Achieving High Performance

Achieving High
Performance:
A Research-based
Practical Approach
Richard F. Gerson, Ph.D., CPT
HRD Press, Inc. • Amherst • Massachusetts

ISPI • Silver Spring • Maryland
Copyright © 2006, Richard Gerson
Volume I of the Defining and Delivering Successful Professional

Practice—HPT in Action series
Series Editors:
Roger Kaufman, Ph.D., CPT
Dale Brethower, Ph.D.
Richard Gerson, Ph.D., CPT
Published by:
HRD Press, Inc. International Society for

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Cover design by Eileen Klockars
Dedication
To my wife, Robbie, and my sons, Michael and
Mitchell, who keep me performing at a high level
every day. Thank you for your constant love and
support.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments .................................................................... vii
Chapter 1: What is Performance Motivation? ........................... 1
Chapter 2: Defining High Performance..................................... 9
Chapter 3: Motivating Yourself for High Performance .............. 17
Chapter 4: Motivating Others: Creating the Proper
Motivational Environment ......................................................... 41
Chapter 5: Reaching the TOP .................................................. 65
Chapter 6: How to Be a High Performer Every Day ................. 85
Chapter 7: Guaranteeing High Performance ............................ 103
Glossary of Terms ..................................................................... 121
References ................................................................................ 131
About this Series ....................................................................... 137
About the Author........................................................................ 141
Acknowledgments
This book is the culmination of years of personal research and
work, and a year of discussion with my good friend and colleague
Roger Kaufman. Roger is an inspiration to me and to everyone in
the performance improvement field. Our discussions about this six-
pack series of books, and my book in particular, have provided
significant insights that have helped me in my consulting practice as
well as my ongoing writing.
I would also like to thank Bob Carkhuff and his editorial team at
HRD Press. Without their belief in the books and their constant
support, the book you are reading now would not be published. Bob
and his team are great to work with and superb in turning things
around for me as an author.
I must also thank the other authors in this series who have provided
guidance, editorial comments, and support as I wrote, edited, and
revised this book. Their help has lifted me up so that I can stand on
the shoulders of giants, both my co-authors and many of the people
who have preceded me in the field. I also want to thank my many
clients and other colleagues who have allowed me to apply the
techniques and principles in this book to get the positive results
everyone wants.
Finally, a special thank you goes to my wife and business partner,

Robbie Goodson Gerson. Her strength and support for my writing
provided me with an unlimited supply of energy to complete this
book, especially since it came on the heels of our completing
another book together. And I must thank my boys, Michael and
Mitchell. These two high achievers keep me on my toes constantly,
plus they are so much fun to be around. They have helped me
create a living laboratory for the concepts in this book so I would
know what works and what doesn’t work in the real world. Thank
you family, for helping me to always keep it real.
Richard F. Gerson, Ph.D., CPT

March 2006
Chapter 1
What is Performance Motivation?
Everybody wants to be successful. It doesn’t matter if that success
comes to them in business, sports, the arts, school, relationships, or
any other area. It is simply an accepted fact that people want to
succeed. Think about it: Do you know anyone who has ever come
to work expecting to perform poorly that day? Or, what student
comes to school to deliberately fail? Most people come to work or
school to do a good job—to be successful. And what is one of the
primary causes of their success? While skills, the performance envi-
ronment, and available resources are all important, perhaps the
most important thing affecting the level of performance is the moti-
vation of the performer.
Motivation is an important factor in all aspects of life. Various
dictionaries define motivation as the arousal of an organism (can be
a psychological or physiological force or stimulus) toward a desired
goal or objective (reason or purpose for action). In layman’s terms,
motivation is simply whatever gets you going that helps you achieve
or accomplish something. People who are cold are motivated to get
warm so that they don’t get sick or freeze to death. People who
perform poorly are motivated to perform well so that they keep their
jobs or maintain their status within their organization. People who
are poor are motivated to make more money so that they can have
more of the things they want in life. You get the idea. Of course,
these statements do not apply to all people, but for argument’s
sake, let’s just say they do for now.
It is easy to see how motivation in general, and performance
motivation in particular, adhere to the above definition and these
situations. First, performance motivation definitely leads to an action
or behavior that produces a measurable result. The performer is a
system unto himself as well as part of a larger system in which he is
performing. Any performance that is successful “appears” to initially
add value to the situation or environment in which the performance
occurred. Finally, no performer does his thing alone; there is always
at least someone else involved, such as a teammate, coach, com-
petitor, or mentor. All of these factors are influenced by perform-
ance motivation.
Here is a story about one person who, because of differing
levels of motivation in two different situations, achieved two different
sets of results.
2 Achieving High Performance
Performance Motivation: Success and Failure

Billy was a terrific high school athlete. He lettered in several sports
going into his senior year. A great deal was expected of him in both
basketball and football. He finished his junior year in basketball as
an honorable mention all-star for his school and county. The coach
thought he would be all-state during his senior year. However, there
was a festering problem that the coach was unaware of. You see,
the coach was a screamer. He yelled at everyone, yet he spent
more time yelling at Billy because he was his best player. This went
on throughout Billy’s junior year and the playoffs. While the coach
was expecting big things of Billy, Billy did not even know if he would
play basketball as a senior.
In the high school athletic schedule, football precedes basket-
ball, and in the fall of his senior year, Billy was a starter on the foot-
ball team. One of the football coaches was also a screamer. He
yelled, berated, and heavily criticized the players. He, like the bas-
ketball coach, was especially hard on Billy, since Billy again was
one of the best players on the team. When Billy made a mistake,
the coach was all over him. When Billy did well, almost nothing was
said. Yet, Billy relished in the “attention.” He played his senior year
like a “man possessed.” He led the team in receptions, intercep-
tions, and touchdown runbacks. He was voted to the county all-star
team. When he was asked what motivated him so much, he said it
was a combination of how much the coached “loved” him and paid
attention to him. Billy didn’t seem to mind that the attention was
primarily negative. He relished in the attention. In fact, at the end of
the season, as Billy was coming off the field, the coach grabbed him
by the shoulder pads, kissed him on top of his head, and told Billy
“he loved him.” You could see Billy’s smile a mile away.
Football was immediately followed by basketball. The basket-
ball coach waited for Billy to join the team and take them to the next
level. But that day never arrived. Billy refused to play basketball.
Although he had the skills, and the coach was making every
accommodation to get Billy to play basketball, Billy refused. When
he was asked why he did not play, he simply said he didn’t want to
play. He lacked the motivation.
Here is what is interesting about this situation. Billy possessed
the skills to perform well in both sports. He had coaches who did
everything they could to make it easy for Billy to play. The coaches
of each sport were also both screamers and criticizers. So nothing
What is Performance Motivation? 3
should have been different for Billy except for the sport. And Billy
loved each sport equally. The only explanation was that Billy lacked
the motivation to play basketball, yet he possessed the motivation
to play football. Same player, similar situations, different results.
While performance theorists will debate the technical and theoreti-
cal reasons for the high performance in one situation and the low or
absence of performance in another, to me, the answer is very
simple. Billy simply lacked the motivation to play basketball. There
is nothing else to it. No cause analysis has to be conducted. No
formal data has to be collected. This is just a case of a performer
wanting to perform in one situation and doing well, and not wanting
to perform in another situation. The reasons for this happening and
what you can do about it will be explained later in the book.
Performance Motivation and Business

Sally was at the top of her field. She was a performance consultant
who had helped both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations
become more effective. Without getting into how she, you, or any-
one else defines organizational effectiveness and performance
improvement, suffice to say that her clients always achieved their
desired results. Sally always followed the recommended proce-
dures for performance consulting and was highly motivated and
dedicated to her business. Anyone who met her or worked with her
would describe her as a top performer. Her clients lavished her with
praise and gratitude for all she accomplished for and with them.
Sally was riding high and thinking about expanding her one-person
consulting firm. Then, something happened.
One of Sally’s clients told her that he was dissatisfied with the
way she was performing her consulting work. The client felt that
Sally was not delivering on her promises and told her so. The client
began talking about miscommunicated expectations, missed dead-
lines, and less-than-expected results. It didn’t matter if the client
was right or wrong with the information being presented. All that
mattered is that the client shattered Sally’s perfect record and with
it, her self-esteem. Instead of defending herself against these com-
ments, Sally just went into a shell. This former high flyer was now
retreating into depression—maybe not clinical, but she did not want
to go to work, meet with clients, or deliver on any of her promises.
The more she thought about the incident, the more her work
suffered and the more she lost her motivation. She was now
demotivated and unwilling to perform any more. Failure was no

longer an option, it was a way of life for Sally. This once high
performer was now a “low roller.” In the space of what was minutes,
but what seemed like a lifetime to Sally, her thoughts of expanding
her business had now transformed into thoughts of quitting her
business altogether. She now totally lacked any motivation to
perform. What happened?
What’s the Difference?

So what is the difference between high performance motivation and
low performance motivation? This book is not designed to get into a
discussion of the psychology, physiology, theoretical foundations, or
neurobiology of motivation to explain these differences. Most
people are familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s
hygiene factors, and McClelland’s achievement/power motivation.
Those topics are better suited for a textbook or an after-the-fact
explanation of why someone does something. In this book, I simply
will discuss what makes one performance situation motivation
positive and one motivation negative.
In both of the stories above, the performers were highly moti-
vated to achieve an objective. The performers knew the objective,
were aware of the expectations, possessed the requisite skills to
perform their tasks, were playing to their strengths, and felt confi-
dent about how well he or she would do while performing. This
resulted in positive performance motivation. You can say that both
performers exhibited an optimistic attitude toward their respective
performances, were playing to what I called in another book their
Positive CORE,1 and used this attitude to deliver high perform-
ances.
Think about your own situations. When you perform a task that
plays to your strengths, you are very motivated and confident that
you will complete that task successfully. You are aware of what
must be done, you are committed and engaged in the task, and you
look forward to measuring the results of your performance to find
out how well you actually did and what you must do in the future to
perform even better. When you have to repeat the same or a similar
task, you are highly motivated. All the same factors come into play.
Your performance motivation is very positive, and you approach
and perform the task with enthusiasm.
On the negative side, in the two situations described previ-

ously, the performers lost that positive motivation for one reason or
another. In both cases, what we might perceive as small or trivial
was actually a huge factor in the future performances of these two
individuals. For Billy, it was his relationship with his basketball
coach. For Sally, it was a few negative comments from one client.
There was something about the basketball coach that Billy just did
not like, even though he treated Billy virtually the same way as the
football coach, whom Billy loved. And Sally could not get past the
one negative comment from a client, despite all the positive com-
ments and accolades she received from all her other clients.
Although her overall and final reaction may seem quite extreme
(quitting her business), the reality of the decrease in performance
motivation is actually right on target.2
So what is the actual difference between positive performance
motivation and negative performance motivation, or a lack of per-
formance motivation? When someone is positively motivated, they
are confident, engaged, committed, enthusiastic, expecting suc-
cess, believing in themselves to do well, and excited about
performing the task. When someone lacks that motivation, they are
doubtful they will succeed, may be anxious about the performance,
prefer to withdraw from the task if possible, show no enthusiasm or
desire to perform, and might just go through the motions. Think
about the results and consequences you or your associates achieve
depending on the level and type of motivation you have for a task,
whether it is in business, sports, or any area of life.3 You will readily
see that the positive performance motivation invariably results in
better performances for everyone. As an example, look at the
underdog phenomenon in sports or business. One team or com-
pany is thought to have no chance of winning. Their more talented
or skilled opponent also believes this and either looks past this
contest or simply does not get motivated to a level that is required
to win. The underdog gets pumped up because they have nothing
to lose and everything to gain. So, they go out highly motivated,
give the performance of their lives, and upset the stronger oppo-
nent. It happens in sports, it happens in business, and it happens in
academia. Given the tools and equal footing, the person with the
greatest performance motivation often comes out on top.
Now don’t think for a minute that I’m discounting talents and
strengths. Even with lowered performance motivation, the more tal-
ented person, team, or company can win. They win simply because
they just have more skill. But, if they ever let their motivation levels
get too low, the underdog who is more motivated will likely eke out
a victory. And, if this upset behavior continues long enough, the
original underdog will establish such a high level of self-esteem and
confidence that they will consistently believe they can defeat the
previously superior opponent. And what you believe, you often
achieve. Plus, a string of losses damages the self-esteem of the
once-superior performer, team, or company. Now they start to
believe they are not quite up to the task of being successful. And
thus the transformation: Weaker, less skilled but more motivated
performers now become the top performers, and former top per-
formers, who became unmotivated, are now average performers, or
worse.
Performance Motivation and Mega

You are now well aware of how important performance motivation is
to success, achievement, and accomplishment. High skill levels will
only take a performer so far. Eventually, motivation will play a role,
either positive or negative. One way we can ensure that
performance motivation is always high and positive is to help
people “keep an eye on the prize.” In this case, the prize is what we
call Mega, as introduced by Roger Kaufman in the first book in this
series.4
Mega is expressed in the Ideal Vision we have of a better
future and a better society for tomorrow’s child. The concept of the
Ideal Vision is the key, along with the beneficial effects of whatever
we do can have on society or any of our external clients. Mega is
the guiding light for all strategic thinking and planning, all perform-
ance enhancement and improvement, and all activities of a person,
organization, team, group, company, community, government, and
social network. We have to be aware of the effect that our perform-
ances have on others. As Kaufman says in many different publica-
tions, do you want your airline to get you to your destination safely
without any damage to you, the aircraft, and the areas it flies over,
or do you want the airlines to focus primarily on saving or making
money to the exclusion of safety and well-being? Or, do you want
your company or organization to only concern themselves with
making a profit regardless of who or how many people they hurt to
make that profit? There are many more examples that can be writ-
ten about this approach. The point is that you can easily see the
relationship between establishing and understanding Mega and

your motivation to perform. When you know the big prize—see the
Ideal Vision and realize the ultimate and perfect outcome—then you
will remain motivated to continuously and consistently work toward
that outcome.
Many people in the human performance field are focused on
the systems and systemic processes that accompany or are
affected by performance. They find a weakness or a gap and try to
tweak it so that they get a measurable improvement. Sometimes
this works, sometimes it doesn’t. The truth of the matter is that most
interventions do not focus on Mega or take into account the
motivation level of the performer. You can have all the tools and
techniques, processes and programs, training, and coaching that
you want. But if the performer lacks the motivation to perform, none
of these things matter. The best way to make sure the performer
stays motivated is to have that person remain focused on, attend to,
and constantly be aware of Mega—the ultimate and perfect
outcome that will result from a “perfect” or peak performance. When
you have that perfect performance and achieve better-than-
expected results, everyone benefits. This book will teach you how
to develop and maintain high levels of performance motivation for
yourself and for others. One of the most important things you must
remember is:
Mega will motivate, if you let it.

Endnotes
1. Gerson, R. F., & Gerson, R. G., (2006). Positive performance
improvement: A new paradigm for optimizing your workforce. Palo
Alto, CA: Davies-Black.
2. It does not take much to lose confidence and motivation when you
perform poorly or you consistently receive critical feedback. There is
damage to your self-esteem and to your confidence levels. See, for
example, Branden, N. (1995). Six pillars of self-esteem. New York:
Bantam Books; and Kanter, R. M., (2004). Confidence: How winning
streaks and losing streaks begin and end. New York: Crown
Business.
3. This is especially true in sports, where a great deal has been written
on mental training for peak performance. Much of this is based on the
performer’s motivation and desire to succeed. You can find out more
about this from Gerson, R., (2004). HEADcoaching: Mental training
for peak performance; Loehr, J. (1997). Mental toughness; and
Ungerleider, S., (1996). Mental training for peak performance: Top
athletes reveal the mind exercises they use to excel.
4. Roger Kaufman is well known for his work on strategic planning and
strategic thinking. The first book in this series, which he authored,
Change, Choices, and Consequences: A Guide to Mega Thinking and
Planning (2006), describes the concept of Mega in a comprehensive
manner. The links between Mega and performance motivation will
become even clearer as both books are read together.
Chapter 2
Defining High Performance
Imagine one of your best performances ever. It can be something
from sports, a business presentation, dancing, writing a book, or
anything you can think of. Now, in your mind, relive the entire situa-
tion. Pay attention to the thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds, and
even smells. Get yourself fully immersed in that high-level perform-
ance. As you think about it, how does it make you feel now? Are
you energized, motivated, ready to go out and do it again? Do you
feel better about yourself, stronger, and more positive? Of course
you do. You already experienced that high-level performance once
and now you’re doing it again. But is this image of your best per-
formance truly your best performance? And what is the real mean-
ing of high performance? Is it really better than normal? How high is
high? And what is the difference between a high performance and a
peak performance? Lots of questions and they all will be answered.
What High Performance Is and Is Not

There are probably as many definitions of high performance as
there are speakers, authors, and consultants. Each person or
organization usually defines high performance in their own way. An
acceptable definition is a performance that is significantly above
average or normal, whatever average or normal is to the person or
organization making this definition. Another definition involves find-
ing people or organizations with a specific set of competencies that
often results in performance that exceeds some expected norm. But
competencies (skills, knowledge, and abilities) can be taught and
duplicated, leaving a performance previously thought of as high no
better than normal or average. If you’re going to go the competency
route, you have to develop a distinct set of competencies that sepa-
rate you or differentiate you and your organization from the crowd.
These competencies must not be duplicatable by your competition if
you want to remain at the top of the mountain. Yet, they must be
duplicatable within your organization so that other people can
achieve high-performer status. When this occurs, you have what
has been called a high-performing workplace. Now, remember, the
high-performing workplace achieves and exceeds its individual and
organizational objectives on a regular basis. High performance is
sustained over time—it is not a one-time thing. It is an ongoing
occurrence that is due to the skills of the individual performers and

the organization.
So, we agreed that high performance is not based solely on
competencies of the performer and, by extension, the organization.
It is also not a one-time aberration in performance where the results
far exceed what was expected, yet no one is able to perform at this
level again. This may be a peak performance, which we will discuss
shortly, but it is not a sustainable high performance. Now, some
may argue that in sports, players and teams will take that one-time
peak performance if it gets them that all-important win, especially
over a top opponent. After all, we won, we exceeded all expecta-
tions, and we outperformed ourselves and our opponents. Yet, now
this type of performance is expected to recur and be sustained. And
we all know that this will not happen! The performers may be highly
motivated, but they played way above their heads. Even though this
occurs from time to time, we must look at sustainable high perform-
ance. That is because a one-time peak performance that is never
repeated lifts the performers’ motivations for the next performance,
only to have them crash to the ground when the next performance
goes back to or below normal. This is a natural phenomenon seen
in sports all the time, and the letdown is either due to the aberrant
performance or a decrease in performance motivation.
This is not to say that a peak performance is bad, and that peo-
ple and organizations should not strive to achieve one. On the con-
trary, peak performances are great. They do wonders for the
performer’s psyche, for the organization, and for the team (if it is in
sports). The problem with a peak performance is that it can rarely
be maintained over time or repeated continuously and consistently.
It raises everyone’s expectations, including the observers of the
performance. Here is a personal example.
Many years ago, I was playing in a recreational basketball
league. My team was in the semi-finals against a team we had not
beaten during the season. I spent the entire week psyching myself
up for the game. I was pumped—as motivated as I could be to have
a great game. And when the game started, I was so over-hyped, I
couldn’t do anything right. Then, after three minutes, I calmed
down, took a shot that went in, and went on to have the greatest
game of my life. For those of you asking yourself how much did I
score, it was 56 points in a 40-minute game, and I only played 37
minutes. We won the game and prepared for the finals the next
week. I did everything the same to motivate myself to have another
Defining High Performance 11
great game (some might say I became superstitious, but that’s for
another discussion). At game time, I was again over-hyped. Again, I
calmed down, scored 44 points, and we won the championship.
And what do you think happened after the game?
Now, before I answer my own question, remember that I just
scored 100 points in two games, and we won both games as well
as the league championship. I didn’t score as many points in the
second game as in the game before. I felt good about my perform-
ance and the overall “organizational” result—a league champion-
ship. Yet other people asked me what happened—why I didn’t have
as good a game as the previous week. Isn’t it strange how people
begin to judge what should have been an extremely high perform-
ance (44 points) by different standards (56 points) because of a
previously higher performance? To me, they were both peak per-
formances. They were also both very high performances. Yet, this
level of play could not be sustained physically, psychologically,
physiologically, emotionally, or even motivationally. While the
ongoing peak performance could not be sustained, it was definitely
possible to sustain high levels of performance. And that is what I
had done throughout the season. The problem was that I set the
bar so high that the peak performance became the expected norm
and the previously acceptable and average performance level was
now viewed as below normal. Go figure!
So, if a peak performance or two are not considered high per-
formance, what is?
Defining High Performance

High performance is a sustainable series of performances at a level
that exceeds what most people (observers, organizations, perform-
ers themselves) consider normal, acceptable, or average. Consis-
tent and continuous high performance leads to an elevation of the
average or mean performance level. This “raising the bar” is good
because you always want performers to stretch themselves to
achieve more. By increasing the expected level of average per-
formance, you help people take their performances to another level.
High performance also involves a focus on the objective
(remember the Ideal Vision and the motivating power of Mega men-
tioned in Chapter 1), tactics to achieve a particular objective,
mental-emotional-physical capabilities to perform at the higher-
than-expected level, and the ability to execute/perform well under a
variety of environmental conditions. This definition naturally leads

us to asking, “Who or what is a high performer?” That is someone
who consistently outperforms colleagues and competitors over time
and in a variety of situations, plus achieves at a level greater than
expected. The high performer sustains this level of performance
even when systems, processes, procedures, leaders, and the com-
petitive environment change. The high performer is also a role
model for other performers, someone whose approaches should be
modeled.
This is definitely more difficult than it appears on paper or than
it sounds. When you ask a high performer what makes him or her a
high performer, they usually tell you they don’t know. When you ask
them to describe how they consistently achieve their high levels of
performance, they tell you they don’t know, or they say they prac-
ticed a lot, or they say it just happens. They have what we call the
implicit knowledge and skills to achieve these higher performance
levels, but they do not have the ability to articulate what they know
or how they do what they do. One way around this is to observe the
high performer in action. Videotape the person if you have to. Take
copious notes on what they do and say. Write down the processes
and procedures they follow. Question what they do and why and
how they do it so that you can determine their true performance
motivation. Do whatever it takes to codify and measure their per-
formance and then create a way to have others model it and learn
from it. Only then can you make “high performance” transferable.
Making a High Performer

My own research and work over the past 30 years has led me to
several conclusions about high performers and their performances.1
They are described by two acronyms. The first is BEST, and the
second is FIRE. High performers are the BEST because they
Believe in themselves, and this leads them to set very high Expec-
tations for themselves. They also follow a performance Strategy
that pushes them to Test their skills and abilities. The belief they
have in themselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This belief,
coupled with their high expectations for success, raises their self-
esteem and confidence level. This provides them with higher levels
of performance motivation because they want to succeed against all
odds. So they invoke a variety of performance strategies that will
help them test themselves while achieving their objectives. High
performers are never satisfied because what was once the top is
not the norm. In my work with athletes, business executives, sales-
people, and students, this BEST approach has played out over and
over again, always leading to better results.
Similarly, high performers have a strategy for executing that
high performance. FIRE stands for Focus, Imagine, Relax, and
Execute. All high performers focus on the task at hand. Some are
even so good at it that they develop this laser-like focus to the
exclusion of everything else, including food, water, and sleep. Have
you ever known someone so engrossed in what they were doing
that they kept at it for hours without a food or bathroom break? And
when they did stop, they were totally unaware of how much time
passed—that’s what I call focus.
Next, the top performer imagines what a successful perform-
ance and outcome will look like. Proponents of Neuro-Linguistic
Programming, a field of psychology dedicated to maximizing per-
formance and achievement, tell people to also imagine the sounds,
smells, and emotions associated with a top performance. The
thought here is that the more senses that are involved in the imag-
ined event, the easier the real event/performance will be. So, after
the performer visualizes the best outcome, he or she then relaxes
prior to actually performing. When they are ready, and only when
they are ready, top performers execute their strategies, behaviors,
and actions. Because of this preparation, the result more often than
not exceeds what most people consider to be normal. This also
gives us another way to replicate high performance by studying
their BEST and FIRE performance patterns.
You may now be asking how this applies to organizations. The
answer is very simple: People make up organizations, and it is the
performance of the people that determines how successful and
effective the organization will be, now and in the future. While it is
important for individuals to be top performers, organizations can
use the same approaches to achieve and sustain high performance.
For example, the culture of an organization must promote to its
employees that it Believes it is the best, that it Expects only the best
from its people, that there is a Strategy for organizational growth,
development, and sustainable performance, and that the organiza-
tion is willing to Test out its premises and approaches. This also
means the organization is willing to tolerate some degree of failure
as a learning experience for its performers.
Similarly, an organization must stay Focused on its objective

(hopefully, its Mega objective). Then, it must be able to Imagine its
future and ongoing success, followed by a way to Relax constraints
or restrictions so that individuals can Execute well. Of course,
regardless of an individual or organizational performance, there
must always be some sort of measurement of that performance to
ensure proper evaluation and continuous improvement. Top per-
formers use this feedback as further motivation for future perform-
ances.
The objective of every high performer is to be able to repeat the
performance on a regular basis. Given all the right tools and
resources, high performers must still possess and exhibit an appro-
priate level of performance motivation. When all things are equal, it
is usually the level of motivation that determines the results of the
performance.
Characteristics of High Performers

