Why YOU Should Fire Yourself-Today!

I fired myself today. Why? When I was conducting a recent coaching session I found myself asking the same old questions with a different person. While conducting a leadership training, I shared the same stories that I did in the last one. I have a fine business, and we achieve good results. It's all great, but I found myself to be...complacent. In fact, I was also arrogant, thinking I knew what was best for others and customers and not listening or paying attention to them. I kept doing too many things the same way or taking short cuts. Besides, I just hadn't been satisfied or fulfilled in what I was doing lately. Can you relate to this?

Knowledge doubles every twelve months. It is soon to be every twelve hours! How do you keep up with that?! The world is changing faster and faster. It's human nature to resist change. Human behaviorists say it's deep seated in our Reticular Activating System.  We learn, grow, achieve success, and then get comfortable. No wonder, change processes seldom produce the burst of success an organization hopes for.

The truth is that we all think we are performing better than we are, but we can all perform significantly better than we are doing. I say fire yourself before someone else does! (Or you lose a job to someone younger or more experienced or you get laid off, or a new manager brings in her own people, or the company restructures, or you just start accepting the status quo).

Normally when people are fired there are all kinds of negative emotions that rise up: anger, hurt, disappointment, resentment and fear. I found when I fired myself I could capture the positives, too: excitement, anticipation, gratitude, renewal and hope. 

All of us need objective feedback on our performance. It's been said feedback is the breakfast of champions. Olympic athletes get positive and negative feedback constantly for four years or more, through 10,000 hours of intense training and coaching. That's why they reach an elite level.

What if we did that in business? Everyone's world would be rocked! Today most employees get feedback from the boss once or twice a year at performance review time. Usually this feedback is about the results, not the behavior that created the results. With the speed of change this dinosauric process is not nearly enough. (See my post, Performance Management Sings the Blues: It's Broken; How to Fix It.) 

Here are two steps that I took that may help you as well. 

Look in the mirror

I coached a manager named Daniel. He had been a very good performer and the company recognized him for that. They asked me to work with him for a few months because his performance was slipping. I did, and we eventually recognized that he was pretty smug. He always hit his goal and received recognition but he started cutting corners. So I asked him what he did when he excelled. We identified and reviewed specifics. Then we compared the list to what he was doing now. Guess what? It didn't match up. Daniel adjusted his behavior with support and his performance soared. 

Sometimes we have to look in the mirror. Or we need to have someone help us do that so that we are honest. We are often so busy with things at work and family, we just don't take the time. One day becomes a year and one year becomes a decade. Pretty soon we are part of the problem. When I looked in the mirror I saw someone burned out, who needed a new vision.

We have to ask ourselves what we are really doing. How do people perceive us? How well do we do what we intend to do? How committed are we to stated goals and plans? How committed are we to ongoing learning? What do other people think we can do better? As Michael Jackson said, in The Man in Mirror:

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror,

I'm asking him to change his ways.

And no message could have been any clearer:

If you want to make the world a better place,

Take a look at yourself, and then make a change."

Look at your shadow

Some issues are not easily seen and we don't want to admit that they are there. We catch only a shadowy version of the truth. We have to look deeper, think longer, learn more or maybe get help to move forward. 

Some companies, for example, look in the mirror but they don't look at the shadows. GM, Kmart, Hewlett Packard, Blackberry and The Digital Equipment Company are a few that come to mind. They either had to go bankrupt, were bought by others, or are dying a slow death. They essentially got fired from their customers for good reasons. I came across a potential client recently that has been slowly losing revenue for ten years. They have been unwilling to change, and now they are losing money. It may be too late.

Some of us are like this, too. We have to ask the tough questions:

• What mistake are we unable to admit?
• What grudge are we harboring?
• What role are we hanging on to for dear life?
• What learning are we resisting?
• What relationship are we hurting?
• What excuses do we believe in?

My shadow confronted me with needing to focus on the power of listening, and putting other people first. Through these lines in his poem, A Story Can Change Your Life , Peter Everwine shares the danger of not recognizing the signs that are there in the shadows:

With signs, you only need to keep your wits about you and place your trust in a shadow world that lets you know hard luck and grief are coming your way. And for that—so the story goes—any day will do.

Richard Petty, is a NASCAR driving legend with 200 career wins. He was ranked #1 seven times and won the Daytona 500 seven times. Petty said of his team and their approach, "We'd been winning steadily for 20 years and decided we wouldn't change". The last eight years of his extraordinary 35 year career he had no wins. 

Bill Gates co-founder of Microsoft said, "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." Colin Powell, former US Joint Chiefs of Staff, adds, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.”  I fired myself today. I think I'll do it again soon. How about you?

Do you want to benchmark your career with the habits of highly successful people? If so, check out this complimentary inventory and guidebook: Success Practices.

What if YOU could be a superstar leader? See this dynamic Online Leadership Training: Breakthrough BluePrint Training/Coaching Programs-4 Options for success.

Want to really accelerate your career? Check out one or more of my books in the Superstar Book Series for a boost.

If you liked this post, I'd appreciate it if you'd hit the "Follow" button at the top of the page. I promise you to write about issues I hear from all the managers and employees I serve. Here are a few other posts you may find helpful:                                 

• Get the Job You Want with this Little Known Technique
• 10 Phrases Good Managers Say Always-Often!
• 10 Keys To Employee Engagement
• 13 Troubles of Terrible Teams
• Leadership is About People, Not Your Paycheck
• 6 Proven Ways to Deal with a Bad Boss
• How to Get Feedback When You Are the Leader

Thank you for reading this post. I wish you the best of success.