Good to Great is a Razors Edge: Mental Strength Tip #176

Personal success is achieved through the disciplined execution of a fully established personal development plan, which includes a strategy from moving from good to great.

This virtual personal coaching session is to assist you in your self-improvement, your personal growth and your personal development.

It is intended to create self-empowerment and inspire you to take action so that you can reach your personal goals and personal success.

I take a personal growth topic, in this case good to great, and give an overview about it.  Then I’ll continue by asking a series of mental strength questions.  I’ll wrap-up with a summary and some final thoughts.

Take your time with this topic, carefully consider your responses to the questions and write them down.  Personal growth is not supposed to be easy, it takes courage to face yourself.  But when you develop the courage and mental strength to do actually this, you will be building confidence.

[color-box]How mentally tough are you? Find out if you got what it takes by taking this complimentary Mental Strength Assessment. To take it, just go HERE[/color-box]

Objective of this Mental Strength Tip on Good to Great:

To help you realize that only a series of subtleties separate top performers from the average person.

Let’s Get Started:

I, and many other coaches, help numerous people move from good to great.  It’s not magic.  It involves power, passion, purpose and perseverance.

They find their path, they have a purpose, and if they get knocked down, they get up again.  They keep asking better and better questions that get them closer to their goals and they continue to find the people and resources that support them on their journey.  They turn resistance into growth and they fully immerse themselves in the experience.

Questions to Uncover Beliefs about Moving From Good to Great:

• Is the idea that only a series of subtleties separate the good from the great just a positive thinking cliché?
• Are more top performers born or made?
• If the average and the top performers are only separated by a razor’s edge, how come more people don’t become great performers?

Unsupportive Beliefs about Moving From Good to Great:

• It takes more than subtle changes to become great.
• Most top performers are born with their talent.
• Great performers are smarter, more educated and luckier than the average person.

Mental Strength Beliefs about Moving From Good to Great:

• The difference between a life of mediocrity and a life of achievement lives in the details of a hundred different areas.
• Top performers are made not born.
• Top performer thinking is built one day at a time.

Outrageous Questions on Moving From Good to Great:

• In what areas of your performance are you a razors edge away for greatness?
• How can you close the gap between where you are and where you want to be?
• If you focused on the subtle differences between your skill and the skills of the best performers in your industry, how long would it take you to be ranked among the top five percent?

Reflective Questions on Moving From Good to Great:

• What beliefs would you have to abandon or enhance in order to adopt this razors edge philosophy?
• What are the three things that the best performers in your industry do that you don’t do?
• In what areas do you need to improve on in order to join the ranks of top performers?

Mental Strength Coaching on Moving From Good to Great:

Level 5 Leadership is a concept developed by Jim Collins. After several years of research, Collins discovered that all of the great organizations that he studied were headed by what he called “Level 5 Leaders.”

These Leaders have a unique combination of fierce resolve and humility. They were the first to own up to mistakes, and the last to take credit for success.

You can work on developing the following skills and characteristics to become a Level 5 Leader:

• Develop humility.
• Ask for help.
• Take responsibility.
• Develop discipline.
• Find the right people.
• Lead with passion.

Final Thought on Moving From Good to Great:

Here are the five principles of good to great from the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.

1. Level 5 Executive Leadership

• Personal Humility
• Professional Will, almost fanatical
• Workmanlike diligence – more plow horse, than show horse
• Ambitious for the company, not themselves

2. First Who, Then What

• Getting the right people on the team comes before vision, strategy and tactics
• Get the right people on the bus
• Get the wrong people off the bus
• Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems

3. Confront the Brutal Facts (But Never Lose Faith in the Potential for Greatness)

• Impossible to make good decisions without an honest confrontation of the brutal facts
• Create a culture wherein the truth can be heard
• Lead with questions, engage in dialogue not coercion and conduct autopsies without blame
• Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset because a strong personality often deters people from presenting the brutal facts
• Don’t waste time trying to “motivate people”. The right people are self-motivated but can be de-motivated.

4. The Hedgehog Concept

• Organizations should only do what they 1) can be great at, 2) can make money at and 3) have a passion for doing.
• The Hedgehog Concept is not a vision or strategy, but an understanding.
• Good-to-great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding; others set their goals and strategies based on bravado.
• Getting the Hedgehog Concept is an iterative process.
• Hedgehog companies are simple creatures that no one big thing and stick to it. Other companies are more like foxes that know many things but lack consistency.

5. A Culture of Discipline

• Sustained great results depend upon building a culture of disciplined people who take disciplined action within the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept.
• A culture of discipline requires disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and then take disciplined action.
• The single most important form of discipline for sustained results is fanatical adherence to the Hedgehog Concept and the willingness to shun opportunities that fall outside the three circles.
• The purpose of budgeting in a good-to-great company is not to decide how much each activity gets, but to decide which areas best fit within the Hedgehog Concept and should be fully funded and which should not be funded at all.
• “Stop doing” lists are more important than “to do” lists.

6. Technology Accelerators

• Good-to-great organizations avoid technology fads but become pioneers in applying carefully selected technologies.
• Good-to-great organizations use technology as an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it.
• The key technology question is does it fit directly your Hedgehog concept? If yes, then becoming a pioneer in the technology makes sense. If no, you can settle for parity or ignore it entirely.

7. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

• Good-to-great transformations look dramatic and revolutionary on the outside but actually are organic, cumulative processes on the inside. There is no single defining action, no grand program, no one lucky break or miracle moment.
• Sustainable transformations follow a predictable pattern of buildup and breakthrough – like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel.
• Average organizations follow the “doom loop” pattern. They try to skip buildup and jump immediately to breakthrough. Then, with disappointing results, they lurch back and forth, failing to maintain a consistent direction.

Get started today on moving from good to great by requesting your Introductory Consultation HERE.