Both research and anecdotal evidence have revealed certain char-
acteristics of high performers. At this point, you might say these are
merely generalizations, and you might be correct. However, if you
take these general characteristics and hire people who possess
most or all of these characteristics and put them in a job that
matches their strengths, you can be fairly certain that you will have
a high performer. Here are ten of the characteristics of high per-
formers:
x Desire for action—a doer
x Achievement oriented and intrinsically motivated
x Enthusiastic and energetic
x Intelligent, tactful, and considerate
x Enjoys challenges and taking risks
x Optimistic: positive mental attitude and positive belief
system
x Creative/innovative
x Focused on the objective—on purpose
x Views failure as feedback (and an opportunity to learn and
perform better)
x Results oriented
How many of these characteristics do you possess? Now, take

a look at the people with whom you work. How many of them pos-
sess a large majority of these characteristics? You will find that high
performers, across the board, exhibit many of these characteristics,
traits, attitudes, etc. It is what sets them apart from the normal,
average, everyday performers.
We can also add to this by helping you identify the components
of a high performance. These are definitely different than what a
high performer possesses, yet there is apparent overlap and inte-
gration. As you study the performances of high performers, you will
notice that almost every top-level performance:
x Follows a specific pattern (the steps the performer takes to
achieve the result)
x Has measurable results and consequences that are useful
and usable
x Is sustainable, repeatable, and duplicatable (implicit knowl-
edge can be codified)
x Yields a match between the task, the task objectives, and
the skills of the performer
x Is one the performer is highly motivated to do
x Has clearly communicated objectives and performance
expectations
x Has clearly communicated rewards, reinforcements, and
consequences
x Benefits the performer, the organization, and external
clients
x Is evaluated by the performer and others for future continu-
ous improvement
x Plays to the strengths of the performer
Combine the characteristics of a high performer with the com-
ponents of a top-level performance and you will just about guaran-
tee high performance every time. In fact, there will be so many high
performances occurring that this will now become your norm. The
bar will be raised and it is up to you to motivate yourself and help
others motivate themselves to achieve this “new normal.”2
Endnotes
1. Gerson, R. F., (1998). Winning the inner game of selling. Menlo Park,
CA: Crisp Publications.
2. You can compare this list with some of the characteristics offered by
Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T., (2004). The power of full engagement. New
York: Free Press.
Chapter 3
Motivating Yourself for
High Performance
Motivation and performance are forever linked. Most people think
that the higher the motivation, the greater the performance results.
While this may be true some of the time—such as for tasks of short
duration or requiring a lot of power—unfortunately, it is not always
true for most tasks. The best performance results usually occur
when the performer has a moderate to moderately high level of
motivation rather than an overly high level. This is very similar to the
inverted U hypothesis related to motivation and arousal that you
learned about in psychology class. Just take a look around at some
of the things you have personally experienced or seen people
experience. People making public presentations tend to speak
rapidly and forget some of the things they want to say when they
are overly excited (or nervous) at the beginning of the speech.
Athletes who are over-motivated tend to make more errors and
mistakes until they calm down a bit after the game has started. Stu-
dents perform worse on tests when they are overly motivated or
highly anxious (what we call test anxiety, which is still a form of
motivation, or at least an influencer of performance motivation,
albeit a negative one). And machine operators may produce inferior
products or increase accidents if they are over-motivated (or under-
motivated, since boredom affects our performance as well). Motiva-
tion definitely plays a critical role in our performance results and
consequences.
And what about the people who are supposed to either moti-
vate us or help us motivate ourselves? What role do they play and
who are they really? These are teachers, managers, parents,
coaches, and anyone else we place in a position to help us perform
better. They can even be performance consultants, job analysts, or
mentors. How do these outside influences affect our motivation and
performance? Here is a real-world example to which most of us can
relate.
Think back to a time when you played a sport, any sport. Now,
think of the best coach you ever had. What did this coach do to
make you feel like a great player, to build up your self-esteem and
confidence, and to get the team to play well together? What else did
this coach do to help you help yourself get and stay motivated?
After all, as an athlete (player/performer), you came to the sport

motivated to do well and to be your best. Your best coach was there
to help you be your best. He or she knew that part of the job was
teaching you performance skills plus helping you motivate yourself
and keeping you motivated. This coach did it well, and you really
enjoyed playing for that coach.
On the other hand, you have probably had at least one coach
who used “negative motivation” to motivate players. She yelled,
screamed, begged, pleaded, cajoled, criticized, embarrassed, and
even denigrated the players in hopes of getting them motivated to
perform. Sometimes, the coach’s antics bordered on being funny,
especially when she threw her body language into it. You could
almost be sympathetic to the coach because she was really doing
her best to motivate the players. These actions might have worked
if they weren’t so misguided. While there is some research to show
that external sources can provide motivation to performers,1 most of
the time the motivation for a performance must come from within. In
essence, you can say that aside from built-in instinctual motivation
(such as physiological drives), most if not all performance motiva-
tion begins as self-motivation.
Here is another issue to consider. Everyone talks about the
importance of goal setting, and they tell you all about proper goal-
setting techniques. Many good goal setters will have you write down
your goals instead of just talking or thinking about them. That is
definitely one of the most effective ways to achieve your goals.
Written goals provide a visual, public, and intellectual commitment
to their achievement. Yet, no matter how many times we are told
that this technique is effective, more people than not neglect to
write down their goals. That is because most people only pay lip
service to goal setting. When you ask someone what goals they
have set for themselves, they will tell you things like making more
money, losing weight, getting a promotion, taking more vacations,
and some other wishful thoughts. Even though they have been told
to write down their goals and plan how to achieve them, most peo-
ple do not spend the time, energy, or effort to do so. In fact, many
speakers and teachers will tell you that people spend more time
planning their vacations than they do setting goals and planning
their lives. While there might not be scientific research to support
that statement, there is anecdotal evidence. Just ask your family
and friends how much planning went into their last vacation and
Motivating Yourself for High Performance 19
how much planning (time, effort, and energy) went into developing,
writing down, and achieving their life goals.
This is unfortunate because goals, and their even more impor-
tant related performance objectives, help you achieve great things.
In their most basic form, objectives simply state where you are,
where you want to be, and how you can tell when you have arrived.
This is simple, basic, and vital. And it is in contrast to goals, which
are really just statements of what you want to achieve. Kaufman, in
the first book of this series, provides more detailed information on
the importance of proper objective setting. Also, performers who
neglect to or refuse to write down goals and objectives and commit
to them most probably will not achieve at the same level as those
performers who write down their goals and objectives. The former
group also neglects to put measurements on their goals and objec-
tives and they hardly ever specify a time period. So, they conclude
that goal and objective setting does not work because they did not
achieve what they set out to achieve.
You can obviously see the fallacy in the thinking here: Goal and
objective setting did not work because the performer did not work at
it. Objective setting, at least proper and effective objective setting,
takes work. Along with that work of setting objectives comes the
requirement to make them clear and set expectations for achieving
those goals and objectives.2 In fact, we know that it is the combina-
tion of goal setting, measurable objectives, and expectations that
affects how well we perform. More than anything else, we have to
know where we are going in order to get there. Motivating yourself
through proper goal and objective setting is one of the first steps
you must take.
Proper Goal and Objective Setting

for High Performance
Most performers are familiar with the concept of SMART goal set-
ting. This means that your goals and objectives must be Specific,
Measurable, Accomplishment-based, Realistic, and Time-based. To
translate that into a performance objective, you must specifically
state what you want to accomplish, make sure that the statement
includes a measurement component, and be certain that you have
the skills to achieve the realistic objective and that you can do so
within a reasonable time frame. For example, a performance objec-
tive for a salesperson would be to increase sales by 10 percent
during the next quarter as measured by gross revenues. A perform-

ance objective for a department could be exactly the same. The key
is that you specify the measurable results and consequences so
that you can evaluate the end performance and make any changes
that are necessary for future performances. SMART goal and
objective setting is simply smart.
Recently, a more expansive approach to goal and objective
setting has been proposed, called SMARTER goal setting.3 This
approach adds a few more dimensions to the goal and objective
setting process while taking into account the concept of “stretch”
objectives. It also forces us to make objectives more exact and
rigorous, which turns them into true performance objectives. These
performance objectives allow us to determine exactly what we want
to achieve, how we will achieve it, and how we will measure our
success. There are still similarities between SMARTER objectives
and SMART goals and objectives. For example, both must be
Specific and Measurable.
In this new model, however, objectives should also be Auda-
cious, which the authors describe as super-stretch goals. We see
this concept of audacious goal setting in what has been called
BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals)4 and “realistically impossible”
goals.5 The intent here is to definitely take people out of their com-
fort zones and get them to achieve things they never thought possi-
ble. This audacious concept makes a great deal of sense because
you always want to motivate a performer to do better than he or she
thought possible.
The first R in SMARTER objectives refers to Results. Here, the
performance is described in terms of what will be achieved, rather
than how something will be achieved. These objectives talk about
end results rather than means, activities, processes, or behaviors.
In addition, the objectives must also be Time bound. You must be
able to achieve them within a specified time period. Your time frame
will also be affected by making the goals/objectives Expansive,
which means you will be concerned with both the system and sys-
temic effects of your accomplishments. This also allows you to link
the goals/objectives to the Mega/Macro/Micro objectives you set
(see Kaufman, book 1 in this series). Finally, SMARTER objectives
must be written so that you can Review and evaluate the results.
You want to review and evaluate constantly throughout a perform-
ance so that you can make changes, adjustments, and improve
ments; identify strengths and weaknesses; and determine any

effects that might occur.
The challenge is to not only be SMART with your goal and
objective setting, but to now also be SMARTER than everyone else.
You will see your performance levels measurably increase when
you do this, plus your self-confidence will grow as you accomplish
more.
Here is an example to test your knowledge of the SMARTER
objective-setting process. Read the following brief scenario about a
salesperson and then answer the questions either Yes or No to
determine if the statement fits the criteria for being SMARTER.
SCENARIO: The company has set an objective that all

salespeople will increase revenues by at least 7%.
John, a top salesperson, has written his objective YES NO
statement down as “I will increase my sales by at least
15% in the next 12 months.”
Was John’s goal/objective stated specifically?
Will John or anyone else be able to measure

his performance related to the achievement of
his objective?
Is his statement audacious compared to what
the company wants?
Are the results of the performance stated
clearly?
Has the statement specified a time frame in
which to achieve the objective?
Will the achievement of the goal have an effect
on the organization in addition to John?
Does the statement provide either a point in
time to review the performance or a
methodology to review the performance?
If you answered Yes to all the questions, you believe that the
scenario statement is a SMARTER performance objective, and you
would be correct. While it takes some time to write out measurable
performance objectives in this manner, it is definitely more effective
because you specify the behavior, the results, and the measure-
ment to achieve the result. The only thing you do not specify is the
method, means, activities, or actions to achieve the results.
Although most goal-setting (and objective-setting) training programs
tell you that you have to write down how you will achieve the
desired result, you are actually limiting yourself when you do this.
You are proposing or promoting a solution that might lock you in to
a way of being or doing and lock you out of alternative approaches.
For example, if the phrase “by doubling the number of contacts
I have with prospects and clients every month” was added to the
end of the objective statement in the chart, the method of achieve-
ment would be specified, which would then result in the salesperson
focusing on doubling the number of contacts. The salesperson’s
options would be limited and other possible approaches, such as
increasing pricing to increase sales revenues, decreasing
expanses, and generating more referrals, might not be considered.
When you write out your true objective statement, just state how
you will know when you’ve arrived—the measurement that tells you
the result has been achieved. Leave the methods and means for a
later analysis and implementation.
Remember this about a performance objective (and all objec-
tives, when properly written, are performance objectives): The
objective specifies what result is to be accomplished, who or what
will demonstrate the accomplishment, under what conditions the
performance will be observed, and what criteria will be used to
measure success. It does not specify how (the one way) you will get
there.
Another Approach to Goal and

Objective Setting
Another approach is called the A-O-I method of goal and objective
setting. This approach takes into account people’s perceptions of
their abilities and their willingness to accept certain levels of per-
formance. Each level of the A-O-I method must also be stated as
SMARTER goals.
The first level is Acceptable goals and objectives. The results
or achievements at this level are minimally acceptable by the per-
former. It is the baseline measure that will minimally satisfy the
performer that she accomplished something worthwhile. For exam-
ple, a machine operator may set a minimally Acceptable objective
of completing the workday with only 8 or fewer minor mistakes per

day. Of course, a lot depends on how this operator defines minor
mistakes, but for now, let’s just leave it as an example. Going on
from there, the machine operator may set an Outstanding objective
of only 4 or fewer minor mistakes per day. This reduces his error
rate by at least 50 percent and should increase productivity, which
would help the organization. The final objective should be to oper-
ate the machine in an Ideal fashion and make no mistakes during
the day. What are your Acceptable, Outstanding, and Ideal objec-
tives for what you do?
The concept of an ideal objective is very important to high per-
formance. Kaufman talks about an Ideal Vision for organizations
when they do their strategic planning.6 The same requirement
should hold true for individuals when they set their ideal goals and
objectives for their own performances. Kaufman’s concept of an
Ideal Vision, which he calls Mega planning, is that everything you
do should add measurable value to society and your external clients
(those people and organizations affected by what you do). This
concept of what we can now call Mega objective setting makes a
tremendous amount of intuitive and common sense. We should all
be concerned and considerate that what we do will have a positive
and beneficial effect on society. So, when a salesperson sets an
objective to earn more money in the coming year by selling more
products, the salesperson should also state how that will add value
to and benefit society. This should be done to ensure that what she
ends up doing and delivering will not actually subtract value (such
as pollution, dangerous materials, etc.). Will her selling more create
more jobs for people who produce her product, thereby taking more
people off of government assistance programs (again, see
Kaufman’s examples)? That is just one example. Another would be
to ask if those increased sales help others sustain their jobs
because now more people require her products. If you take the time
to “stretch” out your objectives, you will see how easy it is to make
the leap to Mega goal and objective setting. Plus, and this is my
own personal bias, when you achieve your individual goals and
objectives that truly benefit society, you get a very positive, warm
feeling because you are helping people to be better, do better, and
become better. What’s more, it not only creates a good feeling, it is
also ethical.
One thing we do when we work with high performers, and

something you will see many of them do on their own, is to have
them write down all aspects of their goal and objective setting. Let’s
combine the SMART, SMARTER, and A-O-I goal- and objective-
setting approaches into one and see how you do. Remember that
every objective you write must be SMARTER, you will begin with
your Ideal (Mega) objective, and you will work backwards from high
performance (which could be ideal or perfect) to minimally accept-
able performance. Fill in the blanks for the exercise on the following
page.
As you complete this brief exercise in self-motivation and Mega
objective setting, you see that a virtuous cycle is developed. Your
initial objective leads to the requirement for high performance to
achieve your ideal personal vision, which then leads to future and
ongoing behavior changes, which lead to positive expectations for
future success and more Mega objectives. This upwardly spiraling
effect is extremely positive and forms the basis for establishing high
degrees of confidence, which subsequently leads to ongoing high
performance.7
Motivating Yourself for High Performance

Most attempts at achieving high performance look at the existing
performance gaps between current high performers (also known as
exemplars) and ordinary performers. Analyses and assessments
are conducted into what the high performers do, think, or believe
differently than the average performers that helps them attain these
extraordinary accomplishments. Sometimes there are knowledge
and skill gaps, resource gaps, and even talent gaps.8 All of these
can be closed by proper performance interventions, and a higher
level of performance can be achieved. However, there still exists
one major obstacle to consistently achieving high performance. It is
what I call “the messy middle”—the place where the performer
meets the performance, or the rubber meets the road. The messy
middle refers to the attitudes, beliefs, and commitments of the per-
former—commonly referred to as the ABCs of motivation. In fact, a
change in any or all of these factors would lead to a definite
improvement in performance.9, 10
Motivation, and more specifically self-motivation, is an area that
can lead to performance improvements even when there is no gap
between desired objectives and current performance. People who
Goal- and Objective-Setting Exercise

General Objective Statement: Write something here related to a
future performance, just to start your thought process.
Mega (Ideal) Objective: Write your perfect achievement, your ulti-

mate accomplishment, and how you will benefit society and add
value by achieving this objective. Make sure the statement is
SMARTER.
Performance Expectations: All objectives are accompanied by

expectations. For now, use a scale of 0 to 100% and write your
expectations of success.
Performance Objective: State how your behavior will change for

future efforts as a result of achieving your Mega objective.*
*For example, the SMARTER objective of the salesperson to make 10%

more money by increasing sales to new and existing customers is also a
partial performance objective. I am recommending that you also describe
future behavior changes that will occur, such as “I will donate 10% of my
increased income to charities each year so that less fortunate people can
have more food to eat, better schooling, and live healthier lives.” This also
takes your performance objective into the realm of Mega goal setting for
another objective. Notice, too, that these process models do not include how
you are going to reach the objectives. If you refer back to the section on set-
ting proper measurable performance objectives, you will remember that the
selection of the method or means is done after you decide where you are
headed, why you want to get there, and how you will know when you have
arrived.
are self-motivated choose to actively pursue an objective (complete

a task), persist toward achieving that objective despite adversities
and obstacles, and are willing to expand the physical and mental
effort necessary to accomplish their task.11, 12 This is why it is so
important to pay attention to the messy middle and how it affects
performance consequences.
The ABCs of Motivation and High Performance

Attitude
A person’s attitude toward a goal, objective, or task is either positive
or negative. Optimism leads to significant performance improve-
ments, while pessimism leads to performance decrements.13
Furthermore, optimistic people tend to persist longer at a task, over-
come more obstacles, and achieve at higher levels. Consider the
story about the two boys who were asked to enter a room full of
horse manure. The first boy went into the room, stepped into the
horse manure, smelled the awful odor, and ran out of the room
screaming. The second boy entered the room and dove head first
into the pile of horse manure. He was flailing around in it and looked
like he was digging through it. When he came out of the room, he
was asked why he behaved like that. In the true style of an optimist,
he said that with all that horse manure, there had to be a horse in
there somewhere. Do you have the same type of positive attitude
as this child? Is your glass always half empty or half full? Is it partly
cloudy in your world or always sunny? Do you wake up every day
and read the obituaries first, and figure that if your name is not
there, it’s going to be a good day? You choose your attitude, and by
extension, you choose your performance results and their conse-
quences. Understand that an optimistic, positive attitude breeds
self-confidence, which then energizes a person’s belief system.
This then energizes them to achieve high performance.
Beliefs
Beliefs are critical to successful performances. If we go into a situa-
tion believing we can do well, we will invariably do well. If we go into
it questioning our ability or believing that a competitor is far supe-
rior, we will definitely under-perform. Our beliefs affect our confi-
dence, which then affects our performance. In fact, a positive belief
system can lead to a significant winning streak (high perform-

ance).14 The implications for sports performance are obvious. Let’s
take a brief look at a salesperson who does not believe she can
close a major deal. She is well prepared, practices her presentation,
even scripts her closing questions and comments. Yet, when she
gets to the close, her negative belief system kicks in and she
sabotages her entire presentation. Her body language betrays her
lack of confidence; her language betrays her lack of confidence;
and her belief that she cannot close gets reinforced. She has cre-
ated a downward spiral of motivation and performance results
because of her beliefs. Contrast that with the salesperson who
believes she can sell anything to anyone. Closing is so natural that
everyone should buy from her. She actually believes that anyone
who does not buy right away is simply a future customer. What a
positive belief system! Which salesperson do you want on your
team and which do you think will consistently be a high performer?
Commitment
By now, it should be very obvious that performers with positive atti-
tudes and belief systems will be committed to successfully com-
pleting their tasks. Commitment is an intrinsic factor that can be
“measured” only through observation. Asking a person about their
commitment to a task can give you some insight, yet it is not truly
sufficient to determine how committed the performer really is. When
you observe a person persisting toward an objective in spite of
obstacles and adversities, or when they have achieved their objec-
tive and decide to set an even higher objective for the next time and
you see them continuing after that objective over long periods of
time, that is commitment. One of the popular terms today to
describe commitment is engagement. You have to get people
engaged to get them to perform at a high level. Engagement mirrors
commitment. People who are engaged will persist over time toward
achievement of their objective. They are committed. To get these
people committed, you must make certain that they have a purpose
for their performance, they know the objective is difficult but achiev-
able, and they will receive either a desired tangible or intangible
(even psychological) reward for achieving their objective.
One thing I do when I coach individuals for high performance is
to work with them to clearly articulate their personal Mega-level
related vision (objective). For example, one business-to-business
executive was having difficulty communicating with her manage-

ment team. Her goal was to communicate better and more effec-
tively. Now, you already know that this is not specific enough nor is
it a measurable performance objective. Here’s how I got her to
identify her personal Mega-related vision and create a performance
objective. I began by asking her a series of what questions, such as
“If you communicate better with your team, what will that do for
you?” When she answered, I asked another what question. I was
drilling down and expanding her thinking at the same time. Every so
often, I asked her, “Why is that important to you?” Eventually, we
got to her Mega, which was that she would “communicate effec-
tively at least 95 percent of the time (get her point across clearly
and concisely) so that her organization would produce quality goods
and services that would help customers more effectively perform at
their jobs.” I use the same or similar approach with all my coaching
clients. Then, everything we work on together keeps that Mega
vision in mind. When they have a clear picture of that Mega and it is
always with them, they maintain a positive attitude, they believe
they are capable of achieving that Ideal Vision, and they commit to
doing whatever it takes (legally, morally, and ethically) to achieve
that vision. While identifying that a small task objective is important
and can lead to high performance, I prefer to have clients identify
their Mega and constantly work toward achieving their highest per-
formance possible as they continually move toward the Mega-level
results and payoffs.
Attitude, Belief, and Commitment are things that happen within
the performer. There are also some external factors that occur that
affect high performance. These are the Activities associated with
the performance objective, the Behaviors of the performer, and the
Consequences (reinforcement, feedback, evaluation, etc.) of the
performance. Activities refer to the tasks that have to be performed
in order for the objective to be achieved. In a manufacturing opera-
tion, this can include getting the machines ready, greasing the
parts, calibrating the machines, etc. Activities refer to what must be
done, and Behaviors refer to how people do things. People can per-
form a task on their own, as part of a team or group, in a coopera-
tive or competitive manner, as someone who is helpful, and a whole
host of other behaviors. What is important in high performance is
that the performer will do the behaviors he says he will do, and not
just say them and then do something else. The issue of say behav-
iors versus do behaviors has a tremendous effect on performance
consequences: For example, a person says he will donate at least

10 percent of his income to charity but only gives 2 percent. That is
a difference in say behaviors and do behaviors. The lesson here is
that performers should not be judged on what they say they will do,
but on what they actually do. Observable results are the key here.
Remember that it is the activity plus the behavior that lead to per-
formance results. And every performance result has a conse-
quence—sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Furthermore, to
go back to our salesperson’s contribution example, it is possible
that this person really did not internalize the value-added benefit of
the contributions. In fact, by doing less than stated, this salesperson
may have actually been subtracting value from society.15
This does not mean that performance consequences are nega-
tive. Consequences are what follow a performance. Consequences
can be positive reinforcement, rewards, constructive criticism,
negative feedback, punishment, or withdrawal of reinforcement.
These are all consequences related to a performance result. It is
important to understand the cyclical nature of consequences. Posi-
tive reinforcement, when warranted, will lead to a repeat of the
activity and the behaviors that caused the positive reinforcement.
This is standard behavioral psychology, and it has proven true for
over 100 years. Punishment will often lead to the suppression and
possible extinction of a particular behavior. In our situation, punish-
ment as reinforcement will often lead to a decrease in future per-
formance levels. Therefore, if you want to reach and maintain high
performance levels, find the things a person does that you can
positively reinforce. These can be effort, results, consequences,
strengths, and talents.16 Just think of the old motivational adage,
“What gets rewarded gets repeated.” When you reward high per-
formance, you will often get a motivated and committed performer
who will once again do everything possible to meet or exceed that
previous high performance.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

By now, you are probably wondering where intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation fit into high performance. As you know, intrinsic motiva-
tion is motivation to perform that comes from within. You are doing
the task for the personal or self-satisfaction you will receive from
successfully completing the task. Extrinsic motivation occurs when
you are performing a task for the rewards or reinforcements you will
receive after the task is completed. If the rewards were not there,
you probably would not perform the task.
Using these definitions, there are basically two camps concern-
ing extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. One says that extrinsic moti-
vators (rewards) ultimately decrease a person’s motivation to
perform a task and subsequently decrease the level of that per-
formance, especially in a classroom setting.17 If you want someone
to be a repeat high performer, don’t give them rewards for achieving
whatever they achieve. They should want to be successful simply
because they receive pleasure out of achieving their results or they
like what they are doing. However, incentives for performance,
which performers receive prior to the performance or at least know
about the possibility of earning them, sometimes tend to increase
productivity in a variety of situations. So, in some cases, extrinsic
motivators can work.
The other camp says that we come to a task with a certain
amount of intrinsic motivation and desire to perform that task,
achieve at a high level, and subsequently repeat that task for the
personal satisfaction we receive from the accomplishment.18
Although much of this research work has occurred in “contrived,
laboratory” settings, rather than the workplace or field performance
settings, the conclusions do seem to be very intuitive. This also fits
very well with a strengths or positive psychology approach that says
when you play to people’s strengths, they are more motivated to
perform and there is an excellent chance they will achieve signifi-
cantly higher levels of performance than when you have them do
something they are not very good at. Again, this appears to be
common sense; it may even be uncommon wisdom since not
everyone does this. Yet, there is another factor to consider.
People can perform at a high level when they are not initially
intrinsically motivated to perform. Say you have a task that has to
be completed and you select the people to work on it. You clearly
specify the performance objectives and expectations, including how
the results will be quantitatively measured and evaluated. You get
these people to understand the purpose, contribution, and impact of
successfully completing the task. You work with them to ensure that
they have a positive attitude and belief system before they begin
and that they at least say they are committed to high levels of
achievement. Now it is time for them to perform. If you take an
either/or position on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factor, you
will question whether or not the performers can achieve at high
levels. After all, they did not pick the task nor do you have clear
rewards specified. What will happen? The truth is that when people
understand their purpose and the impact of their behaviors, even
when the task is “thrust” upon them by someone else, they can
become very motivated, committed, and effective.19 They become
involved in the task, become highly engaged because they decided
to own it since now they know their purpose and the impact their
results can have, and put forth significant effort to achieve at a high
level. Clearly, this is a combination of the two types of motivation
discussed in this section. A conclusion you can draw is that high
performance can result from either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation,
and that motivation (and the messy middle) must be considered as
you plan for high performance and success.
Planning for High Performance and Success

