of us to work on these attributes and to become, what we can become; a Champion!
5
Champions Testing Time!
This is your first championship questionnaire. Complete it swiftly, - Champions don’t hang about!
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The PERFECT champion shows the scores below
What’s your score?
What do you need to change?
It’s up to you; - do you have the motivation and most of all, the persistence to make the necessary changes?
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6
The Motivational Champion
The motivational champion ensures that s/he structures her own life and work, and that of others, to ensure interest and challenge as well as appropriate autonomy, whilst recognizing that everyone has differing motivational factors guiding them.
If life or work is inherently unsatisfying, the motivational champion changes things
The motivational champion delights in recognizing and celebrating the accomplishments of others and is always looking for good performance rather than seeking out problems, looking for people doing things right. Looking for something that someone does well and encouraging them to both learn from and to repeat that success.
Key to motivating others is excellence in communication followed through by unwavering commitment. Walking the talk.
In everyone’s working environment there are motivational and demotivational factors at work, but the common ones that always ensure enhanced motivation include being recognized for doing something well, being a valued team member, where a feeling of belonging is generated and contributions are always recognized in a positive fashion.
This, above all is implicitly understood by the motivational champion. S/he is not a person who blindly follows rules and procedures, which frequently limit initiative. S/he realizes that an environment enhancing creativity and motivation is least likely to be found in the mundanity of most offices and workplaces.
The motivational champion gets people out of their boxes
so that they can really think and create
S/he creates an atmosphere in which positive motivation can flourish in almost any given environment and constantly rewards effort rather than output, thereby relentlessly maintaining motivation and enhancing the values of trust, care and respect.
It is easy to spot a demotivated person; the one who is often alone, isolated both in life and in work, displaying little interest in either, even seemingly making a conscious decision to remain “outside”. The only person able to bring these people back into the warmth of relationships and fellowship is the motivational champion, always looking for the positive in people and suspending judgment.
Our motivational champion also recognizes that, by and large, men and women differ in what motivates them. A man is more likely to be motivated vertically (career, status, power), whereas a woman is more likely to have horizontal motivation (relationships, family, belonging). Numerous exceptions to this general statement do nothing other than prove the rule. Understanding these fundamentals, our champion must offer different motivational stimuli when dealing with male or female colleagues, friends or family members.
Moreover, our champion recognizes that motivational factors alter with age. The twenty-five year-old chasing after money becomes the forty-year old pursuing a career and stability, following the fifty year-old who is seeking social status, whilst the sixty year-old is motivated primarily by considerations of health and longevity.
Our champion puts all the different gender and age motivational factors into his capacious pot and is able to extract the correct ingredients to ensure that s/he gives each person the relevant recipe for success.
Our motivational champion needs to be enthusiastic, positive and stable
and to continually enact positive habits with which s/he can influence and guide others. What are some of these key motivational habits?
The first one, to begin every day is The Morning Habit. Wake up with a smile on your face. A smile has been defined in many ways and each definition extols its virtue. The smile is uniquely human and has evolved over millions of years as a means of expressing inner joy and happiness to others. People naturally warm towards people that have a ‘happy disposition’ - it breaks down barriers of resistance and brings about inner warmth - and yet most people don’t smile enough. Get into the habit of the very first thing you do every day is to smile.
Our second Champion’s habit is The Outlook Habit ‘looking for the good’ rather than the normal practice of ‘looking for the bad’ as we have mentioned before. Most people lack confidence both in themselves and their ability to succeed - they tend to concentrate on what they haven’t done or what they can’t do. Learning to acknowledge our past accomplishments and achievements keeps us motivated for the future; remembering past failures and dwelling on them reduces our motivation.
One of the most positive habits that champions develop is that of delivering sincere compliments instead of seeking praise. The recipient of any compliment naturally feels good and
people that feel good produce better results.
One of the most significant causes of failure is to succumb to the negative thoughts or opinions of others. Many people believe that they are mentally strong enough not to be affected by external influences but the negative is more powerful than the positive.
For example, if we introduced a single drop of writing ink into a bottle of natural spring water. What would happen to the contents of the bottle? Contamination. So it is with the mind - the most seemingly trivial negative will dilute the positive thought. The only solution is therefore to recognise the changes of external negatives and to guard the mind: only allowing positive influences in. This is the Positive Influence Habit.
An excellent habit to get into is that of the Seek Success Habit; finding and associating with ‘like - minded’ people. As already stated, there are many laws that govern human existence, one of the commonest being the law of conformity which states that:
Men or women conforms to their environment
regardless of what that environment is.
Having identified life’s purpose, our champions search for people with similar goals, outlooks and objectives and mix with them. Observing their actions and thought processes and copying them. It is impossible to achieve your goals if you associate with people who have different values. If you can’t find a successful person to associate with, identify people who you would consider to be failures, study them, see what they do and then, quite simply, do the opposite.
To grow as an individual you need to have the constant Self-Improvement Habit - developing the attitude of wanting to improve, to constantly assess performance, activities and motives, conducting a regular self -audit, asking “How can I do it better?”
Isn’t it true that people who enjoy themselves produce better results? A critical habit is to develop the Fun Habit. When we are enjoying ourselves the whole scenario around us changes and the world looks a brighter place. The Motivational Champion learns to love what s/he does, looking for challenges, opportunities, the sheer enjoyment of achievement and accomplishment.
To achieve personal or business success it takes an awful amount of hard work, dedication and energy. It is impossible to achieve success if we are physically or mentally exhausted.
Therefore an important habit to cultivate is that of Physical Exercise and Mental Pacing.