OH NO, NOT THEM TOO! BACKUP PLANS

It’s not just bad people that can create problems 

Your best people can create problems for you too! How does this happen? 
• They are great people. 
• Totally trustworthy. 
• Great character. 

They wouldn’t do anything to hurt you for the world…but it happens anyway. How does this work?

 

Surprises pop up constantly

If you want to save yourself from trauma you’ll check, you’ll monitor—because things change in life. People have things happen to them that create distractions—not necessarily dramatic things, just the normal surprises of life.

• They have sudden health problems.
• Unexpected things happen to their family and friends.
All kinds of things pop up that can distract them and affect their performance.   

The result is that you get burned

A perfect storm occurs. A situation arises where they’ve always delivered in the crunch—yet this one time things were going on in the background of their life that just upset them enough to where they dropped the ball.

• They didn’t mean to do it.  
• They had excuses not to do it.
However, they created a major disaster for you because you assumed they would do it because they always had.  

And oops! It’s still your fault because you’re in charge

You’re in charge. You should have been looking out for them. You can’t expect them to be perfect all the time because neither are you. As much as possible, set things up so they work in a structure that maximizes their strengths and minimizes their weakness. That way they have the best possible chance of performing on a consistently high level.

• They’ll make a great contribution
• They’ll feel like a valuable member of the team
• You be creating a better work environment
• They will trust you to look out for them
• Your team will be secure and stable, with minimum turnover. 

The result of you doing a great job in leadership is that performance is great and problems, delays and accidents are minimized. 

 

But you’ll still get burned if you don’t have backup plans 

Everything you need done needs a back up plan. Every key person needs a back up plan, otherwise who will do their job if an emergency occurs? The time to do this is before the problem comes…so you can transition quickly.

 

Many leaders stay so busy they never consider losing key people

Those leaders are the ones most likely to get burned. Things happen, even to your best and most trusted. That makes you vulnerable and it’s a much easier problem to solve in advance than it is after the fact.

Get your backup plans in place now! That way you protect yourself from problems and interruptions…no matter where they come from. 

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This is Part 3 of HOW TO PROTECT YOUR TEAM
Part 1: USE YOUR EAGLE EYE—SPOT DANGER

Part 2: SNAKES ARE SNEAKY: BAD PEOPLE

7 Keys to Avoiding the Winner’s Trap

Mediocrity sneaks up on the unsuspecting winner by flooding them with new opportunities. 

The unaware winners get distracted just enough, just slightly, from doing the things that got them to the top. They lose what would seem to others an imperceptible amount of their intensity and focus. But the line between winning and losing is very fine. Before they realize it, they have lost their winning edge and they slump.

Here are 7 tips that can help you avoid the deadly trap:

1. Realize that your life has changed now. It will be more complicated from a time standpoint. Before you focused primarily on budgeting your MONEY. Now you will need to focus on budgeting your TIME. So limit distractions. Of course you want to enjoy your success but you can’t do it all. 

2. Make a definite choice to put a priority on preparation. Keep your work time a top priority so you have a chance to stay on top. That’s the goose that lays the golden egg! That’s what will keep you in a position to continuing enjoying things. Make sure NOTHING interferes with your ability to continue to WORK HARD.

3. Ramp up your planning. Eliminate the time wasters so you can absorb many of the new opportunities without disrupting your schedule. Everyone has fat in their schedule. Take charge of it like never before. Not every activity is critical. Work to find ways to get the most out of your schedule. Things that take an hour can probably get done in 30 or 45 minutes. Many of the things that you always did in the past can probably delegated to others. 

4. Get better at saying NO. Realize you can’t do it all. Life is all about choices. Think about what is really important and weed out the unimportant. Don’t just keep doing the same things because you have always done them. Move on so you can move up.

5. Be disciplined like never before. Realize the penalty for getting off track is losing your focus is that you will get beat and your victory will be short lived. Don’t allow yourself to get sloppy with your time. Your success has given you the chance to add a bunch of things you want to do to your already large number of things you HAVE to do to keep winning. Don’t apologize for being disciplined and organized and don’t let others tempt you into relaxing your commitment. They are not your friends. 