One of the questions that sometimes comes up is “Can you actually
plan for high performance and successful accomplishments?” Does
performance at these levels just happen, almost as if it was beyond
the control of the performer? While this may be the case with some
instances of peak performance (a perfect performance that occurs
and that the performer wishes would occur again), it is becoming
more and more possible to train yourself to achieve that high per-
formance level on a regular and consistent basis.20 Executives,
athletes, salespeople, students, and a whole host of others are
hiring personal mental training coaches to help them develop,
recreate, and get into the peak performance zone. While truly peak
and perfect performance may be an isolated occurrence, high per-
formance is definitely something that can be planned for, trained
and practiced for, and achieved on a consistent and continuous
basis.
The first step to accomplish this has already been mentioned:
Start with your Mega vision and plan everything you do around
that.21 Having a Mega-related vision and mission allows you to
clearly define your related performance objective, break it down into
subtasks, set your expectations, clarify your perceived conse-
quences, and establish your performance path. It also allows you to
begin with the end in mind.22 Mega thinking and planning is the per-
fect launching point for high performance. Since we already know
that there are certain barriers to motivation that can lower perform-
ance levels, such as inaccurate and inadequate beliefs, vague and
unclear performance expectations, feedback and objectives, con-

stantly changing objectives without performer involvement, biased
rewards and consequences, and a poor match between the per-
former’s strengths and the task to be performed, we must do
everything possible to create the conditions that will lead to high
performance.23, 24 The first step is to create the Mega-related vision
that will help the performer develop the proper attitude, beliefs, and
levels of commitment, and then we must work with the performer to
specify the activities, behaviors, and consequences so that the
performer knows exactly where to go, what to do, and what is
expected of him or her. Mega, since it is actually the ultimate
achievement of a “perfect” performance and thus a measurable
contribution to yourself and our shared world, helps a performer
definitely begin with the high performance end in mind. This is the
first step to guaranteeing high performance.
Go back to the exercise you completed earlier in this chapter.
Look at your Mega objective and related Ideal Vision. Review how
you defined high performance in your Mega-related vision. You may
find that you did not think grand enough. You may have to expand
your thinking to raise your performance to that higher level. If so, go
back to that exercise and revise your Mega-related performance
objective.
The next step is a combination of self-management and time
management. Both involve what can be called life event manage-
ment. Here, you are setting yourself up for success by structuring
your performance environment so that you have the proper tools,
resources, and time to complete the task at a high level. The best
performances usually occur without conscious intervention (what
has been called the flow state or the zone25), and where the per-
former’s attention is focused squarely on the task without any out-
side interference. Additionally, time appears to stand still. Time
management experts will tell you that poor time management is a
leading cause of stress and a major contributor to inadequate per-
formance.26 When you are feeling pressure because there is too
little time to accomplish your task, your performance tends to dete-
riorate. In effect, you have got to manage your time and your self
simultaneously to enable you to effectively deal with the stress.
Good time management will help reduce any stress or pressure you
might feel, which should lead to better performance. That is why
you might say time management, self-management, and life man-
agement are almost the same thing or, at least, very closely related.
Performers who are good self managers prepare themselves

properly for their task. As mentioned before, they get themselves in
the right frame of mind. They also establish practice times, learning
times, and performance times. They create the proper environment
for themselves so that they will virtually guarantee themselves a
high performance. Then, since they are so well prepared, they per-
form the task and achieve their objectives. This is a slightly different
approach to performance management than is traditionally talked
about in Human Resources. Where motivation and high perform-
ance are concerned, performance management involves managing
all aspects of the performance. That includes personal readiness,
environmental readiness, and the actual performance itself. It also
includes learning and utilizing a variety of performance enhance-
ment techniques from sports psychology, such as visualization,
affirmations, modeling, etc. These techniques and others are used
by the top-performing athletes in the world to help them achieve
their lofty status. If mental training and performance management
are good enough for the best athletes in the world, it would be wise
for all performers to adopt these techniques so that they can
achieve high performance on a regular basis.
Think about a time when you had to do something where it was
essential that you did it extremely well. As you go back and re-
imagine this event, picture in your mind achieving the positive end
result first, then how you prepared for it, both mentally and physi-
cally. Review what you did in your mind and expand on the good
and great points. Also, look at where you could have done better
and replay those actions in your mind now as you do them better
than before. Now, play the whole scene in your mind perfectly, and
as you achieve the result you desire, notice how good you feel
about yourself and how motivated you are to perform that task or
activity again.
You have just completed a visualization exercise similar to
what athletes are trained to do, as well as other top performers.
Visualizing a successfully completed activity will motivate you to
want to perform it again. If you’re ready to be a high performer,
picture it in your mind first. Then, when you actually do perform the
task, it is like déjà vu all over again.
This brings us full circle. Proper self-motivation leads to high
performance, and ongoing high performance leads to continuous
self-motivation. The messy middle has a powerful influence on
performance results and consequences, and we must pay attention
to it. We can provide performers with the tools, resources, environ-

ment, techniques, and rewards they desire to achieve high per-
formance. But, if they don’t come to the situation with the proper
motivation—the proper performance management and planning—
then all that is for naught. Lack of motivation will lower performance
faster than anything we can do to raise it. The objective, then, is to
help performers clean up that messy middle, get properly moti-
vated, plan and manage their performance situations, and focus on
achieving high performance all the time. After all, no one truly goes
into a performance situation deliberately trying to fail (unless they
are illegally shaving points in a game or purposely trying to bring
about failure).
Goal and Objective Setting Redux

Let’s take one more look at the goal and objective setting exercise
you completed earlier in this chapter. I asked you to write, and even
revise, your Mega-related objective, which is part of your Ideal
Vision for what you can achieve to benefit society and other “exter-
nal clients.” Now I want you to extend that exercise. Go back to
your Mega objective and take a few additional steps:
1. Write down your personal Macro objective, as Kaufman

calls it. This typically has to do with your organization or
company, so let’s assume you are working for some
organization. What is your Macro objective that will benefit
the organization as your stakeholder, based on your origi-
nal Mega objective?
2. Write down your personal Micro objective. This has to do

with you as an individual. It relates to how you will person-
ally benefit from achieving or working toward your Mega
goal.
There you have it: several ways for you to motivate yourself for
high performance. Set your objectives, write them down, roll them
down from Mega, align the Macro and Micro objectives so that they
truly line up with your Mega objective, and implement a plan of
action to get you there. Make sure your action plan includes meas-
urements for success, reinforcements for accomplishing your indi-
vidual and organizational objectives, and a way to modify your
future actions based on performance feedback. This will help you
keep your “eye on the prize” and keep you motivated to move
toward high performance on a regular basis.
One final note, for your benefit: Many authors tell you what to
do and how to do it, but they never share with you their own state-
ments. Not me. Here are my own Mega, Macro, and Micro objec-
tives that I live by every day. Use them as a guide to create,
develop, or revise your own statements.
Mega: What I do and deliver will result in everyone I interact

with becoming successful and happy and they will achieve a
better standard of living than they are currently experiencing
now, become more self-sufficient so that they can enjoy their
lives more, plus “pay things forward” so that they can con-
tribute more positive things to our shared society.
Macro: My company will deliver new coaching, consulting,

and/or training programs each year that will provide clients
with the skills to achieve success as they define it and to
define happiness on their own terms.
Micro: I will increase my skills, knowledge, and abilities as I

continue to be better able to educate others so that they can
develop the skills and competencies to achieve their personal
definitions of success and happiness.
Endnotes
1. For more information on external influences on goal setting,
motivation, and performance, see Clark, R., & Estes, F. (2002).
Turning research into results. Atlanta, GA: CEP Publications; and
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P., (1984). Goal setting. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall.
2. The relationship among goal and objective setting, along with

expectations for performance success, are described in Vroom, V.,
(1994). Work and motivation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
3. This concept is described by Kaufman in book 1 of this series, as well

as in Kaufman, R. (2000). Megaplanning. CA: Sage Publications; and
Kaufman, R., Oakley-Brown, H., & Watkins, R., (2003). Strategic
planning for success: Aligning people, performance and payoffs. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
4. The concept of BHAG was introduced in several publications at

various times, and most notably by Collins, J., & Porras, J., (1994).
Built to last. New York: HarperBusiness. The BHAG is very similar to
the stretch goals and objectives that Locke and Latham call hard but
obtainable goals. The concept is designed to get people to stretch
beyond what they originally thought they were capable of achieving.
5. This is just another approach to motivate people to perform beyond

their perceived capabilities and expectations. Usually, when you get
people to commit to what they previously thought was an
“unreachable star,” they find a way to “achieve the impossible dream.”
You will also find this approach used in Georgescu, P. (2005). The
source of success. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
6. Again, see Kaufman in book 1 of this series as well as the references

cited above in #3.
7. Thad Greene has written extensively on the belief system of

motivation and its effects on performance. While most of his work
focuses on sales organizations, he also applies his concepts to
business and other types of organizations. You can read more about
the belief system of motivation in Greene, T., (2000). Motivation
management. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black.
8. For an extensive review of this area, see Clark, R., & Estes, F.,
(2002). Turning research into results. Atlanta, GA: CEP Publications.
9. This relationship is a foundation of the positive psychology

movement. Work in the area of optimism and high performance by
Martin Seligman supports the relationship among attitudes, beliefs,
and performance. His book, Authentic Happiness (New York: Free
Press, 2002) covers this in more detail.
10. You will also find information on this relationship and how these
factors affect confidence and future winning performances in Kanter,
R. M., (2004). Confidence. New York: Crown Business.
11. The concept of engagement and commitment to perform well on a

task has received a great deal of attention in recent books. A series of
books by the Gallup organization, including First, Break All the Rules,
by Buckingham, M., and Coffman, C., (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1999) and The One Thing You Need to Know, by Buckingham, M.,
(New York: Free Press, 2005) and several others, talks about the
power of engagement and commitment and their effect on high
performance. For more on this topic, you also can review Loehr, J., &
Schwartz, T., (2004). The power of full engagement. New York: Free
Press, and Gerson, R. F., & Gerson, R. G., (2006). Positive
performance improvement: A new paradigm for optimizing your
workforce. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black.
12. Performance improvement can occur as a result of mental effort, even

when physical effort stays constant. People who are motivated and
committed to achieving an objective will exert more cognitive energy
and mental effort in order to successfully achieve that objective. This
concept is described in Clark, R. E., The CANE model of motivation to
learn and work: A two-stage process of goal commitment and effort,
which was published in Lowyck, J., (Ed.), Trends in corporate training.
(1999). Leuven, Belgium: University of Leuven Press.
13. Once again, see Seligman’s work on positive psychology and

optimism in his book, Authentic Happiness as cited above in #9.
14. Here, again, we refer to Kanter’s book on Confidence, where she

talks about the relationship between confidence and winning streaks
as well as losing streaks caused by a lack of confidence. Plus, you
have experienced similar results in your own lives when you felt
confident about doing well on a task: You usually did well. When you
doubted yourself in any way, the result was less than expected or
desired, most of the time.
15. This is a big issue in motivation, performance, and results. If you are
not adding value to society, then are you subtracting value from it?
For more on this concept, read book 1 in this series by Kaufman, and
book 2 by Brethower.
16. You can find out more about helping yourself and others achieve high
performance by “accessing the CORE,” which is the foundation for
getting people to perform at high levels. Positive CORE is a model of
performance enhancement and improvement introduced in Gerson,
R. F., & Gerson, R. G., (2006). Positive performance improvement: A
new paradigm for optimizing your workforce. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-
Black.
17. The classic work in this area has been done by Deci and Ryan. They
have published extensively on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. You
will find a comprehensive summary of their work as well as others in
this field in Deci, E., & Ryan, R., (2005). The handbook of self-
determination research. New York: University of Rochester Press.
18. Again, you can look at the work of Deci and Ryan and others in the
field of intrinsic motivation. You can read a counter viewpoint to the
concept of rewards and incentives, and one that further supports the
concept of performing for the sake of performing, in Kohn, A., (1999).
Punished by rewards. Mariner Books.
19. See Clark & Estes, Turning Research Into Results (2002) as well as
Clark’s CANE model (note #12 above). For an excellent treatment of
how to help people perform under pressure, you can also read Loehr,
J., (1993), Toughness training for life. New York: Dutton.
20. Again, see Loehr & Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement (2004)
and Gerson, R. F., HEADcoaching: Mental Training for Peak
Performance (2004).
21. See any of the Kaufman references in the notes for this chapter.
22. While the concept of beginning with the end in mind is almost as old
as time itself, it has been popularized as one of The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People by Steven Covey (New York: Fireside, 1989).
Additionally, the skill of visualization becomes even more powerful
and effective when a performer starts the imagery process with a
picture of the desired result in his or her mind, and then works back
toward the start of the activity. When you know the result up front, you
do everything you can to achieve it.
23. The concept of flow provides an excellent description of the

conditions under which a high or even peak performance will occur.
This concept has been around for almost two decades, and everyone
talks about being in flow, in the zone, playing out of your mind, etc.
The concept was introduced in Csikszentmihalyi, M., (1990). Flow.
New York: Harper. It has been written about by him and many others
over the years.
24. See the reference notes on Gerson for HEADcoaching and Loehr for
Toughness Training.
25. The concept of flow keeps coming up, and it does not relate only to
sports. Performers in any endeavor can and will experience flow.
When you are in this state of flow (the zone), you just have to let the
performance happen. Any conscious intervention or thoughts about
what you’re doing or how you’re doing it tend to hurt the results of the
rest of the performance.
26. One of the foremost authorities on time and life management is

Lakein, A., (1996). How to get control of your time and your life. New
York: Signet.
Chapter 4
Motivating Others: Creating the
Proper Motivational Environment
It is vitally important for a performer to motivate him- or herself in
order to achieve high performance. It is also necessary, at various
times, for someone else to help motivate the performer. This can be
a manager, senior executive, teammate, colleague, coach, parent,
child, teacher, or anyone who has an influence on the performer or
the performance environment. The various motivational methods
can be any combination of incentives (prior to the performance),
rewards (subsequent to the performance), consequences, sched-
ules of reinforcement,1 money, prestige,2 or anything else the per-
former perceives as motivating. One of the most important things is
to remember that each performer will perceive any one of the above
motivators differently than other performers. The key, in this case, is
to make certain that any external motivators are specific and cus-
tomized to each individual performer.3
Assessing Motivational and

Performance Requirements
The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI)
standards provide a variety of ways to assess performance
requirements, and they are covered by both Kaufman and Guerra in
other books in this series.4, 5 Any performance situation must begin
with a true needs assessment and gap analysis—identifying gaps in
results at all levels and then prioritizing the gaps (needs). You must
determine the existence of a measurable gap in desired results.
Then you conduct a cause analysis to determine if the performance
decrement is based on the environment, resources, or something
intrinsic to the performer. The simplest approach recommended by
the model is to follow the six “boxes” in Gilbert’s Behavior Engi-
neering Model (BEM) to determine your cause or causes. 6 This
linear approach is supposed to help you identify where performance
improvement is truly required.
The same model can also be used to identify the causes of
high performance, although we do not often do so. You may use the
BEM to find out why someone consistently outperforms her peers
and what factors contribute to that consistent high level of
performance. Gilbert’s model can also help you identify perform-

ance patterns of these high performers if you simply follow each of
the six factors to their logical “conclusion” through observing some-
one’s performance.
There are two problems with linking your analysis too closely to
this model. The first is that the model appears to be very linear and
that you would expect one item to follow after another. This is defi-
nitely not the case in the “real world.” Human motivation is variable
and the reasons people engage, disengage, or refuse to engage in
a performance might not always be identifiable using a linear
approach.7 The second problem is that while performance improve-
ments or performance achievements may be determined with the
model, there is very little done to assess the motivational mindset of
the performer. Only one aspect of the BEM appears to directly
address motivation, and it is the last box in the model. This would
seem to relegate it to a subservient place as a potential contributor
to either low or high performance. However, do not be misled.
Although the BEM does not emphasize motivation as a separate
item, it does emphasize motivational variables. For example, the
model talks about incentives that can be used to influence a per-
former or a performance. Also, as you look into the model, the
skills, resources, and environment can all have a motivational effect
(either positive or negative) on the performer or performance.
We know from experience and research that motivation plays a
key role in the “process” of a performance, the tendency to perform,
the level of a performance, and the results achieved by a perform-
ance.8 You can have all the tools and resources in the world avail-
able to someone, but if they simply do not want to “play,” their per-
formance will suffer. Therefore, you must assess the full range of
motivational variables of a performer simultaneously while you are
assessing the requirements of the performance.
Motivational assessments are usually done through interviews,
written tests, or projective tests. What we must do as performance
consultants is find a way to determine how motivated a performer is
to effectively and successfully complete a task. We can do this sim-
ply by asking the person to describe or rate her motivation level, or
we can observe her performing the exact or similar tasks and rate
her level of motivation as an outside observer. We can also wait
until the task is completed, and based on the results and conse-
quences, ask her how motivated she was to perform and achieve
Motivating Others: Creating the Proper Motivational Environment 43
her results. The performer’s descriptive answers can provide us

with an assessment of her level of motivation relative to the task.
We can also assess motivation using a concept I call the Talent
Optimization Performance System (TOPS).9 This is not a direct
measure of motivation, nor has it been validated by scientific
research. But it has been proven effective through anecdotal
research based on my work with individuals and organizations,
along with application of the concepts in a variety of settings,
including business, sports, and academia. You may notice some
similarities between the contents of the TOPS model and some of
the “concepts within the boxes” in the BEM model. This is by
design, since the BEM model was considered to be one of the
foundational elements used to create the TOPS model. More infor-
mation on this approach can be found in the next chapter and in
another recent book.10
Basically, TOPS is a guide to motivational engagement and
performance improvement. Using a series of interview questions,
rating scales, and charts, TOPS identifies ten areas of motivation
that may be the source of performance strengths or the cause of
performance problems. The first group of areas is what we call the
fantastic four of motivation and performance improvement. They are
followed by the supporting six. The areas are:
1. Competence: Skills, knowledge, and abilities
2. Confidence: Belief in oneself and one’s abilities
3. Consequence: Reinforcers for performance
4. Commitment: Dedication to successfully completing a
task
5. Communication: How clearly are performance expec-
tations communicated?
6. Culture: How well does the organization promote and
reward successful performances?
7. Challenge: How challenging is the task?
8. Conflict: How much stress or conflict exists for the
performer?
9. Control: How much do performers believe they control the

consequences?
10. Concentration: How much attention do performers pay to
the task and for how long?
When a person’s performance continues at a high level, as with
most top performers, you can be certain that many or all of these
factors are in play. When a person’s performance deteriorates or is
sub par, you can be sure that it is also due to a deficiency in one or
more of the above “motivational” categories, assuming of course
that the requisite skill levels exist to potentially complete the task in
a successful manner. It is up to everyone involved in the perform-
ance and even those impacted by the performance to identify the
cause(s) of the motivational problem and then develop potential
resolutions for the problems.
For example, if competence is the issue, then more skill train-
ing or education might be necessary, job aids might be required, or
a job change might be in order. If the performer lacks confidence,
then we must develop a series of performance activities that are
similar to the required performance where this person can be suc-
cessful so that he builds up his confidence, self-image, and self-
esteem. This will lead to the development of self-efficacy for that
task or series of tasks, and the confidence that the task can be
performed again successfully.11 When success is achieved, we
must reinforce the positive behaviors and consequences with
appropriate praise so that the person will continue to perform well.
Over time, the performer can develop his or her own version of a
winning streak, which will serve to further enhance motivation and
positive performance results.12
When performance standards or expectations are clearly com-
municated, then everyone knows what must be done and what the
result should be. When expectations are not clearly communicated,
then the performer has no idea what is expected of him or her or
what constitutes a successful result. If the person is under so much
stress that he or she is unable to perform, we must find ways to
reduce that stress and create a positive performance environment.
When we do these things, we will have a motivated and engaged
performer.
Solutions to Motivation-related
Performance Problems
The most effective solution to any problem is to first ask the per-
former. Too often, managers identify a problem, and they are the
ones who prescribe the answers. They tell the performer what to
do, how to do it, and when it must be done. Then, the managers
wonder why it either never gets done or does not reach the desired
performance level. The reason is simple: The manager (or the
organization or the system) owns the solution, not the performer.
This coincides with Drucker’s comment that there has been no
“transfer of ownership.” The performer did not own the problem or
solution and therefore had little reason to fix the situation. These
poor performance results also coincide with work cited earlier by the
Gallup organization that showed when people were not engaged in
their activities, performance suffered.
So always ask performers what their problem is first, and ask
them what they propose for a solution. It may be that they do
require more performance-related training, or that they want to
change how they are reinforced for their performances, or that they
are getting reinforcements that they don’t really want, or that they
require more guidance and coaching. Whatever the problem, you
can be sure the performer has been thinking for a long time about
the suboptimized performance and the possible solutions. There-
fore, as a manager or anyone responsible for helping motivate a
person, ask the performer how she would resolve the issue. Also,
ask the performer what current benefit she is receiving from per-
forming at the current level, and how she handles the conse-
quences of those performance levels. By doing so, you might find
out that what you thought was the real problem was just a symptom
of another bigger problem.
When you do this, you move the performer to a state of
engagement (involved motivation). Measurable success and high
levels of performance occur when people are fully engaged in their
tasks. Recent research by the Gallup organization and the Per-
formance Assessment Network (PAN)13 supports this conclusion
about fully engaged performers and high performance. Managers,
coaches, and performers must be engaged in order to be success-
ful. The way to get people motivated and engaged is to pay atten-
tion to the strengths of the performer and the ten Cs of the TOPS
model mentioned above.
Total engagement means the performers own the problem and

the solution; feel in total control of their performance behaviors,
consequences, and reinforcers; know the consequences for per-
formance or non-performance; and have the confidence and skill
set to do the job well. People who are motivated and engaged are
completely committed to achieving successful results for them-
selves, for their companies, and after reading these books, for soci-
ety. Performers who are engaged will continuously challenge them-
selves physically and mentally and raise the performance bar, plus
do whatever it takes to get the job done so that everyone wins.
They will also remain committed over time to the activity and exert
the appropriate amount of mental effort required to complete the
task successfully.14 And isn’t that what we want from all our per-
formers?
So, to identify and solve any motivation and performance prob-
lems, you can use the Human Performance Technology (HPT)
model and drill down into the BEM for a causal analysis. If that is
your approach, fine. It will work up to a point. You must, however,
also take into account the individual performer’s motivational state
and skill level, along with their beliefs about what they are capable
of accomplishing.15 That means using the TOPS model, individual
interviews, or other assessments. Whatever your results from these
assessments, you must also ask people what they perceive the
issues and solutions to be. Then, work through the assessment and
analysis with them to help them identify other causes. And finally,
work with them to implement the appropriate performance im-
provement intervention. This approach will resolve 80 to 90 percent
of your performer motivation and performance improvement prob-
lems, regardless of your industry.
Analyzing the Performance Environment

Many of the “performance and quality gurus” tell us that if you put a
good performer into a bad system, the system will win almost every
time.16 Similarly, we have been told for years that 80 to 90 percent
of all performance problems are caused by the system or the
organization controlling the system (cf. Deming and Juran). You
would have to agree that most people, if not all, come to a work
situation or any performance situation determined to do a good
job—nobody deliberately tries to fail. Yet, people’s thoughts, feel-
ings, and attitudes can get in the way of effective high performance,
or they can support high performance. It is up to us to identify the

constraints, restraints, and supporting factors that make up the
performance environment, and then do the same for the performer
in that environment.
The ISPI HPT model, which many people use as a starting
point for analyzing a performance environment, does have its limi-
tations. However, it does provide performance consultants and
practitioners with one possible approach to assessing, analyzing,
and managing performance-related problems. Without explaining
the model in depth, a performance technologist analyzes a situa-
tion, determines the existence of a performance gap, identifies fac-
tors that may cause that gap, selects an intervention from a cadre
of possible solutions, implements that solution, and then evaluates
the effectiveness of that solution to determine how well the solution
helped close the original gap. The model, as it currently exists, is
powerful and helpful, yet it has two flaws that can work against high
performance.
First, before you can conduct an analysis of a performance
situation, you have to determine if that analysis is truly necessary.
You must complete a needs assessment prior to a needs analy-
sis.17 As Kaufman has described for years, a true performance
need is a gap in results, meaning that there is a measurable differ-
ence between what currently exists and the desired state. For
example, a training needs analysis, sales needs analysis, and cul-
tural needs analysis are actually solutions in search of problems.
The solution, such as training, sales, or cultural change, has
already been determined before we know if a true need (gap in
results) exists. So, the first thing we must do if we are following the
HPT model is to complete a needs assessment to determine if a
true measurable gap exists.
Another reason this is important is so that the performer knows
what is expected of him. Every top performer plays to a scoreboard
or scorecard—they measure themselves against a variety of stan-
dards or performance expectations. The salesperson has a quota,
the basketball player has a scoring average, the student has
grades, and the list goes on. Performers already know they have to
test and evaluate themselves against a scoring system. That is why
the needs assessment is so important. It inherently builds in the
scoring system for the performer, which becomes a motivating fac-
tor in and of itself.
Another reason we must conduct the needs assessment before

anything else (and perhaps this reason is even more important in
analyzing the performance environment) is to decide if a perform-
ance really must be “intervened” upon. If the needs assessment
does not reveal a measurable gap in results, and if the performer
does not believe there is a gap in results, then all the analysis and
“chest beating” by management will not make a performance
improvement intervention happen. You can conduct the typical
cause analysis and go through the various categories to find out if
there is a problem with the environment, resources, knowledge,
skills, incentives, etc. But, if there is no true gap in results, and if the
performer does not perceive the requirement exists to change, then
all the analysis in the world won’t cause a performance to improve.
And this leads to another issue with the HPT model: We seem to
have left out the analysis of the performer.
Performer Analysis: MASTERY

There has been a great deal written on the topic of mastery in many
areas. Two of my favorite books on the subject were written many
years ago by George Leonard, who called one book Mastery (New
York: Dutton, 1991) and the other The Ultimate Athlete (New York:
Viking Press, 1975). In them, he talked about what it takes to
become a top performer and sustain that high level of performance.
He is actually describing high-level athletes, or what he calls the
ultimate athlete. While his comments in the books are based on his
own “historical and secondary” research and not his own experi-
mental research, his descriptions are applicable to all performers.
And they make a great deal of common sense. He ends one of the
books with a statement that a dancer may not be the ultimate ath-
lete, but the ultimate athlete is certainly a dancer. And isn’t this so
true about all high performers? They perform as if they are “in a
dance (trance?).”
Anyone and everyone you can think of who is a top performer
is fluid and graceful, performs her task with ease, does it without
conscious intervention, appears to be in the zone or in a state of
flow, and enjoys what she is doing. Think about the basketball
player who can’t seem to miss a shot. Or the tennis player who hits
ground strokes that land on the baseline almost every time. Or the
writer whose words “flow” from her fingertips as she types on the
keyboard. Or the performance consultant who readily and easily
assesses where the gap in results exists and just as easily selects
the proper intervention. This person, in each situation, has certainly
mastered the skills and task requirements to perform a given envi-
ronment. This top performer has achieved a state of mastery over
herself and her environment. She may have done it on her own,
had a coach, or simply practiced extensively over the years to
achieve this state. However she got there, she provides clues for us
to help others be successful. It is incumbent upon us as perform-
ance technologists—and imperative so that we help our perform-
ers—that we learn what goes into making someone become so
motivated to achieve high performance.
Elsewhere I have provided a detailed description of how to
improve the HPT model by paying more attention to the performer.
My premise then, and now, is that we pay so much attention to the
environmental and organizational causes of performance gaps that
we tend to neglect the most important factor in the whole thing: the
performer. It is the person, or people, doing the performance who
will eventually determine the results. Even though we said earlier
that a poor system will overcome a good performer, we still must do
everything possible to determine what the performer brings to the
system. You may improve the system to the point where you think
performance will be elevated, but if the performer has little or no
interest in “doing the task,” you will not get your desired results.18
Let’s go through the performer analysis. For ease of descrip-
tion, I have broken down the analysis part into an acronym for
MASTERY. I will define each of the seven aspects of MASTERY for
the performer analysis along with each item’s components. These
components are recommended examples of what you should con-
sider when assessing and analyzing a performer. You can add or
subtract from these components based on your situation. When you
complete this performer analysis, you will know what makes the
person tick and what you have to do to help them stay motivated to
achieve high performance. Or, if you find out that they do not pos-
sess the proper motivation for high performance at this time, your
best solution may be to take no action and wait for a later date or
better time for the performer.
Motivation
We must consider three types of motivation when we are analyzing
a performer.
The first is approach/avoidance. This is also often described as
gain/loss or pleasure/pain. Basically, people will either approach a
task or avoid it as a result of some internal criteria that only they are
aware of. We do know that more people will avoid an unpleasant
situation (pain) than will approach (gain) an apparently pleasurable
one. All you have to do is watch someone perform a task. There are
many times they will not do the task, even though it might make
them happy. Yet, when the pain of not doing something exceeds
the pleasure of the moment, they are motivated to “move away from
the pain” and complete the task. You see this many times with
salespeople who help buyers identify their pain or problem, build up
that pain, and then help them move away from it with a solution (the
salesperson’s product or service).
The second motivational issue to consider is the relationship
among achievement, affiliation, and power. We all have a desire to
achieve things, and this desire is stronger or weaker in each of us
depending on how much risk we are willing to take, how important
the outcome is to us, and how much we will benefit from the
improvement. We also want to affiliate with other people because
we are “social animals.” However, some people have a greater
desire to be with people, while others have less. You must consider
the socialization factor of the performance situation and how the
associated affiliation motivation can influence the performer and the
performer’s social network. Also, the results and consequences of
the performance can have an effect on the social network and serve
to increase or decrease the performer’s desire to be with other peo-
ple (affiliation motivation). This subsequently has an effect on future
performances. Finally, we all have a desire to control ourselves and
our situations. This is one aspect of power motivation. It is also
closely related to how much stress or pressure we feel when per-
forming. A person who feels in control of the situation will be more
motivated and confident in his performance and less stressed out
during the performance, and vice versa. This relates to an increase
in both self-image and self-efficacy.
The third motivational issue is the intrinsic/extrinsic continuum,
which was described in a previous chapter. People are more moti-
vated to perform for intrinsic reasons than they are for extrinsic
reasons, or at least we would like to think so. While much of this

research was based on contrived classroom settings, and may or
may not be truly transferable to work or organizational settings, we
must consider how much the person really wants to perform a task
for the inherent satisfaction they will feel or receive when they suc-
cessfully complete the task (intrinsic motivation) or how much of
that performance motivation is based on factors outside the control
of the performer as well as the possible reward or payoff for suc-
cessfully completing the task (extrinsic motivation). Remember that
too many rewards that are not related to the actual performance
results or consequences can lead to a decrease in future accom-
plishments.
Attributions
Attributions are the reasons people give for the results and conse-
quences of their performances. Attributions can be internal or
external and they have an effect on future motivation and associ-
ated performances.19 For example, if a person attributes a perform-
ance decrement to a lack of ability, it is considered an internal attri-
bution. Similarly, if a great performance is attributed to a high level
of ability, that is also an internal attribution. If they attribute their
performance results to a lack of or an increased effort, that is con-
sidered an external attribution. Both internal and external attribu-
tions have an effect on subsequent performances. You want the
person to attribute a successful performance to things such as abil-
ity, positive effort, and an understanding of how the task should
have been performed. You also want them to attribute a poor per-
formance to things such as a lack of effort (which they can change
for a future performance) rather than a lack of ability (which will
negatively impact their confidence on future performances).
Because attributions can be made to a variety of things, you
have to ask the performer what his or her reasons are for achieving
the current or previous results or consequences. Once you have
these answers, you may have to help the performer realign attribu-
tions or even take them through what is called an attribution
retraining process. The objective here is to make sure that suc-
cesses are attributed more to internal factors, and failures are
attributed more to external factors. This way, the performer remains
confident and believes he is capable of succeeding in the future.
Self-Confidence
Top performers are highly self-confident. There are no two ways
about it. People who do well on a task believe they will do well
again and again. As you already know, this is called self-efficacy,
and it is really a high level of self-confidence and a belief about
controlling the outcome of a performance. Confidence is a major
factor in performance results, and possibly the major factor, espe-
cially in winning and losing streaks. People who are confident more
often than not perform at a higher level. They believe in themselves
and their ability to achieve. They develop a high level of commit-
ment to the task and work hard to increase their competence
related to the task.
Self-confidence is also closely related to self-esteem, which is
how we feel about ourselves (high self-esteem means we have
positive feelings toward ourselves and low self-esteem means we
have negative feelings toward ourselves or think less of ourselves).
When we work with people to increase their self-esteem, we usually
see a positive result in their related performances. People who feel
good about themselves do better than people who are down on
themselves. There is no denying the effect self-confidence has on a
person or a performance. Just look at the way people who are self-
confident carry themselves. They sit and stand taller; they walk
more assuredly; and they speak with confidence. They are willing to
tackle a task because they honestly believe they will succeed. In
fact, they sometimes are even willing to take on more complicated
or difficult tasks because their confidence is so high. The implica-
tions for performance improvement are obvious. When you find a
performance gap, ask the performer if they believe they are capable
of successfully completing the task. It may not be a resource, skill,
or process problem at all. It may simply be a belief problem. So, if
you can change the “confidence belief,” you might easily get the
performer to achieve at a higher level. Similarly, when you ask high
performers to rate their confidence levels on a scale of 1 to 10, you
will get a 9 or a 10 out of all of them.
Help performers build up their self-confidence through succes-
sive approximations, positive reinforcement of successes, and
affirmations. The old adage of “What the mind believes, the body
achieves” holds true here. Even if you have no scientific evidence
that affirmations “work,” you do have evidence of placebo effects—
the belief that something works. When I coach individuals, I have
everyone establish a set of positive affirmations that are repeated

daily. After a week or so, their belief in themselves (self-confidence)
soars to new heights, and their belief that they can successfully
perform a task also increases. To corroborate this, all you have to
do is ask them how they feel about themselves after using the
affirmations and look at how they carry themselves when they walk
and talk.
Thoughts
Thoughts affect behavior, so it is imperative that you know what a
performer is thinking relative to a given task. The performer’s
thoughts affect what he or she does and how he or she does it. To
help you in your performer analysis, here is what you must consider
with regard to a performer’s thoughts. I have created another mne-
monic called BEHAVE.
Beliefs. Beliefs affect self-confidence and subsequent perform-

ances. Find out what beliefs the performer has regarding the task.
Ask the performer what his disabling beliefs (thoughts that hold him
back) and enabling beliefs (thoughts that propel him forward) are.
Work with the performer to reduce the disabling beliefs and
increase the enabling beliefs. Sometimes, this is easily accom-
plished through reviewing past successful performances and iden-
tifying what the performer thought about at those times. Then, you
simply reinforce those thoughts and help the performer transfer
them to the current situation.
Emotions. Emotions affect performance—there is no doubt about it.
Both positive and negative emotions will determine the outcome of
a performance.20 People who are happy and confident and have
pride in what they do will usually perform well. People who are
depressed, anxious, and nervous will usually not perform well.
While this is intuitively obvious, where do we consider this in the
current HPT model? (This is one of the existing limitations of the
model.) We must always take into account the performer’s emo-
tional state at the time of the performance. If the person had a bad
day before “coming to the office,” she might be down and out and
might not want to perform. Or, if the person had a great morning
before coming in, she might be ready to take on the world. Think
about how your emotions affect you and what you do, and you’ll
realize the importance of taking the performer’s emotional state into

account.
Habits. Every one of us has performance habits or rituals. We see it
all the time in sports. Just look at any basketball player shooting a
foul shot, or a tennis player before serving, or a golfer before driving
the ball. Each performer does certain things every time they have to
perform this same task. These are the performance habits or rituals.
We must know the habits of our performers because habits will
affect future performances. When habits and rituals are positive,
aligned, and practiced correctly, you will usually get a high level of
performance. When they are not aligned, people will revert back to
their poor performance habits at the expense of changing them to
improve performance. That’s because habits, either positive or
negative, create a comfort zone. So, one of the things you may
have to do is help performers modify their habits so that they can
get out of their comfort zones and achieve higher levels of perform-
ance.
Attitudes. The simplest way to say this is that people have either
positive or negative attitudes toward everything they do and every-
one they work with. Find out what attitudes the performers you are
working with have toward the task and each other (if it is a team
situation). Positive attitudes lead to positive beliefs, increased self-
esteem, and increased self-confidence. Negative attitudes do the
opposite. Optimists outperform pessimists. This is true in sales,
school, sports, and any place else you can think of.
Values. Values (principles or concepts we hold in high regard that
also affect our decision making) drive behavior. All conscious and
unconscious decisions related to what we do and who we are come
from our values. Find out what values the performer has simply by
asking. It is even more instructive to ask them to prioritize the
values so that you will truly know where they are coming from.
When a person has to perform a task that aligns with his values, he
is more motivated to do so than someone whose values and task
are misaligned. Additionally, when you know the values that are
important to the performer, and you can help him live those values
during the performance, you will realize an increase in productivity
because the performer is “validating his values” through the per-
formance. If this sounds too squishy and soft, it probably is. If you
feel it is too subjective without enough scientific proof, you may be
right. However, I urge you to ask your performers about this and
listen to what they say and see how they feel. Then you can deter-
mine for yourself the importance of values in performance
improvement.
Experiences. People’s past experiences determine their future
behaviors. We see this as a foundation for behavioral interviewing
when hiring someone. It is also true in other areas. If someone has
had positive and successful experiences with a task or situation,
they probably will expect to have them again (see Expectations in
the next section). Experience also helps develop judgment and
decision making, which impact performance. Find out about the
experience levels and the past experiences of the performers. You
will see a definite link between those experiences and present per-
formance behavior.
Expectations
Expectations are our beliefs about our probabilities for success.
Success probabilities may also be affected by our expectations
related to the consequences of a performance. More often than not,
though, expectations refer to our beliefs about our chances for suc-
cess. They are intricately linked to our past performances and our
beliefs about future performances. Quite often, the expectations a
performer has about his potential for success will actually prede-
termine the performance outcome. Since you become and achieve
what you think about most, performers who think about (expect)
success succeed more often than not. Those who think about fail-
ure most of the time expect to perform poorly and they usually do.
Vroom (1994) described the power of work motivation to perform as
being highly influenced by performance expectations. His expec-
tancy theory validates the concept of believe and achieve that is
promoted so often in popular literature.
Expectations also affect the results and consequences of a per-
formance. People actually assign a mental probability to a range of
consequences they can achieve, and their performance levels usu-
ally mirror those ranges. If someone truly believes she will be 100
percent successful and can measure that success, then she will be
highly motivated to perform a task. If someone has an expectation
that they will only be 50 percent successful, or 60 percent suc-
cessful, then they will probably apply a reduced amount of effort to
effectively complete a task and achieve the desired outcome. This

also goes back to the concept of enabling and disabling beliefs
mentioned earlier.
Readiness
No one does anything well unless they are ready to perform. Sure,
you can force someone to do something, but the result will most
likely be less than optimal. The situational leadership model as it is
applied to performance improvement21 refers to the readiness of a
performer and how it relates to the most appropriate leadership
style to guide that person. The same concept applies to perform-
ance in general. Someone who is ready and prepared to perform
usually possesses skills, knowledge, and a high expectation of suc-
cess; has had successful past experiences; knows the reward that
is available for effectively achieving the objective; and has a high
degree of confidence.
The performer’s state of readiness can be determined by
observing pre-performance rituals and ongoing behaviors, inter-
viewing the performer, testing the person’s knowledge relative to
the performance and expected results, and reviewing practice rou-
tines. Readiness is a critical factor in performance improvement.
Again, you can have all the tools and resources available, but if the
person does not want to or is not ready to perform, either the per-
formance will not occur or its results will be less than desirable.
YES
After a performer takes the first six factors into account, and they
are all positive and aligned, then he or she makes a decision to go
forward. (For one possible model describing a decision-making
process, see the Greenwald model in book 1 of this series by
Kaufman.) This YES decision occurs only after the performer goes
through the entire process described above. Now, this trip through
the mental processes of mastery may not even be done at the con-
scious level. Rest assured, though, that it will be done. Every per-
former goes through a series of mental processes and decision-
making stages before he or she says, “Yes, I will perform this task
to the best of my ability.” And every time this decision is made and
the task is successfully completed, the reinforcement the performer
receives enables him to run through this mastery process even
faster next time.
Remember the Messy Middle

It would really be great if the current HPT model worked in real life
as smoothly as it flows on paper. Unfortunately, life is not sterile,
mechanistic, or linear, nor does it fit easily into a set of boxes in a
flow diagram. That being said, I propose we add another box to the
model that sits right in the middle of the model. Since we now must
always consider the messy middle (the thoughts, emotions, and
motivations of the performer) in every performance analysis, we
should give it a rightful place in the HPT model. Again, I can assure
you that people I speak with about this concept of the messy middle
and the performer analysis all tell me that it is so intuitively obvious,
they do not know why it is neglected and/or excluded from the
model. While there is one related concept in the “motivation and
expectations” portion of the cause analysis, this does not go deep
enough or far enough to find out what the performer brings to the
table.
Motivation is critical to performance success. You can provide
someone with all the tools and techniques to achieve a high per-
formance. You can create the proper environment in which that
performance will occur. You can even establish the incentives,
rewards, and reinforcements that are specific to that particular per-
former. You can even get everything set up and lined up so that a
top performance is almost a given. Yet, when push comes to shove,
and you get right down to it, the performance either is less than
stellar or does not occur at all. The reason is that the performer was
not motivated to perform the task, let alone perform it at a high
level. That is why you must always analyze the performer’s motiva-
tions related to accomplishing a task before you even decide on an
intervention that you hope will close your performance gap in
results.
Doing With vs. Doing To

There is another point to consider: Performance technologists tend
to analyze situations in a vacuum. What I mean by this is that they
complete their analysis without directly involving the performer. That
is because other things are easier to deal with and maybe even
quantify. We do the performance assessment, analysis, and inter-
vention “thing” to the performer and the situation when we should
be doing it with them.
A very popular topic is engagement—how we get people com-

mitted and motivated to perform well, over the long term. Engage-
ment is used for employees, customers, vendors, and everyone
else involved in a situation. The key to engagement is motivation. If
the person is not motivated, he or she will not be engaged. Com-
mitment is an overt display of motivation, as when someone sticks
with a task to successful completion. We give lip service to this
important point, yet we often neglect to ask the performer how
committed, engaged, or motivated he or she is to perform the task.
There are three other things we must know from the per-
former’s perspective. However, we must find these things out by
talking with the performer and not to the performer. We must
involve the performer in the entire assessment and analysis proc-
ess so that he or she works with us and not against us because we
are treating him or her as a non-entity. Working with the performer
will enable us to learn the performer’s intent to perform well, how
they plan to perform well, and if they even like the task we are ask-
ing them to perform. Intention creates desire and direction for moti-
vation, which helps the performer carry out the performance plan.
Also, we must find out if the person even likes to do what we are
asking or expecting them to do. Liking is critical to sustained high
performance over time because people will eventually stop doing
what they don’t like to do. Just look at what you do in your own life.
Most of the time, you are involved in activities that you like to do
rather than things you don’t like to do. So, one of the things you
must consider in completing your performer analysis is how much
the person likes to perform the task at hand. This alone may be the
determining factor in the level of performance achievement.
Motivations to Perform
Now that you know what makes the performer tick and what factors
will affect their motivation to perform in a given situation, you must
identify their motivational drivers. These different types of motiva-
tion will spur a person on to great achievements or, if they lack any
of these motivations in the proper setting, they will be left at the
starting gate. For example, we know that the most powerful type of
motivation is a dichotomy that is called by many names: approach/
avoidance, pleasure/pain, and gain/loss. We have read it many
times in the popular self-help literature that people will do more to
avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure. Or they will do something
to prevent their fear of loss more so than they will to acquire

something. Let me give you some examples of the power of this
motivational dichotomy.
The first is called the $20 bill auction. Take a bunch of people
in a room and tell them you are going to auction off a $20 bill. The
highest bidder gets the $20 bill, and bidding begins at $5 and goes
up in $1 increments. The only caveat to the auction is that the per-
son who ends up in second place (the losing bidder) must also give
you whatever amount of money he bid for the $20 bill. As the auc-
tion begins and continues, many people will stay in it until around
$15 or so. Then, as people drop out and there are only two bidders
left, the person who is always in second place will keep raising the
bid. Sometimes, the $20 bill gets auctioned off for over $100. The
reason is that the second bidder is more afraid of losing his money
and not getting the $20 bill (being a winner) than he is of paying
more for the $20 bill and winning the auction.
Here is another example. Everyone knows that it is important to
eat right, exercise, and get the proper amount of rest. Yet, most of
us don’t do it. We take our health for granted (gain/pleasure/
approach). Now, if something terrible happens (such as a heart
attack or a doctor’s warning), we start to eat right, exercise regu-
larly, and rest more often. We are now motivated by the fear of loss
(losing our health or our life) more than we are motivated by the
pleasure of gain (better health for health’s sake). And the same
thing happens on the job.
Many managers think the best way to motivate their employees
is through fear and threats. First, the manager asks the employee to
do a task, and it may or may not get done in a timely manner. Then,
the manager offers some potential consequences for not complet-
ing the task. Finally, the manager threatens the employee with her
job if she doesn’t complete the task according to certain standards.
Now, with the threat of job loss looming, the employee “gets going.”
We can talk all we want about rewards and reinforcements, positive
feedback, and positive motivation. Yet, in our day-to-day world,
most people (managers, parents, coaches) revert back to using fear
or loss as the motivator of choice, and when people respond to that
motivator, it reinforces the person’s use of it in future situations.
So, how do you break the cycle?
Consider the person involved in the performance situation.
What is their level of self-esteem? How confident are they to per-
form in this situation? How do they feel about positive strokes
instead of criticism as a motivator? Get to know your performer, and

you will find out the answers to these questions for every situation.
While fear and loss may motivate people in the short term, over the
long run, you will get better performance from a positive approach.
Point out what someone does right, well, and good. Give them
encouragement so that they want to perform the task again. Help
them understand that when they succeed, it is due to their abilities,
efforts, and training. If they fail for any reason, help them determine
what temporary situational factors caused that result. This attribu-
tional approach will lead to a more optimistic attitude and higher
levels of future performance. It will also create a bias for action on
the part of the performer.
Use the job aid below to help you determine the motivational
readiness of your performers.
Using a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best or highest, rate

each of the motivational areas.
Motivational Area Rating Comments
Self-esteem
Self-confidence
Desire for positive

reinforcement
Knows personal
strengths
Makes internal attribu-
tions for successful
results
Evidences motivation to
perform on future tasks
Any rating below 7 requires attention. You can use this job aid
to support the principles of the Talent Optimization Performance
System (TOPS) described briefly in this chapter and in more detail
in the next chapter.
Endnotes
1. The father of behavioral psychology, B. F. Skinner, talks about the
power of the various schedules of reinforcement in multiple
publications. One early one was Science and Human Behavior (New
York: Free Press, 1965). You can also read his books, Beyond
Freedom and Dignity (reprinted in 2000) and About Behaviorism
(Vintage Books, 1975).
2. Albert Bandura wrote extensively on self-efficacy. His work from the

1970s is still quoted today, especially in relation to emotional
intelligence, positive psychology, and performance improvement.
Self-efficacy is the belief that you have control over a situation or
performance and that you will do well, i.e., achieve positive results.
Providing someone with the reward of prestige (a new job title, some
type of promotion, a medal or trophy, etc.) has a positive influence on
a person’s feelings of self-efficacy and future feelings of control
during a performance. Bandura’s early book, Social Foundations of
Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1985), still provides an excellent foundation for
understanding self-efficacy.
3. See one of my first articles in the Performance Improvement Journal,

“The People Side of Performance Improvement” (1999), for more on
the individualization of rewards and reinforcements. You will also find
similar information in Daniels, A., (2000). Bringing out the best in
people. New York: McGraw-Hill.
4. Kaufman, R., book 1 in this series.
5. Guerra, I., book 6 in this series.
6. Go to www.ispi.org to find a graphic of the Human Performance

Technology (HPT) model. Also, read the classic book in the field,
Gilbert, T., (1978). Human competence. New York: McGraw-Hill. You
can also review an article by Chevalier, R., (2003). Updating the
behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 8–14.
7. For a simple and concise review of the reasons people engage or

disengage from an activity (tasks, sports, exercise, etc.), see Anshel,
M., (2005). Applied exercise psychology. New York: Springer
Publishing Company.
8. Anshel’s book, ibid, also provides a good description of the emotional

aspects of performance. See my article, Gerson, R. F., (2000). The
emotional side of performance improvement. Performance
Improvement, 39(8), 18–23, and the book by Gerson, R. F., &
Gerson, R. G., (2006). Positive performance improvement: A new
paradigm for optimizing your workforce. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black.
9. Gerson & Gerson, ibid.
10. Gerson & Gerson, ibid.
11. See Daniels, A., (1994). Bringing out the best in people. New York:
McGraw-Hill, and Kanter, R. M., (2004). Confidence. New York:
Crown Business.
12. Again, see the work of Seligman on positive psychology and

optimism, and Kanter on confidence and winning streaks.
13. Go to www.panpowered.com.
14. Clark, R. E., The CANE model of motivation to learn and work: A two-
stage process of goal commitment and effort, in Lowyck, J., (Ed.)
(1999). Trends in corporate training. Leuven, Belgium: University of
Leuven Press. Also, see Gerson, R. F., (2004). HEADcoaching:
Mental training for peak performance. Indiana: Authorhouse.