6. Work SMARTER. Use the lessons you learned on the way up to fine tune your training. By winning you learned for yourself what things worked best for you and what things were not as profitable. This way you can get even more results from the time you put in. You may have even moved up to be able to get access to other people—coaches who can give you inside information on life at the top. How to prepare, how to keep your edge, how to continue to improve and how to get things done in less time. 

7. Most Important - Raise your sights and get BIGGER GOALS. Don’t take a chance on losing your hunger. Give yourself a real solid reason to continue driving yourself hard. It’s great to win once but when you continue to win you put yourself much higher category. Realize that its as hard to KEEP winning as it is to win the first time. Accept the challenge to stay on top.

Choose to go after making winning an ALL the time thing and not just a ONE time thing. 

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Related: The Secret of the "Winner's Trap"—How Winners Lose Their Edge

The Secret of the "Winner's Trap"—How Winners Lose Their Edge

To get to the top they were working day and night chasing a dream. 

They didn’t just do what they needed to do, they over-did. They were relentless, they paid any price. Why? Because they knew they had to. There was no assurance they were good enough to actually break through to the top. They believed they could. They desperately wanted to, so they were willing to pay any price. 

They didn’t just work, they sacrificed. 
They denied themselves the normal enjoyments of life so they would not be distracted. They went into a tunnel. They consciously decided to pay the price of greatness. They simplified and streamlined their life so they could maintain a manic focus on getting to the top as fast as possible. They knew that the faster they got there the longer they could enjoy it.

When they win their dream comes true! 
They are flooded with emotion. Everyone who previously criticized them now sings their praises. They are so proud. This is all so new for them. Now they are super popular. Everyone wants some of their time. 

And finally they get the goodies!
They get the money! They get the awards and recognition. They get the perks. They get the velvet glove treatment everywhere they go. Everyone knows who they are and wants to ingratiate themselves, so all of a sudden they go to the front of the lines at restaurants, they go first class everywhere. They love the attention and new respect. They like being treated special.

They start to exhale and get comfortable. 
They relax a little. They start to enjoy the benefits. They start buying things they couldn’t afford for themselves and their family. They start going places they couldn’t afford to go before. The simple and focused monastic life they lived before slowly becomes a thing of the past. Once they start winning they start enjoying, they don’t drive themselves as hard.

Soon they can’t even remember living that way. They think they are continuing to work hard and pay the price for continued success, but in reality…they aren’t. 

The trap is they become distracted. 
They have so many thoughts in their mind, things to do, people to see and enticing opportunities to deal with that weren’t there before. Their schedule gets cluttered. They have a lot more people in their lives. What they have worked so hard to achieve is suddenly right there and it gets overwhelming. They had spent so much time focusing on getting there that they never spent a minute thinking about what they would do once it happened. They failed to even consider how they would handle the new opportunities. The result? Before they realize it, the distractions get the best of them and soon they have lost their winning edge. 

They know it’s gone, but they have no idea how they lost it and have no real assurance that they will ever get it back. Like so many before them, they fell into the Winner’s Trap.

Celebrities vs Non-Celebrities in the Super Bowl

Here’s an interesting sub-plot for this year's Super Bowl—the celebrity versus the non-celebrity.

It won’t be with the coaches because they are both non-celebrities. The NY Giant’s Coach Tom Coughlin doesn’t have the interest, personality, face or wit to be a darling of the media. He is 100% football all the time. You won’t see him on a lot of commercials (any? ever?) You won’t see him on a lot of late night talk shows or on the red carpet rubbing shoulders with movie stars.

The New England Patriot’s Bill Belichick also falls in the non-celebrity camp. He’s a lot closer to going over the celebrity line than Coughlin, but in spite of the fact that he has tons of famous friends and enjoys getting out a lot in the off-season, he still studiously avoids the limelight. No one doubts his priorities. He has never been accused of seeking the spotlight. His mind is clearly on keeping his head down, keeping the distractions to a minimum and getting his job done. 