16. While you may hear this or similar quotes related to this statistic from
the total quality management arena, one of the most quoted sources
in the performance improvement field is Rummler, G., & Bache, A.
(1995). Improving performance: How to manage the white space in
the organization chart. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
17. See Ingrid Guerra’s book in this series for more on this point.
18. See Gerson, R. F., (2006). The missing link in HPT. Performance
Improvement, 45(1), 10–17.
19. There are many excellent reviews of attribution theory, all of which
cite the originators of the theory. One comprehensive review is
Martinko, M., (1995). Attribution theory: An organizational
perspective. Florida: CRC Press.
20. See the previous references to Gerson & Gerson, Loehr & Schwartz,
and Anshel.
21. Hersey, P., & Chevalier, R. Situational leadership and executive

coaching, 26–36, in Goldsmith, M., & Lyons, L., (2005). Coaching for
leadership. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Chapter 5
Reaching the TOP
Two of the biggest problems every employer faces today are how to
continuously motivate employees and how to achieve ongoing
improvements in performance. Companies and managers struggle
with both situations, often throwing incentive programs and
increased benefits packages at the problems. Yet, they don’t
always get the results they want because, as we now know, the
problems are frequently inside the employees, and external controls
such as incentives will not always get the job done. That is why two
of the “most watched” areas in human performance today are talent
optimization (which is really achieving peak performance) and
employee engagement (which is really motivation and commitment
combined). In another book, performance models were introduced
along with explanations of how they will help improve performances
and benefit the performer, the organization, and society.1 Presented
in this chapter are two models to help you optimize your talent and
performance and then to get people so motivated and committed to
do their best that you will begin to wonder, “Why wasn’t it this easy
before?” These models are the Talent Optimization Performance
System and Positive CORE.
Maximizing Motivation and

Guaranteeing Improvement
There is a way to virtually guarantee you will get the job done and
achieve higher levels of performance. This “tool” will help you iden-
tify motivational and performance roadblocks as well as which fac-
tors contribute to high performance. It is called the Talent Optimiza-
tion Performance System (TOPS), which was briefly mentioned in
Chapter 4. Basically, it is a guide to talent optimization, motivational
engagement, and performance improvement. It identifies ten areas
of performance-related factors (such as motivation, organizational
culture, and stress) that may be the source of performance
strengths or the cause of performance problems. The areas are:
1. Competence (skills and abilities)
2. Confidence (belief in oneself)
3. Consequence (reinforcers for performance)
4. Commitment (dedication to successfully completing a

task)
This first set is known as the big four of motivation and perform-
ance improvement. They are followed by the supporting six:
5. Communication (how clearly performance expectations
are communicated)
6. Culture (how well the organization promotes and rewards
successful performances)
7. Challenge (how challenging the task is)
8. Conflict (how much stress or conflict exists for the per-
former)
9. Control (how much performers believe they control the
consequences)
10. Concentration (how much attention performers pay to the
task and for how long)
When a person’s performance continues at a high level, as with
most top performers, you can be relatively certain that many or all
of these factors are in play. When a person’s performance deterio-
rates, or has never been up to par, you can usually be sure that if it
is motivation related, it is due to something that is lacking in one of
the above categories. It is up to managers and companies to iden-
tify the cause of the performance problem using this TOPS model
and then develop potential resolutions for the problems.
For example, if competence is the issue, then more skill train-
ing might be necessary, job aids might be required, or a job change
might be in order. If the performer lacks confidence, then we must
develop a series of performance activities that are similar to the
required performance where this person can be successful so that
he builds up his confidence and self-esteem. When success is
achieved, we must reinforce the positive behaviors and conse-
quences with praise so that the person will continue to perform
well.2
When performance standards or expectations are not clearly
communicated, then the performer has no idea what constitutes a
successful result. Or if the person is under so much stress that he
or she is unable to perform, we must find ways to minimize that
stress and maximize a positive performance environment.
Reaching the TOP 67
Solutions to Motivation-related
Performance Problems
The most effective solution to any problem is to ask the employee
first. Too often, managers identify a problem and they are the ones
who prescribed the answers. They tell the employee what to do,
how to do it, and when it must be done. Then the managers wonder
why it either never gets done or it does not reach the specified per-
formance level. The reason is simple: The manager owns the solu-
tion while the employee still owns the apparent problem. At no time
was the employee/performer involved in generating the solution.
So always ask employees what their problem is first, and ask
them what they propose for a solution. It may be that they do
require more training, or that they want to change how they are
reinforced for their performances, or that they are getting reinforce-
ments that they don’t really want, or that they require or prefer more
guidance and coaching. Whatever the problem, you can be sure the
employee has been thinking about it and the possible solutions for a
long time. So, as a manager, ask the employee how they would
resolve the issue.
When you do this, you move the employee to a state of involve-
ment, which we also call engagement. True success and high levels
of performance occur when employees are fully engaged in their
jobs. This is because they are more motivated and focused on the
tasks at hand. Both managers and employees must achieve these
levels of motivation, focus, and engagement in order to be
successful. And the way to get there is by paying attention to the
ten Cs mentioned previously.
Total engagement means the employees own the problem and
the solution, feel in total control of their performance behaviors,
their results, and reinforcers, know the consequences for perform-
ance or non-performance, and have the confidence and skill set to
do the job well. Employees who are engaged:
• Are completely committed to achieving successful results,
both for themselves and their companies
• Will do whatever it takes to get the job done so that every-
one wins
• Will continuously challenge themselves and raise the per-
formance bar
And isn’t that what we want from all our employees?

So to identify and solve any motivation and performance prob-
lems, ask your employees first what they perceive the issues and
solutions to be. Then go down the list of the ten areas related to
motivation, engagement, and high performance to help them iden-
tify other causes. And finally, work with them to implement the
appropriate performance improvement intervention. This approach
will resolve 80 to 90 percent of your employee motivation and per-
formance improvement problems, regardless of your industry.
The Talent Optimization

Performance System (TOPS)
This guide to motivational engagement and performance improve-
ment includes two exercises—one for the manager and one for the
employee. Exercise 1, with two parts, helps the manager serve as a
performance coach. Each of the ten areas in Part 1 has five ques-
tions associated with it. The manager sits with an individual per-
former and asks these questions, takes notes on the answers, and
follows up with additional probing questions of his or her own. The
purpose of this interview is to engage the performer in a conversa-
tion about motivational issues that affect his or her performance,
either positively or negatively. The questions in Part 2 are optional
at the manager’s discretion. Once this interview is completed, the
manager will move on to working with the performer to rate his or
her own skill set in each area on a linear scale. Finally, the results
of those ratings will be graphed to create a visual for both the per-
former and the manager.
The graphic representation allows both the manager and the
performer to identify areas that require improvement as well as
areas of greatest strength. The typical profile would have 9 of the
elements moving in a positive direction with Conflict showing lower
numbers. Any motivational area that is 7 or less with Conflict 4 or
higher requires intervention. A simple change in one or several of
these areas could lead to measurable performance improvements.
You are basically taking the “messy middle” of a performer’s moti-
vation and emotional involvement with a performance and making it
visible. Plus, a retest in 30, 60, or 90 days can show a change in
the profile that would correlate to a change in performance.
Reaching the TOP 69
Note: The following material is taken from Gerson & Gerson, Posi-
tive Performance Improvement: A New Paradigm for Optimizing
Your Workforce (Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black, 2006).
Part 1: Manager’s Interview Questions

Directions: Feel free to adapt these base questions for the inter-
view to fit your situation or organization. You may also want to
shorten each question series from five to three if time is a prob-
lem for you. However, we strongly recommend that you complete
the entire series of questions to get the best information possible
to help your employees improve their performances.
You can also provide these interview questions directly to the
performer and ask him or her to respond to each one on paper or
electronically. While this does allow a manager to have more
people “interviewed” in a shorter period of time, it also detracts
from the nuances of the personal interaction. And since one of
the major elements of high performance is the relationship
between managers and performers, we suggest you conduct
each interview individually.
Competence: Having the skills required to do the job

1. Do you currently have the skills or have you ever had the
skills to do this job?
2. What were the results of previous jobs like this one?
3. Do you have similar skills that you can adapt to this job?
4. Can you learn new skills to do this job?
5. How satisfied are you with your current skill level and how
satisfied will you be when you increase your skill level?
Confidence: Having a belief in one’s ability to successfully com-

plete a task
1. Do you believe you are capable of successfully completing
the job?
2. Have you successfully completed similar jobs in the past?
3. What is your success ratio for jobs like these?
4. How confident are you in your abilities as a performer?
5. How will your self-esteem be affected by the result of your
performance?
Consequence: The effects of rewards and punishments on per-

formance
1. What are the positive consequences (rewards) for doing
this job well and the negative consequences (punish-
ments) for doing this job poorly?
2. How much will the consequences influence your current
and future performances?
3. How much control do you have over the consequences for
your performances?
4. How closely are the consequences tied to the performance
results and which specific consequences would you
prefer?
5. To what extent will your performance add value to your
group, organization, external clients, and/or our shared
society?
Commitment: The desire and dedication to perform

1. How much do you want to do this job? How passionate are
you about this work?
2. How will you, your organization, your clients, and our
shared society benefit from you successfully completing
this job?
3. What reinforcement will you receive for successfully
completing this job?
4. How did you feel when you successfully completed other
jobs like this one?
5. How likely are you to do this job or a similar job again, for
the same or an even longer period of time?
Communication: The ability to clearly express a point of view

1. Have performance expectations been clearly communi-
cated so that you fully understand the expectations and
objectives related to your performance?
2. How often do you feel listened to, and how well do you
listen to others?
3. What type of performance feedback is provided to you and
when is it provided?
Reaching the TOP 71
4. What are the preferred methods of communication in this

organization and how do they match up with your preferred
methods of communication?
5. What are the communication problems that exist between
men and women, management and staff, and among staff
members, and how can they be resolved?
Culture: The beliefs and environment of the organization

1. How does your perception of the organization’s culture
influence and affect your performance?
2. What changes in the organization’s culture will help you be
more motivated and improve your performance?
3. How does the organization’s mission and values align with
your personal mission and values?
4. What are the specific organizational motivators and
demotivators?
5. What aspects of the organization’s culture convince you
that this is the best place for you to do your best work?
Challenge: The degree of difficulty that exists in accomplishing a

task
1. How hard or easy is it for you to complete your job?
2. How often do you establish stretch goals and objectives for
your performances?
3. How often are you challenged physically, emotionally, and
mentally to exceed your previous performance levels?
4. How much control do you have over the way you do your
job?
5. What must you learn to do a new job well?
Conflict: Unresolved emotional or interpersonal issues

1. What causes stress or conflict in your life?
2. What emotions do you feel when you’re involved in a con-
flict or under stress?
3. How often do you think your life is out of control or out of
balance?
4. What do you do to effectively resolve conflict in your life?
5. Would your life be better with no conflict or stress in it, a

moderate amount of conflict or stress in it, or do you thrive
on constant stress and ongoing conflict?
Control: The amount of control or choice a performer has when

performing
1. How much control or choice do you have over your per-
formances?
2. How much certainty and predictability exist when you
perform?
3. What are the reasons you give for the results and conse-
quences of your performances?
4. How much do you or must you rely on others when you are
performing?
5. Do you prefer situations where you work individually, as
part of a team, or against others?
Concentration: How well focus or concentration is maintained

during a performance
1. How much difficulty do you have maintaining your focus to
successfully complete a task?
2. What distracts you while you are performing a task?
3. What specific thoughts go through your mind when you are
performing?
4. What do you remember about times when you performed
well?
5. How difficult is it for you to concentrate on one task over a
long period of time?
Now that you have completed the initial TOPS interview, you
may want to ask a few follow-up questions to help you further iden-
tify any performance problems.
Reaching the TOP 73
Part 2: Manager’s Follow-up

Questions for TOPS
Directions: These follow-up questions can be asked either as
part of the initial interview or as a separate approach following the
interview. Again, feel free to change or adapt the questions to fit
your situation. You may also decide to skip these follow-up ques-
tions and go directly to the rating scales. The choice is yours.
Problem Identification Questions

1. Do you know what is expected of you?
2. Do you believe that what is expected of you can be
achieved by you?
3. Do you understand what to do?
4. Are you capable and confident of doing what you’re being
asked to do?
5. Do you believe that what you are asked to do is worth
doing?
6. Do you require any help achieving what we ask of you?
7. Do we require too much of you?
8. What problems, if any, do you see in doing what you’re
being asked to do?
9. What do you expect to receive if you do a good job?
10. What do you expect to get if you perform poorly?
11. Do people who perform well get what they deserve?
12. How do you feel about the way performance is rewarded?
13. What do you feel about the reward system here?
14. How well do we follow through on our commitments to
employees?
15. What do you think about the way people are treated here?
16. Are top performers treated differently than average or
below average performers?
17. Has the company delivered on its promises to you in the

past?
18. Do you want the rewards and incentives being offered to
you?
19. Is there anything that you’re getting that you do not want
or would rather not have?
20. Is there anything that you’re not getting that you do want?
21. Is the job providing you with the challenge and recognition
you desire?
22. How much do you enjoy what you’re doing?
23. How happy are you with your job?
24. What, specifically, can we do to make your job more
satisfying?
25. Do you feel what you do and deliver adds value to your-
self, your associates, your organization, your external
clients, and our shared society?
Emotion Identification Questions

1. Why do you feel that way?
2. What caused you to have those feelings?
3. What feelings are you having, exactly, in relation to this
situation?
4. What thoughts are going through your mind related to this
situation?
5. What else can you tell me about the situation that’s
causing you to feel this way?
6. Can you tell me anything else?
7. Can you be more specific when describing your emotions?
8. How are your feelings affected by the situation?
9. How much in control of your feelings do you think you
are?
10. Does the job provide you with more positive feelings or
more negative feelings?
Reaching the TOP 75
Once the interview is completed, it is time to put some numbers

to the response categories. Use the scales below to have the per-
former rate him- or herself on each item. Then you will use the
graph that follows to plot the performer’s scores for each individual
item, which can range from 0 to 10. You will want all the scores to
move in a positive direction except for the conflict score. That score
should be low, otherwise the performer may have a problem. Your
interpretation of the scale results or the graph is really very simple.
Any score that is 7 or below (with Conflict 4 or higher) requires
some type of intervention. That factor (and it may be more than
one) is probably having a negative effect on performance. You will
then select and/or design an intervention that will help optimize the
next performance.
If all the scores are high and/or in the right direction, then you
have to raise the bar on future performances. It is imperative that
the performer knows he or she has to improve on a regular basis
and that you will help him or her achieve this by setting higher
expectations, playing to his or her strengths, and challenging him or
her more. The model works for both performance improvement and
performance (strengths) enhancement. You only have to apply it.
TOPS Rating Scales

Directions: Please circle the number that best represents your
response to the question associated with the TOPS factor.
Competence: Do I have the skills to do this job?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I do not possess I possess I possess all of
the skills. some of the skills. the skills.
Confidence: How much do I believe I can do this job well?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I cannot perform I may be able to I will successfully
this job as expected. perform this job perform this job.
satisfactorily.
(continued)
TOPS Rating Scales (continued)

Consequence: Will the consequences (reinforcements) be tied to
my results?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I do not believe I am not certain I know for a fact
consequences consequences that consequences
will be tied to will be tied to will be tied to my
performance. performance. performance.
Commitment: How dedicated am I to performing this task well?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I have no desire I am not sure how I am totally commit-
to perform this task. much I want to do this. ted to successfully
completing this task.
Communication: How well is information communicated in this

organization?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Information is not I sometimes don’t Information is clearly
shared. get all the information communicated and
I need to do my job. shared.
Culture: How do the beliefs and values of the organization meet

my needs?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The organization’s The organization’s The organization’s
beliefs and values beliefs and values some- beliefs and values
do not match my own. what match my own. completely match
my own.
Challenge: How hard or easy is it for me to successfully complete

my job?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The job is very easy The job provides a The job is very
and does not provide moderate challenge challenging, and it
much of a challenge for me, but it is not motivates me to be
for me. very difficult. successful.
(continued)
Reaching the TOP 77
TOPS Rating Scales (concluded)

Conflict: What unresolved emotional or interpersonal issues
exist?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
There are no conflicts There is some stress There is too much
in my life. and conflict in my life stress and there are
that I must resolve. too many conflicts
in my life.
Control: How much perceived choice or control do I have while

performing?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I feel I have little or I have some control I have complete
no control over my and/or choice while control over my
performance. performing. performance and its
consequences.
Concentration: How well do I concentrate or focus my attention

on a performance?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I have a great deal I am capable of I always maintain
of difficulty focusing focusing my attention my concentration
my attention and some of the time. and focus while
concentrating. performing.
Now plot the ratings to provide yourself and your performer with
a visual representation of his or her motivational approach to per-
formance improvement.
TOPS Profile
10
Competence Consequence Communication Challenge Control

Confidence Commitment Culture Conflict Concentration
Positive CORE: A New Approach

to Performance Improvement
The other model is called Positive CORE.3 Let’s start with an anal-
ogy: Those of you who work with personal trainers or who work out
at health clubs know that a major focus of high-level fitness is to
have a strong core. The fitness industry defines your core as your
abdominal, hip, and back muscles, which basically support your
entire body. That’s why they have begun focusing on strengthening
the core for people who want to attain overall fitness.
The focus on building a strong CORE began over 20 years
ago, except it was to develop more “fit” business professionals. The
objective then, as it still is now, was to link performance interven-
tions and performance improvement to an enhancement process. I
started focusing on strengths back then, and I continue to focus on
them throughout this book. While I called the programs Perform-
ance Enhancement Programs at that time, instead of Positive
CORE, they were definitely the precursor to this new approach to
performance enhancement.
Reaching the TOP 79
Positive CORE is an approach to performance improvement

enhancement that was designed based on three areas: sport psy-
chology, positive psychology, and appreciative inquiry. With this
approach, performance consultants can identify the CORE ele-
ments of an individual performer that make him or her successful. It
involves all the stakeholders of an organization in an effort to
determine, define, and describe how the performance contributions
of individuals have led the organization to where it is, why and how
it functions as it does, and how it accomplishes what it does. Posi-
tive CORE then seeks to take the organization to another level of
performance by making it more effective, productive, and success-
ful in all areas by upgrading the current mental make-up, strengths,
and motivational involvement of its individual performers.
The primary focus of Positive CORE is to identify successes
and strengths rather than weaknesses and areas for improvements.
The emphasis is placed on those strengths to create a “multiplier
effect” so that they are increased and leveraged. The focus on the
positive puts people in a better frame of mind, motivates them more
to continue to achieve, and creates a virtuous cycle of success
seeking success.
The elements of the Positive CORE program for individual per-
formers are Confidence, Outcomes, Relationships, and Engage-
ment. Each of these elements are composed of sub-categories that
are identified in the Positive CORE Elements chart.
Positive CORE Elements

Confidence Outcomes Relationships Engagement
Self-esteem Objectives, Managers Commitment
expectations, and
reinforcements based
on adding value to
external clients
Strengths and Measurement and Friends and Emotions
talents evaluation and continual family
improvement
Reinforcements Results and returns: Social, Motivation and
and financial, personal, and professional, optimism
consequences society and
community
The Positive CORE program results in performance improve-

ment and performance enhancement because there is buy-in from
the performers (they are totally engaged), the focus on strengths
and previous successes creates an ongoing positive atmosphere in
which performance takes place, and the organization finds it easier
to implement the “new” performance culture because its people are
more motivated.
Positive CORE and Sales Success:

A Practical Example
Implementation of Positive CORE is very easy to accomplish, espe-
cially in a sales environment. We all know that sales success is
easily measured, sales strengths are easily identified, and the
psychobehavioral and motivational make-up of salespeople virtually
energizes them to constantly improve.
One organization with 175 salespeople found itself to be stag-
nant relative to its sales growth. The individual reps were doing as
well as in previous years, but no one was growing their share of the
business. As such, the company began handing out negative con-
sequences when reps did not meet daily objectives and quarterly
quotes. Still, performance did not improve, so the company put eve-
ryone through a standard sales training program. Again, there was
no measurable increase in performance. Obviously, what they were
doing was not achieving their desired results.
In helping out this company, we began the Positive CORE
process with the sales managers. After going through the four cate-
gories and their sub-categories (see the chart above), a clearer
picture emerged of the desired versus current culture of the organi-
zation, the strengths of its performers, when they were at their best,
who had the strongest relationships, who knew what was expected
of them, how they became engaged in a task, and how the com-
pany and the individuals defined sales excellence. This profile was
then described and taught to the rest of the sales force.
The initial results were encouraging as more sales reps started
hitting their numbers. The Positive CORE approach was expanded
to include work in the area of intrinsic motivation and development
of higher levels of self-confidence. This was then followed by a
unique sales training program that taught all the reps the principles
of psychobehavioral setting, influential communication (for both
Reaching the TOP 81
inside and outside the company), and the art of asking questions
and listening. These skills enhanced the existing strengths of the
sales force while simultaneously improving the CORE elements.
The result of the entire Positive CORE intervention was an
increase in sales (the measurement program is still ongoing), an
increase in the confidence of the sales reps as they engaged in
more client-centered behaviors, and a change in the corporate cul-
ture from internally competitive to cooperative.
Positive CORE and Performance Enhancement:

A Practical Management Example
A large healthcare organization was having difficulty achieving high
performance with one of its departments. Each of the managers
was well-trained and dedicated to the organization. Yet the depart-
ment as a whole only met their base objectives or performed slightly
below their baselines. This did not seem to make sense, so we
were asked to determine how to turn this group into high perform-
ers.
Positive CORE interviews were conducted and determined
that, while each of the managers possessed the competencies to
perform well, their performance objectives and expectations were
not clearly spelled out. The managers were sort of operating in the
dark without a scorecard because they did not have quantifiable
measurements (results) to shoot for. In addition, the department
head was the strong, silent type, until something went wrong. Then
he became very vocal and readily pointed out the mistakes his peo-
ple were making. This prevented the managers from being totally
engaged in their performances.
The interviews also uncovered the strengths of each of the
managers. It was suggested to the managers that they enumerate
their strengths to the department head, develop their own perform-
ance objectives and results measurements, and then present these
to the department head. Since the managers would own the per-
formance activities, their intrinsic motivation to perform and achieve
would likely increase. And it did. We convinced the department
head to let his managers “run with the ball” based on what they
created. His agreement helped the managers become even more
engaged in their attempts to enhance current performance levels
and improve whatever had to be improved.
The results were excellent. In three months, the entire depart-

ment had exceeded previous performance metrics and was con-
sistently outperforming their colleagues. The managers had taken
ownership of their performance requirements and were totally
responsible and accountable for their own consequences. This led
to constant engagement on their parts, and each manager became
a cheerleader for other managers. We also coached the department
head to praise his people when appropriate and to take a step back
and not jump on them when he saw them doing something wrong.
Most people know when they have made a mistake, and pointing it
out to them is not always necessary. Plus, when all you do is point
out mistakes without ever giving praise or positive reinforcement,
people will eventually be turned off by you. This is one of the rea-
sons we all know now that people work for companies, but they
leave managers.
The results of this Positive CORE approach led to increased
performances across the entire management team: a trickle-down
effect where employees increased performance, and the depart-
ment head underwent a change in leadership behavior. One year
following this approach, the department was the most profitable in
the healthcare organization, the department head was promoted to
senior vice president, and several of the managers became
department heads—all in all, not bad results for everyone involved.
Why Positive CORE Works

The reason Positive CORE works as an approach to performance
improvement is because it focuses on the positive aspects of per-
formance. You tell the performer where they are already good or
great and work with them to make them even better. This motivates
them to continue performing and improving (think of a parent who
used positive reinforcement to help their child learn to walk). Now a
virtuous cycle is created within the organization where everyone is
intent on getting better in addition to helping their colleagues
improve their performances.
Reaching the TOP 83
A New Paradigm of Thought for

Human Performance Technology (HPT)
Here is what we are suggesting, and these suggestions apply to the
individual, the organization, and our shared society. We must move
from a deficit/pathology model to a strengths/abundance model of
performance. We must move away from the improvement/interven-
tion approach, which is almost always perceived as negative by the
targeted performer, to an enhancement/engagement approach,
where the performer builds on his or her behavioral and emotional
strengths. We must also then work to reinforce the performance of
our top performers more so than those of our bottom performers.
We do most what we feel we do best. We perform at what we
get praised for, more than what we get paid for. Remember that
what gets rewarded gets repeated (both good and bad). So, it is
time for us to take a more positive approach to performance
improvement and do the following:
• Keep our current models and systems that work and apply
them in a new way.
• Identify the strengths of all our performers and work to
improve them.
• Focus on the top 20 percent of our performers and make
them even better.
• Engage all performers through praise, reinforcement, and
rewards.
• Take a positive approach, focus on the positive, and stay
positive.
• Stay focused on useful results for everyone.
• Keep the Ideal Vision in mind and make a positive impact
on society.
Benefits to the HPT Practitioner

Here are some ways that you, as an HPT practitioner, will benefit
from this new performance enhancement approach. First, you will
find it easier to work with your clients because they will be more
receptive to your suggestions. After all, you are no longer pointing
out where and why they are weak. You are helping them advance
their strengths. Second, economic buyers (CEOs, CFOs, etc.) will

be more likely to fund your efforts because they will see the quanti-
tative and qualitative results from their top performers. Every
executive wants all their people to do well, but they especially want
to get even more from their top producers because these people
are the greatest contributors. Finally, you will enjoy your work more
because you will have an easier path to do what you do best and
enjoy the most—helping people succeed. You will find that clients
are more receptive to you and that they will even welcome your
efforts. You will also find that you will be able to help them achieve
measurable success, prove to them they have been successful, and
enhance your own self-esteem because you are able to help others.
When you combine the positive approach to performance
enhancement and what it does for both the performer and the con-
sultant, with the level of results and the speed with which those
results are achieved thanks to the motivation and engagement of
the performers, you have a whole new paradigm for performance
consulting. You also have a way to more positively communicate
what you are offering and promising to achieve when you talk to
your clients. To paraphrase an old commercial, “Try Positive CORE,
you’ll like it.”
Endnotes
2. Daniels, A., (2000). Bringing out the best in people. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
4. See Gerson & Gerson, Positive performance improvement as well as

Gerson, R. F., (2004). A new paradigm of thought for HPT.
Performance Improvement, 43(9), 16–20.
Chapter 6
How to Be a High Performer
Every Day
Your success in everything you do is fundamentally up to you. As
you have read in previous chapters in this book, as well as in some
of the other books in this series, you choose what you do and what
you produce, and how you respond to your objectives and the con-
sequences of your actions. All these things are either a function of
motivation or a precursor to further motivation. You choose to take
action and complete a task, or you choose to do nothing, or you
even decide to fail. You choose to make your life and the world a
better place, or you decide (choose) to accept mediocrity. You, and
you alone, determine the drive, desire, and intensity you will bring to
every situation, and that has a significant influence on the results of
your action.
Many people want to be high performers, yet they are not will-
ing to do what it takes to achieve that lofty and satisfying status.
Practice, more practice, and still more practice that is focused on
your ideal objectives is essential. You’ve probably heard the
phrase, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes
perfect.” That is why you must also practice perfectly; otherwise
your performance will contain errors. No sense in practicing how to
perform a task incorrectly. Therefore, one of the things you must do
to become a consistent high performer is practice to high levels of
performance on a regular basis.
You must also establish your objectives for each task, as men-
tioned in a previous chapter. Again, this is easy to say and do and
sometimes harder to implement. Yet, you must establish measur-
able performance objectives so that you can tell how well you are
doing, both while you are performing and afterward. High perform-
ers in all fields do this on a regular basis, whereas average or
lower-than-average performers have no goals and objectives to
give them a sense of direction. If you think about one of your sig-
nature skills in which you almost always exhibit a high performance,
you will find that you have clear goals and objectives, you practice
your skills prior to performing, and you are confident that you will do
well. Conversely, when you compare yourself to an average per-
former, you will probably find that they do not do the same things
you do. They might only do one thing differently, or they might do
many things differently. In any case, their performance lags behind

yours.
If you are involved in an individual competition, your opponent’s
sub-par performance will work to your benefit. However, if you are
part of a team, work group, or organization, as most of us are, your
results may be partially dependent on the results of these inferior
performers. This would then require you to help them achieve the
status of a high performer. The questions become: “How will you do
that?” “How can all of us become high performers on a regular
basis?”
Motivational Style and High Performance

Over the past 30 years, I have noticed in my work with performers
at all levels that each of us has a preferred motivational style. Simi-
lar to behavioral and communication styles, our motivational style
identifies us and affects our performances. Using the work of Rotter
in locus of control and Vroom in expectancies of success as a basis
for this concept, our motivational style can be described as either
inner or outer directed, and either positive or negative in approach
(Vroom calls this valence).1 The figure below shows the quadrants
of motivational style.
Outer Negative: Outer Positive:

Outer Expresses self-criticism, Pumps self up vocally, gives
Direction negative self-talk, and anger self positive reinforcement,
verbally and with actions. and gets the same from
others.
Inner Negative: Inner Positive:

Talks to self in negative or Uses affirmations and silent
Inner
critical manner, berates self positive self talk, doesn’t
Direction
for mistakes, and feeds off require anyone else to pump
this negative energy. him- or herself up.
Negative Positive
Valence Valence
How to Be a High Performer Every Day 87
A little explanation of each style is in order now. First, be aware

that while you may think either of the two positive valence styles is
better to motivate someone to achieve a high performance, that is
actually not the case. There are many people who use negatives to
motivate themselves. We have seen this with athletes in all types of
sports, both team and individual. We also see it with professional
speakers who use one of the negative motivational styles to pump
themselves up before a speech. Using the positive styles, regard-
less of direction, seems to be the intuitive and logical choice for
motivating high performers. But, if you take the time to think about
it, you will be able to identify many situations where someone, even
yourself, used self-criticism or anger as motivation to achieve a high
performance.
Outer Negative people are expressive. They talk about their
negativity, and then even yell at themselves to get themselves
going. They will put themselves down out loud, curse themselves,
and say anything and everything they can think of (in a negative
manner) to psych themselves up for the performance. Inner Nega-
tive people do exactly the same thing, but they do it quietly, sub-
vocally. They appear to be in control of their emotions and their
actions because they do not express themselves to any degree that
someone can observe, yet their internal dialog is negative. Again,
this is simply their motivational style. It is neither good nor bad as a
style, as long as it results in a high performance.
Outer Positive people are also expressive. They talk about their
positive attitudes, their positive self-esteem, and their confidence to
motivate themselves. They may also yell and scream, but they are
saying positive things. They love to hear reinforcements for past
accomplishments, and when they don’t hear it from other people,
they tell it to themselves out loud. They actually vocalize their affir-
mations. The Internal Positives do the same things in their own
quiet manner.
Remember, no one style is better or worse than the others. No
one style is more preferred than the others. As long as the style you
select helps you achieve a consistently high level of performance at
whatever you do, then that style is right for you. Now, someone
might say that the negative styles are pessimistic. This is definitely
not true. Your motivational style differs from your attitude of opti-
mism or pessimism. You can pump yourself up negatively and still
be very optimistic about your outcome. How you get psyched up is
up to you. Remember, we are talking about a motivational approach
here (valence or direction), not attitude. Performers can have a

positive or negative attitude with any of the motivational styles. So
which quadrant do you fit into most of the time when you achieve
high performance?
Next Steps to Being a High Performer

Every book in this series provides you with a systematic and
results-focused process to achieve a useful objective. With that in
mind, the rest of this chapter will provide you with ten steps you can
take to ensure that you achieve high performance in whatever you
do. These steps will be described in one possible order. Remember
that since each performer is different, you could possibly, and
probably would, alter the order to best fit their approach. The ten
steps are:
x Know and commit to your Mega (your Ideal Vision).
x Ensure that your mission (individual and organizational) is
clear and related to Mega.
x Affirm your own self-esteem repeatedly (use positive self-
talk and optimism).
x Create and maintain confidence (believe you can achieve
and reinforce success).
x Establish measurable performance objectives and expec-
tations of success.
x Capitalize on your strengths (review the TOPS model in
Chapter 5).
x Raise the bar in future performances (make excellence
your average).
x Help others achieve their Mega first.
x Embrace and manage change (keep what works well,
change everything else).
x Go with your flow (do what you love and challenge your-
self).
Know Your Mega

You may read in other books in this series about the importance of
having an Ideal Vision and making sure you are adding value to
society, not subtracting value from it. Many times, Mega is related
to what an organization or larger group (government, charity, etc.)
can do to positively impact society. From a motivational standpoint,
individuals can also have an Ideal Vision. This will serve to motivate
them when they perform any task. For example, my personal Mega
or Ideal Vision is that we will live in a world where everyone will be
successful and happy, based on how they individually and inde-
pendently define success and happiness. This Ideal Vision is with
me every day, and it motivates me in whatever I do. When I coach
executives, salespeople, or athletes, I am working toward learning
about their definitions of success and happiness. When I play bas-
ketball, I do whatever I can to make my teammates successful and
winners. I even coach them while we are on the court to help them
perform better. My belief is that if I can help them be successful and
happy in one situation (business, sports, family life), they will pay it
forward in their next situation.
We have also witnessed this in our communities where
neighbors have developed neighborhood watch programs to keep
everyone safe. We also witnessed it in our responses to natural and
man-made disasters where strangers began contributing and
pitching in to help those less fortunate. The Ideal Vision of a “well
society” where everyone is self-sufficient and self-reliant is what
motivates people to do these things. For the individuals who make
contributions, you can be sure they feel successful and happy
because they are able to help.
Here is a challenge for you: On the next page, write down your
personal Mega or Ideal Vision statement. I know you’ve done this
already in previous chapters, but now your knowledge of objective
setting and establishing a motivating Ideal Vision has increased.
You will definitely be able to do a better job this time around. So
consider how you can make the world/society a better and/or more
perfect place. Consider how whatever you do, use, produce, and
accomplish contributes to achieving your Ideal Vision. When you do
this, you will also find that your mission and purpose in life become
very clear.
My Mega statement or Ideal Vision is:
Ensure a Clear Mission Related to Mega

Every performer should have their own individual, as well as
organizational (if you are part of a larger group), mission statement.
Without getting into the why’s and how’s of forming mission state-
ments, let’s just agree that your mission statement and your pur-
pose are the same. Based on my Ideal Vision (mentioned above),
my mission or purpose is to provide methods, programs, and
opportunities to help people become successful and happy. I do this
through my coaching, training, and consulting programs. I also
provide people with books to read, create opportunities to learn (by
serving as an advisor to college interns), contribute time and money
to charities, and serve as a role model for others. My mis-
sion/purpose, which is clearly related to my Mega and readily com-
municated so that everyone understands it, is the driving force in
my business, my family, and all my relationships.
What are you doing to create your mission statement and relate
it to your Mega? If you don’t have your own Mega or Ideal Vision,
and you would like to borrow one, please refer to book 1 in this
series and use the Ideal Vision statement written there. It talks
about a better and safer world for tomorrow’s child. How can you
adapt that to fit your purpose in life? What can you do to make it
your personal mission, both individually and as part of an organiza-
tion, to make this world a better place for your children, grandchil-
dren, and everyone else? This is what will motivate you to get up in
the morning and to do the best you can do at whatever task you
take on, to push yourself to achieve those audacious goals and
objectives, and to help you persevere in the face of adversity. When
your mission/purpose is clearly related to your Mega, your level of
confidence while performing goes up, your ability to overcome
obstacles increases, and your resilience to perform despite stress,
challenges, and barriers also increases. On the next page, write
down your mission or purpose statement and make sure it relates to

the positive impact you want to have on society.
My mission/purpose statement is:
Affirm Your Self-Esteem

Positive affirmations (statements about who a person is, what they
do, what they produce, and results they commit to achieve) make
people feel better about themselves. Affirmations are closely related
to optimism, autosuggestion, and positive self-talk. The statements
you make to yourself actually pump you up for the task ahead.
Affirmations also help you develop a positive mental attitude. All this
leads to higher self-esteem and greater self-confidence. Here are
some affirmations you can use:
x I’m okay. I’m a good person.
x I love my family and myself.
x Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.
x My success in life is dependent upon how many other
people I help be successful.
x The more I give to people, the more I receive in return.
x Helping people without expecting anything in return leads
to true satisfaction.
x I add value to the success of myself and others who I can
affect.
x I am a great person (business owner, employee, father,
husband, wife, mother, parent, brother, sister, cousin,
athlete, etc.).
Now, what other affirmations can you create that are specific to you
or your situation? One that I help my clients develop refers to peak
performance. It is: “I am a peak performer in everything that I do.”
This simple statement, repeated at least three times a day every
day, convinces your mind that you are truly that peak performer you
are talking about. Then, when you go into any situation, you will
have the confidence and the expectation that you will perform at a
high level.
Optimists use affirmations to keep their spirits up and their
motivation high. They consider good things that happen to them as
permanent and personal, meaning they expect those good things to
happen again, and they take responsibility for them happening.
Pessimists believe that good things are fleeting or a matter of luck,
and they take no responsibility for the results. This is also one of the
major differences in confidence levels of performers, which we will
discuss in the next section. Finally, optimists outperform pessimists
in a variety of situations, including sports, sales, academics, and
relationships. Think about it: Do you want to be around people with
negative attitudes who see the world darkly, or do you want to be
with people who are positive and find the good in everything they
and you do?
Here are 20 tips for you to build your self-esteem that will then
increase your optimism, self-confidence, and motivation to perform
well:
x Know your strengths and weaknesses.
x Know your limitations.
x Be happy and satisfied with yourself and your personal life.
x Be happy and satisfied with your work life.
x Look forward to each day for the adventure and challenge
it brings.
x Count your blessings; focus on what you have.
x Love yourself and your family.
x Help others, especially by adding value to their lives and
our shared society.
x Believe in yourself and your ability to accomplish things.
x Believe that you have the power to control your life.
x Commit to a life of continuous self-improvement.
x Think positively and speak positively.
x Associate with positive people.
x Expect yourself to be the best you can be.
x Reward and reinforce yourself for successes.

x Take risks that you feel comfortable with, then expand your
boundaries.
x Failure and losing are lessons to be learned on the road to
success.
x Know that you are always trying to be the best you can be,
and that is enough.
x Do good and nice things for yourself, things that make you
feel good about yourself.
x Tell yourself every day that you have a high level of self-
esteem, and then go out and do things that support this
affirmation.
Create and Maintain Confidence

Confidence is one of the most important factors in high perform-
ance. Anyone who believes he or she is capable of achieving
something great often outperforms his or her counterparts. Confi-
dence is a major factor in winning streaks, playing in the zone,
defeating a superior opponent, achieving high grades in school,
running a successful business, maintaining a successful relation-
ship, and any other activity you can think of. Lack of confidence
also contributes to losing streaks, poor performance, and self-
doubt. A person with confidence maintains a positive and optimistic
attitude toward life, while a person who lacks confidence often
becomes a pessimist and a defeatist.
Confidence levels also affect our belief systems, and vice
versa. What we believe often determines what we achieve. People
have a tendency to subscribe to a set of enabling beliefs related to
a situation or a set of disabling beliefs. Use the job aid on the next
page to write down your enabling and disabling (if any) beliefs in
each of the motivational/performance areas.
The more enabling beliefs you have in an area, the more confi-
dence you will also have. One way to do this is to use your affirma-
tions to verbally create an artificial environment in your mind where
you start to believe you will achieve and succeed. Then, eventually,
you will become successful, and your belief system will remain
positive, confident, and optimistic.
Self-Limiting and Enabling Beliefs

Everyone has a right to be successful in whatever they choose and
they can be. Some people, though, never seem to achieve success.
That’s because they have some beliefs that hold them back.
Beliefs are what motivate us to act or not act in a given situa-
tion. Beliefs help us make choices and decisions. Beliefs can either
be disabling or enabling. Obviously, successful people work from a
set of enabling beliefs.
In the columns below, fill in your disabling/self-limiting beliefs
and enabling beliefs for the ten areas of success. Be as specific
and descriptive as possible. When you finish this exercise, you
should have a comprehensive list of what holds you back from
achieving your goals, dreams, and objectives in each area of your
life.
Life Area Disabling Beliefs Enabling Beliefs
Mental
Emotional
Physical
Personal
Professional
Family
Community
Financial
Social/Society
Spiritual
Establish Measurable Performance Objectives

and Expectations of Success
This point is so critical to your becoming a high performer that it
must be repeated. We talked about this in Chapter 3, and we men-
tioned expectations of success again earlier in this chapter. Per-
formance objectives must be established for everything you want to
accomplish. These objectives must be SMARTER and they must go
beyond the basics. They must also specify the results you will
achieve, how you will measure your achievements, and what your
expectancy or probability of success will be. For example, you
would not make a measurable performance objective of becoming a
millionaire if you had only a 5 percent expectation of success, you
were not willing to put in the time and effort to become a millionaire,
and you did not know the things you had to do to achieve this
objective. On the other hand, you would make a measurable per-
formance objective of becoming a millionaire if you had an 85 per-
cent or higher expectation of success, you were willing to make,
save, and invest the money it takes to achieve millionaire status,
and you were willing to continuously improve yourself so that you
could more easily achieve this “high performance” level.
In book 1 of this series, Kaufman talks a great deal about
measurable performance objectives and the importance of aligning
these objectives with your Mega, Macro, and Micro levels of results,
consequences, and payoffs. He emphasizes how important this is
for strategic thinking and planning. In addition, he talks about how
we must establish our performance objectives and consequences
so that we have a positive impact on our shared society. These
same principles are also extremely important for self-motivation and
high performance. You have to know where you are going, how you
are going to get there, what to expect while you are going, and how
you’ll know when you get there, because all this affects your belief
systems and confidence for achieving high performance. The link
between individual motivation for achieving high performance and
strategic planning becomes very clear when you consider aligning
performance objectives for both areas.
The link is also strengthened when you add the psychological
attribute of expectancies of success. There is a great deal of
research in both the motivation and performance realms to support
the position that a person’s expectation of success on a given task
strongly affects the outcome of that task as well as influences the
expectations for success and willingness to perform the task again

in the future. (See the Vroom citation in endnote #1 in this chapter.)
When objectives are aligned with expectations, confidence
increases and so does performance, both on current and future
tasks.
Capitalize on Your Strengths

A great deal of research has recently been published by the Gallup
organization talking about motivational and performance strengths.
Their research supports the conclusion that people perform better
when they focus on their strengths, rather than their weaknesses.2
This relates to the TOPS model described in Chapter 5, which helps
performers identify their top motivational strength areas. Further-
more, think about what you would rather do: something you are
good at or something you are bad at. The answer is obvious: We all
prefer to perform in areas we are good at.
It is true that sometimes we will have to do something that does
not play to our strengths. It is then up to us to work to improve our
weaknesses, to a degree. In the long run, though, we all are more
effective when we use our strengths. For example, you would not
expect a 5’1” basketball player to play center in the NBA, nor would
you expect a person who could not dance to enter competitive
dance contests. You would also not ask a person lacking in artistic
talent to draw or paint something for you, nor would you ask a car-
penter to perform brain surgery. This is not denigrating to what
some people do; it is just pointing out that we all have certain
strengths that we should play to.
In actuality, we are better off enhancing our strengths than sim-
ply working to improve our weaknesses. This is an area that
requires more research in performance improvement. Most of our
models and interventions find a weakness or gap (cf. Kaufman’s
definition of a true need—a measurable gap between current and
desired results) and then determine or develop an intervention to
improve the problems and/or close the gap. We have to take a dif-
ferent, yet related, approach, and this approach is now being pro-
moted in the fields of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry.
The approach is to find where and when a performer does well (his
or her strengths) and then help that performer enhance those
strengths. The premise, and it makes great sense, is that the
increased performance based on strengths will more than make up
for the original gap, and it will also bring along any other weak-
nesses that may have existed. A strengths adjustment will result in
more and more high performances than anything else. Also, playing
to your strengths raises your self-esteem, self-confidence, and
expectations of future and ongoing success.
One other point must be made: After you have worked with and
enhanced a performer’s strengths, you may still find that some
areas for improvement exist. Now is the time to work on them and
identify the appropriate intervention that will close the performance
gap. Like anything else, if you are looking for a weakness to work
on and try to improve, you are likely to find one. You may be work-
ing on the wrong thing at the wrong time. Consider the story below
as a metaphor for this point. Both approaches begin with a gap
between your current results and consequences and your desired
results and consequences. This suggested approach is about per-
sonal motivation and the personal decision to be successful. It is
one way to choose to close gaps in results.
A man was hacking his way through the jungle with a machete.
He was making great progress cutting down and through the
bushes. After a while, he came upon a man who asked him what he
was doing and where he was going. The man with the machete said
he was obviously cutting a path through the jungle and he was
going to the City of Gold that would appear at the end of the path.
The stranger said to him that it was obvious he was cutting a great
path through the jungle, but if he was going to the City of Gold, he
was in the wrong jungle. The moral of the story is that you should
not work hard at being good at the wrong things (always starting
with weaknesses). But if you work on strengths first, you will always
be working on something that is right and that will have a positive
effect on future performances and results.
Raise the Bar in Future Performances

High performers are never satisfied with ordinary performance.
They are continually seeking to improve their performances. They
have set their objectives at certain levels, and they raise them on a
regular basis. It doesn’t matter to them how you measure their
performance (in dollars, in hundredths of a second, in shareholder
value, in ratios, or in society impact). What is important to them is
that there is some sort of scoreboard they can use to measure their
performance, reward themselves when they achieve the desired
level, and then raise the bar for the next performance. High per-
formers are not afraid of striving for excellence, actualizing superior
performance, or reaching the pinnacle of success. In fact, that is
one of the things that keeps them motivated to continue performing.
High performers know that average and very good is not good
enough. Excellence—success—must be the baseline for what you
do and achieve. High performers are always seeking to raise the
bar. They always want to get better. Even when they do well, but
not excellently, they are not satisfied. They seem to have a bigger
version of what they want to accomplish than their average or nor-
mal performing counterparts. If it is possible to make this concep-
tual leap, you might say that high performers know their Mega and
the impact they are going to achieve and to have on society and
external clients, while other performers are focused on individual
and/or average achievements.
Help Others Achieve Their Mega

This is an adaptation of a concept you will hear if you’ve ever lis-
tened to a motivational speaker. The concept states that you can
achieve more of what you want out of life if you just help others get
what they want first. Basically, this means that you help others
achieve their goals and objectives first, and then they, and many
others, will help you achieve what you want.
I have extended this concept here, and the leap makes intuitive
sense. As a high performer, you have already defined your Ideal
Vision for yourself and/or your organization. You know the impact
that achieving your Ideal Vision will have on external clients and
society. You strive every day to make your Mega a reality. Now,
take the time to help people around you define and identify their
Mega. While Kaufman in book 1 in this series writes about society
and a “perfect world,” many people have difficulty, at first, under-
standing a concept that global. So when I coach high performers
and people striving to be high performers, I help them define “their
Mega—the value they can add to our shared society.” This adapta-
tion of Kaufman’s concept actually works very well for individuals as
they perform in their own and their organization’s reality. I advise
clients to help the people they interact with to identify and achieve
their own Mega. Then, these people will, in return, help the original
high performer continually improve and achieve high levels of per-
formance.
If we are all striving to improve our shared society, then we

should all help each other achieve our Mega. This collaboration and
cooperation could lead to never-before-seen levels of performance
at all levels and in all areas. And what would happen if we had a
society of high performers, all striving to help each other achieve
their Mega?
Embrace and Manage Change

High performers love change. They love the fact that change makes
them better. They know that in order to continuously improve, they
have to keep what works and change everything else. When I train
and coach sales professionals, I teach them that if they keep getting
the same objection during the same part of their sales presentation,
then they have to change the presentation. It is not working the way
it should. That is unless they are using the objection as a pre-
planned springboard to facilitate making the sale. But in most
cases, they will have to make a change and keep everything else
that is working.
High performers also know that what has worked in the past
might not work in the present or the future. That is why they are
always looking to improve. They practice their skills regularly. Ath-
letes, musicians, dancers, etc., practice daily. Business profession-
als should also practice their skills daily, in addition to doing their
job. This way, they can refine their skills, get better at identifying
what works well and what doesn’t work well, and make the appro-
priate changes.
Change, almost always, is good. Nothing improves or gets bet-
ter without changes being made. You’ve probably heard that people
don’t like change. That is not at all true. People, and high perform-
ers especially, like change. Some even love and embrace change.
They just don’t want to be forced to change. Change will occur
when the motivation or pain of staying the same is greater than the
pain of changing. Smokers are an excellent example. When the
pain of staying a smoker is greater (such as dying from lung cancer)
than the pain of being a non-smoker (not having cigarettes to
enjoy), smokers will quit smoking. They will change. After a while,
they will even embrace the change. The same is true for high per-
formers in any field. They are constantly looking for ways to get
better and willingly make the necessary changes.
Go with the Flow

We have all heard of the concept of flow.3 It is that one time during
a performance where everything is working perfectly. You are in the
zone. Everything you do is easy. You are immersed in the activity,
and you are not even thinking about what you are doing or the
results. The right things are just happening. You are physically and
mentally challenged, you are mindful of what you are doing without
being critical of yourself, and you seem to have stepped into a time
warp where everything slows down as you perform at the highest
levels. You are doing what you love and it is working out perfectly
for you.
You are into your performance. Just go with the flow. Let it hap-
pen. Don’t over-analyze it. Don’t critique it. And don’t start to won-
der about it. Just let it continue to happen. You know where you are
headed and why you want to get there. How and when you get
there (achieve your objective) is up to you. Your results can and will
be amazing and the feelings of self-esteem and self-confidence that
you get when you are successful are truly great. On the other side
of the coin, if you ever want to interrupt someone’s flow or peak
performance, ask them this question: “How, specifically, are you
doing exactly what you are doing today?” They will begin to think
about it and their performance will deteriorate. Now, that’s just for
fun. High performers don’t do that gamesmanship thing. They are
only focused on their own high performance. They know that to
continue being a high performer, they must maintain the proper
attitude, challenge themselves while they do what they love, and
keep their motivation high.
A Review
Once again, here are the ten steps you must follow to become a
high performer and to maintain your status as a high performer.
Adapt, adopt, and modify these into your mental and behavioral
skills repertoire and you will find yourself achieving your objectives,
performing at the highest levels possible, and motivating yourself to
continually improve.
x Know and commit to your Mega (the Ideal Vision: the value
you will add to our shared society on your way to personal
success).
x Ensure that your mission (individual and organizational) is

clear and related to Mega.
x Affirm your own self-esteem repeatedly (use positive self-
talk and optimism).
x Create and maintain confidence (believe you can achieve
and reinforce success).
x Establish measurable performance objectives and expec-
tations of success.
x Capitalize on your strengths (review the TOPS model in
Chapter 5).
x Raise the bar in future performances (make excellence
your average).
x Help others achieve their Mega first (and we all become
successful).
x Embrace and manage change (keep what works well,
change everything else).
x Go with your flow (do what you love and challenge your-
self).
Endnotes
1. Rotter, J. B., (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus
external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80.
(Whole No. 609). Also Vroom, V., (1994). Work and motivation. San
2. A series of books by the Gallup organization talks about how a focus

on a performer’s strength has a powerful effect on high performance.
The series includes: Buckingham, M., & Coffman, C., (1999). First,
break all the rules. New York: Simon & Shuster; Buckingham, M., &
Clifton, D., (2001). Now discover your strengths. New York: Free
Press; and Buckingham, M., (2005). The one thing you need to know.
New York: Free Press; and several others.
3. See, again, Csikszentmihalyi, M., (1990). Flow. New York: Harper.