The celebrity vs non-celebrity battle will be fought at quarterback
Hall of Fame Coach Bill Parcells says, when looking for a franchise quarterback, look for a non-celebrity. His thinks that puts the odds of success in your favor. Some say he feels that way because he wants the entire spotlight for himself. Everyone has an opinion, but there is no mistaking that some are celebrities and some aren’t. It’s interesting to see how they compete when the pressure is the highest. Some can handle it, some can’t.

This year we have one of each
Eli Manning avoids the spotlight. It is an amazing tribute to his determination to maintain a low profile and avoid the spotlight that he is the quarterback in New York, the media capital of the world, he has performed at an elite level and even won a Super Bowl, yet he is almost invisible off the field. He has no trouble keeping his focus.

New England's quarterback is another story. As the winner of 3 Super Bowls and the husband of the world’s greatest super model Gisele Bündchen, he is always in the celebrity spotlight. He also finds his way regularly into the magazines, celebrity golf tournaments, talk shows. No one questions his competitive drive or commitment but there is no questioning his celebrity status. There’s also no question he hasn’t been playing at his best lately—and Manning has.

Being a celebrity is not a kiss of death
Joe Namath was an incredibly huge celebrity when he made his prediction to win the Super Bowl and delivered, shocking the world in the process. Others have done well in various sports as well. You could put David Beckham up there as a big example, but closer examination reveals most had their biggest success BEFORE they reached the spotlight status. Michael Phelps was celebrated but not a “celebrity” before he won his 8 Gold medals at the China Olympics. Since then he has become a bonafide celebrity and has found putting in the same amount of focused training as lot harder. His results have been nowhere near as spectacular. 

Brady won his 3 Super Bowls climbing the ladder to celebrity
He wasn’t the star he is today. When he won his early Super Bowls, he was barely known outside of football. Winning 3 times on the biggest stage in sports and television worldwide shot him into the celebrity zone and when he married Gisele Bündchen he solidified his celebrity status forever. If there was a Celebrity Hall of Fame he would already be in it! Yet, since reaching celebrity staus he hasn’t won nearly as much. They haven’t won nearly as much, they haven’t won in the playoffs as much and the one time they got back to the Super Bowl, they lost. It could be that Tom has been a celebrity for so long now he can handle it and still perform at his peak. We’ll see.

The fun of the Super Bowl is all the games within the game. 
This is just one you can keep your eye on to add a little extra interest. There are a lot of factors that go into winning, maybe this will be one. Will Manning be more focused and driven than the one who already “has it all?”

Will Brady’s distractions and more “exciting” life divert him from playing at his peak? It did last week. By his own admission “he sucked” compared to how he usually played as opposed to Manning who has been red-hot and deadly accurate in all the recent games.

Will it make a difference? We’ll find out Sunday!

Do the Big Things Well

To be successful you can’t major on the minors.

Life is full of limitations—we’re not going to be here long and we don’t have unlimited resources.

If you’re going to stand out you’ve got to stay focused.

People, and companies who rise to the top do it because there is something they do better than everyone else. In that arena they are the best.

But when success comes people forget that.
They start adding features and adding products. “Look at us now, we not only have that, we also have this, and this, and this!”

They expect super success but often find their profits stop growing and even drop. Why? They’ve over complicated things and lost their focus on their #1 product.

Just because you’re on top now doesn’t mean you’ll be on top in the future. 
If you’re going to stay on top you have to keep improving. What won last year won’t win this year. Unless a company continues to focus on getting better it will slide down the charts.

The same thing works with people.

You establish yourself in life by what you can do. If you have risen to the top it’s because you fought your way there. You had to earn it. And if you are going to stay there you’ve got to keep getting better or the next guy will come up and knock you off.

So you can’t get side tracked. 

Don’t let distractions cause you to lose your main focus. You know what the big things are that make you special. So if you want to continue to improve and move up in life… 

Stay focused on doing your most important things better and better.

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How can you simplify and specialize in order to get better at what you NEED to be doing?