Chapter 7
Guaranteeing High Performance
We’ve covered a variety of ways to become a high performer as
well as to maintain your status as a high performer. We’ve covered
motivating yourself and motivating others; how to plan to achieve
high performance; the relationship between performance, motiva-
tion, and emotions; the different types of motivation that may spur
you to achieve high performance; the relationship between high
performance and Mega planning; and how high performance affects
you as an individual, your organization, and society. We’ve also
presented several models to help you more effectively achieve high
performance. And a blueprint was provided in the previous chapter
on ten ways to motivate yourself to be a high performer every day—
to achieve success every day.
This final chapter will tie everything together for you. It will help
you achieve and become what many professionals are afraid to go
out on a limb to say—you can virtually guarantee high performance
every time. This chapter will teach you how to guarantee that you
will be a high performer all or most of the time. It will also tie
together some of the concepts from the other books in this series.
After all, while this book is able to stand alone to help you become a
high performer, the principles and ideas in this book are much
stronger when it is read and viewed as part of a system—the six-
pack series of these books.
A Reminder about Obstacles

Let’s go back and take a look again at some of the obstacles to
achieving high performance. We begin where most people begin—
with a needs analysis. This is a mistake because you cannot ana-
lyze a performance requirement (a need you choose to reduce or
eliminate) until you have determined which needs you have
selected to deal with and thus require analyzing. If this sounds cir-
cuitous, let me explain. You must first begin with a needs assess-
ment, which is the determination of the existence of a need (a
measurable gap between the results you get now and those results
you want to accomplish). Once you have determined one or more
performance needs, you then prioritize which ones you will work on.
Then, and only then, you conduct the needs analysis. You use the
analysis to learn what is causing the gap in results between what
the current performance is achieving and what the results of the

desired performance should be. So to overcome one of the first
obstacles to guaranteeing high performance, you have to know
where to start in relation to where you want to go and why you want
to go there.
Another obstacle is incorrectly assuming that the system, or
parts of the system, is flawed. The HPT model (even though it is
linear and somewhat limited) has you systematically analyze vari-
ous possible causes of a performance gap and then create an
appropriate intervention to close that gap in results. This works in
many cases, but it still does not guarantee high performance. You
have got to carefully and thoroughly analyze the performer who is
involved in this situation. Many times, the tools, resources, and
environment are appropriate for optimal performance. Yet, the per-
formance is still below par or expectations. The reason is that
something is going on inside the performer and we do not pay
enough attention to the effect this has on the results of a perform-
ance.1
A third obstacle, and one that we have already talked about in
this book, is goal setting, or more specifically, objective setting. Too
many people set goals that are incorrectly worded. Goals such as “I
will increase my sales” or “I will make fewer errors in my perform-
ance” are not very effective. They are not true performance objec-
tives because they have no measurement component embedded in
them. They talk about process and do not focus on results and pay-
offs. These goals are more global statements. In order to be truly
effective and influence performance, goal statements must be made
quantifiable. They must become performance objectives. They have
to state where you are headed and how to tell when you have
arrived. For example, “I will increase my sales” becomes “I will
increase my sales and the related profit for my organization by at
least 10 percent by the end of the second quarter,” and “I will make
fewer errors in my performance” becomes “I will perform with 100
percent accuracy every time.” The performance objective includes
both the measurement component and the time component. Notice,
though, that it does not consider the “how” component—the meth-
ods or processes you will use to achieve the objective. That is
because once you specify a method, you might be excluding all
other possible avenues for achievement.2 So make sure you clearly
and specifically state what you will achieve and by when. You will
Guaranteeing High Performance 105
become even more effective if you can also state how you will
achieve the desired results.
One final obstacle is the lack of a holistic approach to perform-
ance improvement. When we follow the conventional HPT model
and the standards promoted by ISPI, we have a foundation for our
work. However, these building blocks are still somewhat self-
limiting. The model is too linear and the standards are not explicit or
definitive enough. Plus, they leave out the most important part of
the equation, and that is the person doing the performance. A more
holistic approach would involve analyzing not only the external fac-
tors that affect the performance, but also an analysis and identifica-
tion of the internal factors, such as the performer’s motivation,
mindset, and attitudes toward the performance.3 We must be more
personal in our work and not so mechanistic (systems oriented and
unfeeling) when we help people achieve high performance.
Ten Ways to Guarantee High Performance

Here are ten things you can do to guarantee high performance.
While they can be done in the order I present them here, several of
them can be mixed and matched. If you want to achieve high per-
formance virtually every time you do something, then you should
follow these recommendations as closely as possible.
Properly Identify Performance Gaps

Every performance intervention starts with a gap analysis. You
have read about what to do and how to do it in several of the other
books in this series. Just the fact that it is mentioned and covered
so often should give you a hint to its vital importance. Yet, perform-
ance consultants jump into this activity often with preconceived
notions. They have a solution or an intervention idea in mind, and
they make the gap analysis support that idea. They jump from
unwarranted assumptions to foregone conclusions. This is incorrect
and inappropriate. If you’ve already identified a solution, all you are
doing is searching for a problem that the solution will solve. We
must properly identify performance gaps by conducting an appro-
priate needs assessment. Kaufman discusses the approach in
detail in book 1 of this series, so it does not have to be repeated
here. The important point about properly conducting a needs analy-
sis is to determine what is causing the gap, why it is existing, who
(including society) is affected by this gap, what performer factors
are also contributing to this gap, and what the consequences are of
ignoring the existence of the gap. There are many ways to collect
the data for this needs assessment (again, see book 1 by Kaufman
for a whole host of data collection tools as well as book 6 by
Guerra). The key is to collect the data objectively and then properly
identify any and all needs (measurable gaps in performance results)
that must be addressed.
You can use the HPT model as a guide for you to conduct this
needs assessment and gap analysis. Because of its limitations, you
should also use the investigative models described by Kaufman in
book 1 of this series to give you a broad picture of the situation.
Complete the causal analysis as described in the HPT model to
give you an external look at some of the contributing issues. And
follow the recommendations of the TOPS model in this book as well
as the performer analysis recommendations (see Chapter 4 in this
book to review the MASTERY acronym as a foundation for a per-
former analysis) to carefully and comprehensively complete the
needs assessment.
You must make an accurate determination of the needs to be
addressed and the gaps to be closed before you can do anything
about guaranteeing high performance.
Identify the Main Performance Problem

and Link to Mega
Once you’ve completed the needs assessment, you must select the
most important need or problem to be solved. This should be the
one that has the most significant effect on the performance results
as well as everyone involved with or affected by the performance.
You do not want to select the “wrong” problem to work on. For
example, think about a time when you had to check into a hotel.
Perhaps the desk clerk did not smile at you or greet you warmly
upon your arrival. And perhaps the clerk was a little slow with the
computer. As a guest, which less-than-stellar performance compo-
nent would bother you more? Most people, after a trip and upon
arrival at a hotel, prefer to be greeted warmly and made to feel wel-
come. I know I do, yet hotel management might incorrectly perceive
the problem as this desk clerk not being as fast on the computer as
other clerks. So they would train this person to speed up data entry.
Now the clerk would be as fast on the computer as others, but
would still be a grouch. Do you want this person to serve you?
This is a very simple example, yet it clearly describes selecting

a wrong performance intervention and throwing it at the wrong
problem. Let’s play it out a little further and I’ll show you how this
simple act of smiling and warmly greeting a new guest also links to
Mega.
First, typing in a guest’s name quickly and correctly on the hotel
reservations computer will in no way affect the organization or
society. In fact, most guests prefer that the information goes into the
system correctly so that their bills will be correct. I know when I
travel, accuracy on the clerk’s part is very important to me. It is
more important than the speed of data entry. Now, a smile and a
warm greeting from the desk clerk can do wonders for a weary
traveler. If that person smiles at me and makes me feel good about
being there, then there is an excellent chance that I will pay it for-
ward. I will probably smile back at the clerk, be polite as I wait for
my key, and be in a better mood when I meet other people in and
around the hotel. The more people I affect positively makes me feel
better, and they too will feel better. So now they go out and are
positive toward people they meet. If you take this example to its
logical conclusion, everyone is spreading the smile and positive
feelings toward everyone else, all because the desk clerk smiled at
me and greeted me in a pleasant manner.
So the problem is not typing in data too slowly. It is smiling and
communicating warmth to a guest. I’m sure you can think of your
own examples like this one. They may even be more complex and
you’ll still be able to extend them to see the link to Mega. The key
here is to properly identify the problem, figure out the appropriate
intervention, determine how you will measure successful achieve-
ment, and link the desired result to Mega.
You may be wondering why there is this big push about linking
to Mega if you’re trying to guarantee high performance. The answer
is simple and clear: All performers want to have an impact based on
what they do. Surveys of employees have shown that when
employees know that their work has a positive impact on some
segment of their organization, their customers, and our shared
society, they are more engaged, involved, and committed to doing a
better job each time. The same is true with any person who is striv-
ing to be a high performer. The larger the scope of the impact they
are trying to achieve, the more motivated they will be to perform at
the highest levels. Give someone something great to strive for, and
they will more often than not surprise you with the results.
Match the Task to the Performer’s Strengths

This point is so important to high performance that I am repeating it
again. It is a little bit of a twist on typical performance improvement
work. I know you will agree that most of our work consists of finding
a gap in performance and then creating an intervention to close that
gap. Basically, we are looking for a weakness and then trying to
figure out a way to overcome that weakness. This happens all the
time in organizations with annual performance reviews where a
manager evaluates an employee and suggests areas for improve-
ment, works with them to develop a performance improvement plan,
and then comes back at a later date to evaluate the hopefully
improved level of performance. This focus on weakness or areas for
improvement can have a negative effect on a person’s motivation to
perform. Think about it for yourself. How many times will you want
to hear what you are doing wrong or below expectations before you
either give up, retire on the job, or stop doing the task completely?
What if we took a different approach? What if we conducted our
needs assessment and gap analysis to determine a person’s
strengths for closing gaps in results and then how to make those
strengths even stronger? Think about how you feel after you’ve
completed a task that you did well and people compliment you. You
feel very good about yourself and you’re motivated to go out and
perform that task again. You’re probably even motivated to do a
better job next time you perform. And, as long as you are allowed to
continue playing to your strengths, you will keep at the task (some-
times losing sense of time—what has been called the flow experi-
ence).
There is considerable support for this strengths approach to
performance. The Gallup organization has done extensive research
on the benefits of this approach,4 and it is also supported by the
fields of positive psychology and sport psychology.5 The common
result from all this research is that when a performer’s strengths are
matched to a given task, performer motivation and commitment
increase and performance results meet or exceed objectives and
expectations. Then future performances are also completed at
higher levels of achievement. Basically, a strengths-based
approach to performance enhancement enables everyone to keep
raising the bar.
The recommendation here for guaranteeing high performance
is two-fold. When you have to identify a performance weakness or
gap, do so appropriately and initiate the correct intervention. Take

into account the performer, the performance, and all the factors that
can affect the results. You should, however, consider “forgetting”
about the weaknesses and find the performer’s strengths. Then
match those strengths to the proper tasks, and you’ll see a consis-
tent uptick in performance. You will also find that the performer per-
sists at the task over time until that high level of results is achieved.
You can conclude that this performer is motivated to perform
because of this persistence over time, and that the motivation of the
performer played a role in reducing or eliminating the selected need
(because the gap in results has now been closed or eliminated).
Here are a couple of examples. Let’s say you’re a golfer whose
short game is very good. You chip and putt well, and you can get up
and down from bunkers with the best of them. You are only an
average driver, yet you are fairly accurate. You have to play each
round to your strengths. It will do no good to determine that a gap
exists between your current driving ability and hitting it 300 yards,
even though this is a measurable gap. If you work on increasing
your drives, you might add some distance, but at the expense of
your short game. It might be that you are not physically equipped to
drive the ball far. Your ability to become a consistently long driver
might be limited by your skill set, physical status, and mindset. If we
keep trying to get you to drive the ball farther, and you continue to
fail, you will eventually become discouraged and might even stop
playing golf. However, if we work on your strengths, your game will
constantly improve and you will be a high performer. Your motiva-
tion and self-esteem will remain high, and you will be committed to
getting even better at golf because you are playing to your
strengths. This will also enable you to relate what you are doing and
how you are doing it to the whole golf event, not just its individual
tasks or parts. And, a strengths focus leads to a focus on winning,
which, when reinforced by successful performances, raises motiva-
tion and self-esteem.
Here is another example from one of my past clients. The solu-
tion appears to be so simple, yet the organization could not see the
forest for the trees. This company had a receptionist whose great-
est strength was dealing with numbers, not people. She was
extremely detailed oriented, and people were an intrusion on her
day. Yet she was kept at the front desk as the receptionist. The
more she had to deal with the people coming in, the grumpier she
got. Her supervisor coached and counseled her, but to no avail.
This receptionist was in a bad match situation between her

strengths and her task. My advice was simply to put her in a back
office job where she could deal with details and numbers and to get
a new receptionist who loved people. The company took my advice,
and everyone’s performance was elevated. The original receptionist
became a valued employee who stayed with the company until her
retirement, and her performance evaluations were all highly rated
once she moved to the back office.
These two examples of matching a performer’s strengths to the
task should serve to motivate you to figure out the best way to
achieve high performance for yourself. What are you now doing that
you are not good at and not achieving at the level you want to
achieve at? What could you be doing that you are good at that will
benefit you, your organization, and society? Play to your strengths.
It will keep you motivated to continually strive to reduce or eliminate
the gaps in results that you have selected to work on. This concept
is the core of performance enhancement and high achievement.6
Make Incentives and Reinforcements Personal

There has been an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of
incentives as it relates to performance improvement. One camp
argues that incentives ruin both the motivation to perform and the
actual performance itself. Another argues that incentives increase
motivation as well as performance. As the old TV commercial said,
“They are both right.”
The issue here is not whether incentives work. We know from
Psychology 101 that they do. That is the basis of the entire theory
of reinforcement. Proper reinforcements, given at the appropriate
time, will change behavior. This behavior change can be an
improvement in performance, the stopping of negative behaviors, or
the acquisition of a new behavior. In any case, the reinforcement
helps to acquire or advance the new behavior.
The only difference between reinforcements and incentives is
that reinforcements are typically unknown to the performer or the
performer does not know he or she will be receiving one, while an
incentive is typically known prior to the performance beginning.
They are both provided after a behavior or performance occurs.
Their effectiveness is related to two things: the relevance of either
the reinforcement or incentive to the performer and the timing of
when they are provided.
Relevance is critical to making incentives and reinforcements

work. Whichever is being used, they must be personalized for the
individual. The best way to do this is to ask the performer what he
or she prefers in the way of incentives and reinforcements. For
example, if a person does not like to travel and a travel award is
offered as a performance incentive, that person might deliberately
reduce their upcoming performance so that they don’t win the
award. On the other hand, if that performer likes to dine out and the
award for a high performance is a gift certificate to a gourmet res-
taurant, that person might be highly motivated to excel and win the
award. The simple key is to make the incentives and/or reinforce-
ments personal. The more personal you make them, the greater the
chance that the performer will be intrinsically motivated to perform
well the next time because the incentives and/or reinforcements are
meaningful and relevant.
Agree on Performance Expectations,

Results, and Measurements
This concept might be intuitively obvious to high performers and
their coaches, but it is surprising how many managers, leaders, and
others in business do not clearly communicate performance
expectations. Let’s go back and review the concept of goal setting
and developing performance objectives. Unless you have well-
stated performance objectives, you will not know what is expected
of you and how you will measure your achievement. The powerful
link between objectives and expectations is apparent. When your
performance objectives are clearly stated, then you can establish
your performance expectations (your perceived probabilities of suc-
cess). You will know throughout your performance as you monitor
yourself exactly how well or poorly you are doing. You will know
how close you are to achieving your objective and how far you have
to go to improve to get where you want to be.
A coach, manager, or leader must work closely with every per-
former to establish the performance objectives and the associated
performance expectations that the performer finds useful and
worthy of effort. Since the desired result and final metric is already
built into the objective, it should be easy for both parties to deter-
mine the final level of performance. The important factor is that the
performer and the person who will be evaluating the performance
agree on the objective, performance expectations, and the measur-
able results. The reason agreement is important is because people

might consider different things as evidence of high performance. So
if you agree up front, then the performance result can be compared
to that agreement, and every performer will know if and when a
level of high performance was achieved.
Mentally Rehearse Before Each Performance

Mental rehearsal (imagery, visualization) is one of the most power-
ful high performance training techniques available to everyone.
Imagining a performance in your mind before you actually go out
and do it goes a long way to making that performance occur per-
fectly. Athletes are well known for using mental rehearsal to help
them perform better. When you imagine a performance before you
do it, you are conditioning your mind, body, neuromuscular system,
and everything else to be tuned in to that performance. When the
performance occurs just like you imagined/rehearsed it, it is like
déjà vu all over again.
The techniques of sport psychology, including relaxation, affir-
mations, and visualization, are important to learn if you want to be a
high performer.7These techniques prepare your mind and body for
what is to come during the actual performance. During mental
rehearsal, you are successfully performing your task at the highest
level, so the act itself becomes personally reinforcing and self-
motivating. In addition, the mind is actually “laying down” the neu-
romuscular “tracks” during mental rehearsal in a very similar way to
what the mind and body do when you actually perform a task. For
example, in a study done decades ago, basketball players were
asked to either shoot foul shots, mentally rehearse shooting foul
shots, or do nothing at all. At the completion of the research period,
those who did mental rehearsal performed as well as or better than
those who practiced physically. However, the combination of mental
rehearsal and physical practice will usually result in the best per-
formances overall.
The same techniques are used in healthcare to help people
recover from serious illnesses or surgery. The relaxation portion of
visualization has been shown to reduce blood pressure, reduce or
eliminate stress, and give people more energy.8 The positive effects
of mental rehearsal and all the components can be realized long
after the specific performance has been completed.
One of the ways performers use mental rehearsal is to motivate

themselves or pump themselves up for a performance. I have
created an acronym for my coaching clients (athletes, executives,
and salespeople) that they have found very helpful in this area. It
has been described previously in the book and deserves another
look at this point. It is called FIRE, and it helps performers FIRE up
for the performance. Here are the four components:
Focus. Every performer must focus on the task at hand plus the
results and payoffs for doing the task perfectly. They must pay
attention to what they are doing at the start of the performance.
During the performance, the performer can let things happen
as if they occur automatically, but at the start of the perform-
ance, the performer must be focused on the objective because
that is the launching point for the action to occur. If the per-
formance objective does not have personal value and useful-
ness for the performer, then motivation to perform will be lack-
ing or non-existent. So focus on the task at hand, the results,
and the payoffs, and make sure the objective is personally
relevant.
Imagine. Here is where mental rehearsal comes in. Performers
must imagine the activity exactly as they want it to occur. One
thing that works very well is to mentally rehearse the activity
from the end (results have already been successfully accom-
plished) back to the beginning. This ensures that you see the
positive result in your mind immediately.
Relax. The key to any high performance is to be in a state of
relaxed alertness. Your mind and body should be well tuned for
the task. You should not be so relaxed that you are like a bowl
of gelatin, nor should you be so tense that you are wound up
tighter than a coil. You should be properly relaxed and ready to
perform.
Execute. Evaluate and continually improve. Here is where the
proverbial rubber meets the road. You must perform and then
evaluate that performance. If you’ve done everything right
according to this acronym, you will have executed the perform-
ance exactly as you have imagined it. During the performance,
everything will look, feel, and seem similar, and nothing will be
new. You will have already done this many times before. Once
you physically complete the performance, you will evaluate how
well you did. Based on your performance objectives and

expectations, you can make the appropriate determination. And
if necessary, you can decide on how to be more successful in
the future.
So when you are ready to perform, remember to FIRE up to
achieve high performance.
Perform the Task in the Appropriate Environment

There is a great deal to be said about matching the person to the
task to make sure you get the desired result. This concept was
mentioned earlier in this chapter about matching the task to the
performer’s strengths. In addition, you must also perform the task in
the appropriate environment.
What is the appropriate environment? It is one where all the
tools and resources to successfully complete the task are available,
either within the performer or within the environment. It is one
where there is an excellent chance of a successful or desired result.
You wouldn’t ask someone to run a 100-yard dash and expect them
to achieve a good time if the track was muddy or if they were run-
ning on loose stones. Similarly, you would not ask someone to pro-
vide superior customer service to a client if the performer could not
answer the client’s questions, have access to the client’s records, or
be available when the client required the service. This person might
be the greatest customer service representative in the world, but
that will not help if the performance environment is not appropriate.
This is also an indication of what happens if you put a good per-
former in a poor system. The system wins virtually every time.9
One other thing should be considered about the performance
environment if you want to guarantee high performance. When the
task is being practiced, the practice should occur in situations that
are very similar to the real performance. Football teams turn up the
noise when they practice before they play an away game. Profes-
sional speakers do their presentations in real time when they prac-
tice to ensure that they make all their points at the correct time dur-
ing the speech. And there are many other situations where the
performer practices under conditions that are similar to those he or
she will face during the actual performance. In all these situations,
an attempt is being made to stimulate the appropriate environment
for the performance.
Provide Clear and Consistent Feedback

We all want to know how we are doing when we perform. We will
always get some internal feedback during our performance, and we
also want to provide us with additional feedback. Those “others”
can be co-workers, a boss, a family member, or even the perform-
ance environment itself. The important thing is that we know how
we are doing, how well we are doing, and what we have to do to
improve. The feedback must be accurate and timely, must be given
in measurable and objective terms, and must relate specifically to
the current performance.
Proper feedback will also include reinforcements and conse-
quences. Every performer wants to be rewarded for successful
performance and must also be made aware of what might happen if
the performance is unsuccessful. In sports, successful perform-
ances are greeted with wins, and unsuccessful ones are considered
losses. The performance feedback is instantaneous at the end of
the event. In sales, there is a similar situation. A salesperson knows
if he or she made the sale or did not make the sale. Reviewing the
performance that led up to the result will also provide information for
any changes or improvements that must be made next time. (This
will be discussed in the next section.)
If you are the person providing the feedback, you must make
certain that it matches the performance and all the related perform-
ance parameters. You must take into account the performance
objectives, the performance expectations, the measurement criteria,
the desired result, the performer’s self-image, and the effect the
result has on current and future situations. Your feedback must be
concise, accurate, and timely. It must be provided in a manner the
performer can easily understand and use. And it must be available
for comparison for future performances.
Sometimes a performer does not want feedback. They already
know and feel how they have done—whether it is good or bad, suc-
cessful or unsuccessful. In this case, you simply acknowledge that
fact and keep the feedback information to yourself. When the per-
former is ready for it or asks for it, you can make it available. Forc-
ing feedback (knowledge of results, reinforcements, or conse-
quences) on a performer who is either not ready to receive it or
does not want it will actually hurt performance more than help it.
You have to remember that the performer’s mindset has a great
deal to do with the results that are achieved. So only give feedback
when it is wanted and welcomed.
Make Results Visible (Scoreboarding)

When you give people feedback on their performance, create some
sort of visual aid or scoreboard. Athletes know how well they are
doing because every performance has some sort of visible score-
board associated with it. Baseball players have balls and strikes
and runs; football players have yards gained, first downs, and
points; basketball players either make the shot or don’t and either
win the game or lose; golfers score par or not; tennis players can
win the point, game, set, and match; and the list goes on. In busi-
ness, executives know their company’s performances based on
revenue, customers, stock prices, productivity, turnover/retention,
and a whole host of measures. Today’s technology gives them a
daily scoreboard that they call a dashboard. The same is true for
everyone in every area. They all have some sort of scoreboard or
barometer to let them know how well they are doing.
Scoreboarding motivates people to perform better simply
because others now know how well they are doing. Automobile
dealers, as well as other kinds of companies, have performance
charts for their sales staffs. Parents use scoreboarding when they
are attempting behavioral changes or performance improvements
with their children. School teachers use it, too (remember gold
stars?). Visual presentations of performance are an excellent moti-
vator for future high performance.
Of course, you can also use scoreboarding in a negative man-
ner. When performers are either punished or embarrassed by put-
ting their results on a scoreboard, you are going to get decreased
performance instead of high performance. If someone is against
having their results made public, then you should consider their
wishes and find out what they prefer. They might accept some sort
of scoreboard, but they want it kept private. This is fine since the
results are still being made visible, but only to them. This is a lesson
for all of us. There are very few people in the world who you can
berate, embarrass, or harass into high performance.
Make Necessary Changes/Continual

Improvement
Once you have completed the previous nine steps, you must
include the concept of continual improvement into every performer’s
mindset. All performers must be willing to make whatever changes
are necessary to guarantee high performance in the future. If per-

formance is below desired levels, a performer can’t keep doing
what he’s always done and expect to get better results. Changes
must be made.
There are several ways for you to help a person make those
changes. Continual improvement can happen by taking small
incremental steps. This works, and it has support from reinforce-
ment theory where successive approximations of a behavior are
positively reinforced in order to get someone to achieve the ultimate
desired behavior.10 But you can also have continual improvement
by making incremental leaps in performance. Maybe the resources
were not available before and they are available now, so high per-
formance can be achieved. Maybe the performer did not have the
requisite skill set, but now he or she does have it; or maybe the
objectives were set too low—anything is possible. If you or a per-
former you are working with has the opportunity to make a quantum
leap in performance, then you must allow that to happen. You must
encourage the vast improvement over the small, incremental
improvement. Help yourself and other performers “leap tall buildings
in a single bound.”
Guaranteeing High Performance

Since repetition is the mother of learning, here again are the ten
things you must do to guarantee high performance:
1. Conduct a proper needs assessment.
2. Identify the problem to be solved—the gap to be closed—
and link this to the performer’s Mega.
3. Match the task to the performer’s strengths.
4. Personalize reinforcements and incentives.
5. Agree on performance expectations, consequences, and
measurements.
6. Mentally rehearse the performance.
7. Perform the task in the appropriate environment.
8. Provide clear and consistent feedback.
9. Make results visible.

10. Make necessary changes in performance through contin-
ual improvement as you move ever closer to Mega.
Doing these ten things will put you well on your way to guaran-
teeing high performance for yourself and the people who work with
and for you. Will high performance be achieved at every turn?
Reality says no, not always. There are a multitude of factors that
will be involved, not the least of which is the performer. Their atti-
tude, motivation, skill set, etc., will all impact the performance level
and result. Yet, if you work through these ten steps, you will find
that the performance results you achieve more often than not meet
and exceed your expectations. This way, everyone can be a high
performer.
Endnotes
1. Gerson, R. F., (2006). The missing link in HPT. Performance
Improvement, 45(1), 10–17.
2. See Kaufman, book 1 of this series, as well as Kaufman, R., (2000).

Megaplanning. CA: Sage Publications; and Kaufman, R., Oakley-
Brown, H., & Watkins, R., (2003). Strategic planning for success:
Aligning people, performance and payoffs. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
3. Gerson, R. F., (2000). The emotional side of performance

improvement. Performance Improvement, 39(8), 18–23, and the book
by Gerson, R. F., & Gerson, R. G. (2006). Positive performance
4. See the Gallup references in endnote #2 in Chapter 6.
5. Gerson, R. F., (2004). HEADcoaching: Mental training for peak

performance. Indiana: Authorhouse.
6. For a more detailed explanation, go to Gerson, R. F., & Gerson, R.

G., (2006). Positive performance improvement: A new paradigm for
optimizing your workforce. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black.
7. Gerson, R. F., (2004). HEADcoaching: Mental training for peak

performance. Indiana: Authorhouse.
8. Herbert Benson has been a pioneer in this field for many years. His
first book on the subject, The Relaxation Response (New York:
Harper Torch, 1976—reissue) was followed by Beyond the Relaxation
Response (CA: Berkeley, 1985). More recently, he applied these
principles to high performance in Benson, H., & Proctor, W., (2004).
The breakout principle. New York: Simon & Schuster.
9. Geary Rummler has expressed this point many times in many ways,
and he always comes out being correct about it. The poor system is
way too powerful even for a top performer. You can read more about
this in Rummler, G., & Bache, A., (1995). Improving performance:
How to manage the white space in the organization chart. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, and Rummler, G., (2004). Serious
performance consulting according to Rummler. MD: International
Society for Performance Improvement.
10. See Skinner, B. F., (1965). Science and human behavior. New York:
Free Press.
Glossary of Terms 1
This glossary includes definitions already provided. This is a com-

plete summary of important terms and concepts.
System, systems, systematic, and systemic: related but not the

same
system approach: Begins with the sum total of parts working inde-
pendently and together to achieve a useful set of results at the
societal level, adding value for all internal and external part-
ners. We best think of it as the large whole and we can show it
thus:
systems approach: Begins with the parts of a system—subsys-

tems—that make up the “system.” We can show it thus:
It should be noted here that the “system” is made up of smaller

elements, or subsystems, shown as bubbles embedded in the
larger system. If we start at this smaller level, we will start with
a part and not the whole. So, when someone says they are
using a “systems approach” they are really focusing on one or
more subsystems, but they are unfortunately focusing on the
parts and not the whole. When planning and doing at this level,
they can only assume that the payoffs and consequences will
add up to something useful to society and external clients, and
this is usually a very big assumption.
122 Change, Choices, and Consequences
systematic approach: An approach that does things in an orderly,

predictable, and controlled manner. It is a reproducible proc-
ess. Doing things, however, in a systematic manner does not
ensure the achievement of useful results.
systemic approach: An approach that affects everything in the sys-
tem. The definition of the system is usually left up to the practi-
tioner and may or may not include external clients and society.
It does not necessarily mean that when something is systemic
it is also useful.
Now, let’s turn to other strategic thinking and planning terms.
AADDIE model: The ADDIE model with the vital function of

Assessment added to the front of it.
ADDIE model: A contraction of the conventional instructional sys-
tems steps of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation,
and Evaluation. It ignores or assumes a front determination
through assessment of what to analyze, and it also assumes
that the evaluation data will be used for continuous improve-
ment.
change creation: The definition and justification, proactively, of new
and justified as well as justifiable destinations. If this is done
before change management, acceptance is more likely. This is
a proactive orientation for change and differs from the more
usual change management in that it identifies in advance
where individuals and organizations are headed rather than
waiting for change to occur and be managed.
change management: Ensuring that whatever change is selected
will be accepted and implemented successfully by people in the
organization. Change management is reactive in that it waits
until change requirements are either defined or imposed and
then moves to have the change accepted and used.
comfort zones: The psychological areas, in business or in life,
where one feels secure and safe (regardless of the reality of
that feeling). Change is usually painful for most people. When
faced with change, many people will find reasons (usually not
rational) for why not to make and modifications. This gives rise
to Tom Peter’s (1997) observation that “it is easier to kill an
organization than it is to change it.”
Glossary 123
constraints: Anything that will not allow one to meet the results
specifications. These might arise from many sources, including
not enough resources, insufficient time, political pressures, and
the like.
costs-consequences analysis: The process of estimating a return-
on-investment analysis before an intervention is implemented.
It asks two basic questions simultaneously: what do you expect
to give and what do you expect to get back in terms of results?
Most formulations do not compute costs and consequences for
society and external client (Mega) return on investment. Thus,
even the calculations for standard approaches steer away from
the vital consideration of self-sufficiency, health, and well-being
(Kaufman & Keller [1994]; Kaufman, Keller, & Watkins [1998];
Kaufman [1998, 2000]).
criteria: Precise and rigorous specifications that allow one to prove
what has been or has to be accomplished. Many processes in
place today do not use rigorous indicators for expected per-
formance. If criteria are “loose” or unclear, there is no realistic
basis for evaluation and continuous improvement. Loose crite-
ria often meet the comfort test, but don’t allow for the humanis-
tic approach to care enough about others to define, with stake-
holders, where you are headed and how to tell when you have
or have not arrived.
deep change: Change that extends from Mega—societal value
added—downward into the organization to define and shape
Macro, Micro, Processes, and Inputs. It is termed deep change
to note that it is not superficial or just cosmetic, or even a
splintered quick fix. Most planning models do not include Mega
results in the change process, and thus miss the opportunity to
find out what impact their contributions and results have on
external clients and society. The other approaches might be
termed superficial change or limited change in that they only
focus on an organization or a small part of an organization.
desired results: Ends (or results) identified through needs assess-
ments that are derived from soft data relating to “perceived
needs.” Desired indicates these are perceptual and personal in
nature.
ends: Results, achievements, consequences, payoffs, and/or

impacts. The more precise the results, the more likely that rea-
sonable methods and means can be considered, implemented,
and evaluated. Without rigor for results statements, confusion
can take the place of successful performance.
evaluation: Compares current status (what is) with intended status
(what was intended) and is most commonly done only after an
intervention is implemented. Unfortunately, evaluation is used
for blaming and not fixing or improving. When blame follows
evaluation, people tend to avoid the means and criteria for
evaluation or leave them so loose that any result can be
explained away.
external needs assessment: Determining and prioritizing gaps, then
selecting problems to be resolved at the Mega level. This level
of needs assessment is most often missing from conventional
approaches. Without the data from it, one cannot be assured
that there will be strategic alignment from internal results to
external value added.
hard data: Performance data that are based on objectives and
independently verifiable. This type of data is critical. It should
be used along with “soft” or perception data.
Ideal Vision: The measurable definition of the kind of world we,
together with others, commit to help deliver for tomorrow’s
child. An Ideal Vision defines the Mega level of planning. It
allows an organization and all of its partners to define where
they are headed and how to tell when they are getting there or
getting closer. It provides the rationality and reasons for an
organizational mission objective.
Inputs: The ingredients, raw materials, and physical and human
resources that an organization can use in its processes in order
to deliver useful ends. These ingredients and resources are
often the only considerations made during planning without
determining the value they add internally and externally to the
organization.
internal needs assessment: Determining and prioritizing gaps, then
selecting problems to be resolved at the Micro and Macro
levels. Most needs assessment processes are of this variety
(Watkins, Leigh, Platt, & Kaufman [1998]).
Glossary 125
learning: The demonstrated acquisition of a skill, knowledge,

attitude, and/or ability.
learning organization: An organization that sets measurable per-
formance standards and constantly compares its results and
their consequences with what is required. Learning organiza-
tions use performance data, related to an Ideal Vision and the
primary mission objective, to decide what to change and what
to continue—it learns from its performance and contributions.
Learning organizations may obtain the highest level of success
by strategic thinking: focusing everything that is used, done,
produced, and delivered on Mega results—societal value
added. Many conventional definitions do not link the “learning”
to societal value added. If there is no external societal linking,
then it could well guide one away from the new requirements.
Macro level of planning: Planning focused on the organization itself
as the primary client and beneficiary of what is planned and
delivered. This is the conventional starting and stopping place
for existing planning approaches.
means: Processes, activities, resources, methods, or techniques
used to deliver a result. Means are only useful to the extent that
they deliver useful results at all three levels of planned results:
Mega, Macro, and Micro.
Mega level of planning: Planning focused on external clients,
including customers/citizens and the community and society
that the organization serves. This is the usual missing planning
level in most formulations. It is the only one that will focus on
societal value added: survival, self-sufficiency, and quality of
life of all partners. It is suggested that this type of planning is
imperative for getting and proving useful results. It is this level
that Rummler refers to as primary processes and Brethower
calls the receiving system.
Mega thinking: Thinking about every situation, problem, or opportu-
nity in terms of what you use, do, produce, and deliver as
having to add value to external clients and society. Same as
strategic thinking.
methods-means analysis: Identifies possible tactics and tools for

meeting the needs identified in a system analysis. The
methods-means analysis identifies the possible ways and
means to meet the needs and achieve the detailed objectives
that are identified in this Mega plan, but does not select them.
Interestingly, this is a comfortable place where some opera-
tional planning starts. Thus, it either assumes or ignores the
requirement to measurably add value within and outside the
organization.
Micro-level planning: Planning focused on individuals or small
groups (such as desired and required competencies of associ-
ates or supplier competencies). Planning for building-block
results. This also is a comfortable place where some opera-
tional planning starts. Starting here usually assumes or ignores
the requirement to measurably add value to the entire organi-
zation as well as to outside the organization.
mission analysis: Analysis step that identified: (1) what results and
consequences are to be achieved; (2) what criteria (in interval
and/or ratio scale terms) will be used to determine success;
and (3) what are the building-block results and the order of their
completion (functions) required to move from the current results
to the desired state of affairs. Most mission objectives have not
been formally linked to Mega results and consequences, and
thus strategic alignment with “where the clients are” are usually
missing (Kaufman, Stith, Triner, & Watkins [1998]).
mission objective: An exact, performance-based statement of an
organization’s overall intended results that it can and should
deliver to external clients and society. A mission objective is
measurable on an interval or ratio scale, so it states not only
“where we are headed” but also adds “how we will know when
we have arrived.” A mission objective is best linked to Mega
levels of planning and the Ideal Vision to ensure societal value
added.
mission statement: An organization’s Macro-level “general pur-
pose.” A mission statement is only measurable on a nominal or
ordinal scale of measurement and only states “where we are
headed” and leaves rigorous criteria for determining how one
measures successful accomplishment.
Glossary 127
need: The gap between current results and desired or required

results. This is where a lot of planning goes “off the rails.” By
defining any gap as a need, one fails to distinguish between
means and ends and thus confuses what and how. If need is
defined as a gap in results, then there is a triple bonus: (1) it
states the objectives (What Should Be), (2) it contains the
evaluation and continuous improvement criteria (What Should
Be), and (3) it provides the basis for justifying any proposal by
using both ends of a need—What Is and What Should Be in
terms of results. Proof can be given for the costs to meet the
need as well as the costs to ignore the need.
needs analysis: Taking the determined gaps between adjacent
organizational elements, and finding the causes of the inability
for delivering required results. A needs analysis also identifies
possible ways and means to close the gaps in results—
needs—but does not select them. Unfortunately, needs analy-
sis is usually interchangeable with needs assessment. They
are not the same. How does one “analyze” something (such as
a need) before they know what should be analyzed? First
assess the needs, then analyze them.
needs assessment: A formal process that identifies and documents
gaps between current and desired and/or required results,
arranges them in order of priority on basis of the cost to meet
the need as compared to the cost of ignoring it, and selects
problems to be resolved. By starting with a needs assessment,
justifiable performance data and the gaps between What Is and
What Should Be will provide the realistic and rational reason for
both what to change as well as what to continue.
objectives: Precise statement of purpose, or destination of where
we are headed and how we will be able to tell when we have
arrived. The four parts to an objective are (1) what result is to
be demonstrated, (2) who or what will demonstrate the results,
(3) where will the result be observed, (4) what interval or ratio
scale criteria will be used? Loose or process-oriented objec-
tives will confuse everyone (c.f. Mager [1997]). A Mega-level
result is best stated as an objective.
outcomes: Results and payoffs at the external client and societal

level. Outcomes are results that add value to society, commu-
nity, and external clients of the organization. These are results
at the Mega level of planning.
outputs: The results and payoffs that an organization can or does
deliver outside of itself to external clients and society. These
are results at the Macro level of planning where the primary
client and beneficiary is the organization itself. It does not
formally link to outcomes and societal well-being unless it is
derived from outcomes and the Ideal (Mega) Vision.
paradigm: The framework and ground rules individuals use to filter
reality and understand the world around them (Barker [1992]).
It is vital that people have common paradigms that guide them.
That is one of the functions of the Mega level of planning and
outcomes so that everyone is headed to a common destination
and may uniquely contribute to that journey.
performance: A result or consequence of any intervention or
activity, including individual, team, or organization: an end.
performance accomplishment system (PAS): Any of a variety of
interventions (such as “instructional systems design and devel-
opment,” quality management/continuous improvement, bench-
marking, reengineering, and the like) that are results oriented
and are intended to get positive results. These are usually
focused at the Micro/Products level. This is my preferred
alternative to the rather sterile term performance technology
that often steers people toward hardware and premature
solutions (Kaufman [1999, 2000]).
Processes: The means, processes, activities, procedures, interven-
tions, programs, and initiatives an organization can or does use
in order to deliver useful ends. While most planners start here,
it is dangerous not to derive the Processes and Inputs from
what an organization must deliver and the payoffs for external
clients.
products: The building-block results and payoffs of individuals and
small groups that form the basis of what an organization pro-
duces and delivers, inside as well as outside of itself, and the
payoffs for external clients and society. Products are results at
the Micro level of planning.
Glossary 129
quasi-need: A gap in a method, resource, or process. Many so-

called “need assessments” are really quasi-needs assessments
since they tend to pay immediate attention to means (such as
training) before defining and justifying the ends and conse-
quences (Watkins, Leigh, Platt, & Kaufman [1998]).
required results: Ends identified through needs assessment, which
are derived from hard data relating to objective performance
measures.
restraints: Possible limitations on what one might use, do, and
deliver. Restraints serve as a type of performance specification.
results: Ends, products, outputs, outcomes—accomplishments and
consequences. Usually misses the outputs and outcomes.
soft data: Personal perceptions of results. Soft data is not inde-
pendently verifiable. While people’s perceptions are reality for
them, they are not to be relied on without relating to “hard”—
independently verifiable—data as well.
strategic alignment: The linking of Mega-, Macro-, and Micro-level
planning and results with each other and with Processes and
Inputs. By formally deriving what the organization uses, does,
produces, and delivers to Mega/external payoffs, strategic
alignment is complete.
strategic thinking: Approaching any problem, program, project,
activity, or effort by noting that everything that is used, done,
produced, and delivered must add value for external clients and
society. Strategic thinking starts with Mega.
tactical planning: Finding out what is available to get from What Is
to What Should Be at the organizational/Macro level. Tactics
are best identified after the overall mission has been selected
based on its linkages and contributions to external client and
societal (Ideal Vision) results and consequences.
wants: Preferred methods and means assumed to be capable of
meeting needs.
What Is: Current operational results and consequences. These
could be for an individual, an organization, and/or for society.
What Should Be: Desired or required operational results and conse-

quences. These could be for an individual, an organization,
and/or society.
wishes: Desires concerning means and ends. It is important not to
confuse wishes with needs.
Making Sense of Definitions and Their

Contribution to a Mega Perspective
Here are some ground rules for strategic thinking and planning:
1. System Approach ≠ Systems Approach ≠ Systematic
Approach ≠ Systemic Approach
2. Mega-level Planning ≠ Macro-Level Planning ≠ Micro-Level
Planning
3. System Analysis ≠ Systems Analysis
4. Means ≠ Ends
5. Hope ≠ Reality
6. Outcome ≠ Output ≠ Product ≠ Process ≠ Input
7. There are three levels of planning: Mega, Macro, and
Micro, and three related types of results: Outcomes,
Outputs, Products.
8. Need is a gap in results, not a gap in Process or Input.
9. Needs Assessment ≠ Needs Analysis (nor front-end
analysis or problem analysis)
10. Strategic Planning ≠ Tactical Planning ≠ Operational
Planning
11. Change Creation ≠ Change Management
Endnote
1
Based on Kaufman, R., & Watkins, R. (2000, April). Getting serious about
results and payoffs: We are what we say, do, and deliver. Performance
Improvement, 39 (4), 23–31.
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Kaufman, R., Guerra, I., & Platt, W. A. (2006). Practical evaluation
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About this Series
Defining and Delivering Successful
Professional Practice—HPT in Action
This is the first of Six Books to define and deliver measurable per-
formance improvement. Each volume defines a unique part of a
fabric; a fabric to define, develop, implement, and continually
improve human and organization performance success. In addition,
the series relate to the professional standards in the field.1
Why This Series?

Human and Organizational Performance Accomplishment—some
call the field HPT (human performance Improvement)—is of great
interest to practitioners and clients alike who intend to deliver suc-
cessful results and payoffs that are based on research, ethics, and
solid concepts and tools. Each author provides a practical focus on
a unique area, and each book is based on ten principles of profes-
sional contribution.
Each book “stands alone” as well as knits with all of the others;
together they:
1. Define the field of HPT and Performance Improvement
based on the principles of ethical and competent practice,
2. Provide specific guidance on six major areas of profes-
sional practice,
3. Are based on a common framework for individual and
organizational performance accomplishment, and
4. Reinforce the principles that drive competent and ethical
performance improvement.
There is a demand for an integrated approach to Human and
Organizational Performance Accomplishment/Human Performance
technology. Many excellent books and articles are available (some
by the proposed authors) but none cover the entire spectrum of the
basic concepts and tools nor do they give the integrated alignment
or guidance that each of these six linked books provide.
This series is edited by Roger Kaufman (Ph.D., CPT), Dale
Brethower (Ph.D.) and Richard Gerson (Ph.D., CPT).
The six books and the authors are:

Book One: Change, Choices, and Consequences: A Guide to
Mega Thinking and Planning. Roger Kaufman, Professor
Emeritus, Florida State University, Roger Kaufman & Associ-
ates, and Distinguished Research Professor, Sonora Institute
of Technology
Book 2: Defining What to Do and Why. Dale Brethower, Pro-
fessor Emeritus, Western Michigan University and Research
Professor, Sonora Institute of Technology
Book 3: Performance by Design. Ryan Watkins, Associate
Professor, George Washington University, Senior Research
Associate, Roger Kaufman & Associates, and former NSF
Fellow
Book 4: Achieving High Performance. Richard Gerson, CPT,
Ph.D., Gerson Goodson, Inc.
Book 5: Implementation and Management of Solutions. Robert
Carlton, Senior Partner, Vector Group
Book 6: Evaluation and Continual Improvement of the Results.
Ingrid Guerra, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Wayne State Univer-
sity and Associate Research Professor, Sonora Institute of
Technology as well as Research Associate, Roger Kaufman &
Associates
How This Series Relates to the Professional

Performance Improvement Standards
The following table identifies how each book relates to the 10 stan-
dards of Performance Technology2 (identified by numbers in paren-
theses ( ) pioneered by the International Society for Performance
Improvement (ISPI)3. In the table on the following page, an “X” iden-
tifies coverage and linking and “5” indicates major focus.
This series, by design, goes beyond these standards by linking
everything any organization uses, does, produces, and delivers to
adding measurable value to external clients and society. This Six
Pack, then, builds on and then goes beyond the current useful crite-
ria and standards in the profession and adds the next dimensions of
About this Series 139
practical, appropriate, as well as ethical tools, methods, and guid-

ance of what is really required to add value to all of our clients as
well as to our shared society.
Take a System Approach
Evaluation & Continuous

Design to Specification
Performance Analysis
Selection, Design, &

Needs Assessment
Focus on Results
Implementation
Development
Improvement
Add Value
Partner
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Book 1 5 5 5 5 5 X X X 5
Book 2 X 5 5 X 5 5 X
Book 3 X X X 5 5 5 X
Book 4 X X X X 5 X 5 5 X
Book 5 X 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Book 6 5 5 5 X 5 X 5
It all will only be useful to the extent to which this innovative

practice becomes standard practice. We invite you to the adven-
ture.
Roger Kaufman, Ph.D., CPT

Dale Brethower, Ph.D.
Richard Gerson, Ph.D., CPT.
Endnotes
1. The Standards of Performance Technology developed by the
International Society for Performance Improvement, Silver Spring,
Maryland.
2. Slightly modified.
3. Another approach to standardization of performance are a set of

competencies developed by the American Society for Training and
Development (ASTD) which are more related to on-the-job
performance.
About the Author
Richard F. Gerson, Ph.D., CPT, CMC, is president of Gerson
Goodson, Inc., a training and consulting firm specializing in ele-
vating the performances of people, teams and organizations by
helping them identify and manage their thoughts, feelings, emo-
tions, attitudes and behaviors. He is also the owner of the
HEADcoaching Institute, which helps clients train their brains to
become extraordinary performers.
Richard was one of the pioneers in the performance psychol-
ogy field, having developed training programs and consulting
services in this area since 1979. He is an expert in identifying
behavioral and mental strategies that people use to perform at a
high level and then developing training programs to both improve
the performance of the exemplars and transfer those strategies to
other performers. Richard’s strength in helping others achieve high
levels of performance and success lies in his abilities to coach and
mentor people in such a way that they expand their comfort zones,
stretch their limits, and turn the stresses of their lives into the suc-
cesses of their lives. He uses a variety of techniques from sports
and performance psychology, cognitive-behavioral psychology, and
neurolinguistic psychology to accomplish these goals. He also helps
salespeople, athletes, executives, and students train their brains
to perform more effectively and successfully.
Richard has a Ph.D. in Sports Psychology from Florida State
University. He has published 21 books and over 400 articles in
journals, magazines, newspapers and newsletters. He is a Certified
Performance Technologist (the first in the Tampa Bay area), a
Certified Management Consultant, a Certified Professional Market-
ing Consultant, and the holder of several other professional certifi-
cations. He was selected as the top marketing professional in
Tampa Bay by the Sales and Marketing Executives association and
given a lifetime achievement award by the Tampa Bay chapter of
the International Society for Performance Improvement, where he is
also a Past President and current board member. He has also just
presented a workshop and a concurrent session at the upcoming
ISPI conference.
Two of his most recent books, Winning the Inner Game of
Selling, and HEADcoaching: Mental Training for Peak Performance,
help salespeople and other professionals train their brains to
achieve peak performance on demand. Several of his sales training
programs, such as PsychoBehavioral Selling, S.P.O.R.T. SELLING,

and Extraordinary Selling Power, have achieved sales increases for
clients ranging from 10 to 500 percent.
Two of his most recent programs, Positive C.O.R.E, and The
Talent Optimization Performance System (TOPS) have helped
individuals and organizations identify and remove roadblocks to
performance improvement as well as enhance current performance
strengths. These two approaches help clients virtually guarantee
performance improvement in a variety of settings, including busi-
ness, sports, academia and life, in general. They also formed the
basis for his newest book, Positive Performance Improvement: A
New Paradigm for Optimizing Your Workforce, which he co-
authored with his wife, Robbie Goodson Gerson.
He is a much sought-after speaker in the areas of sales
success, performance psychology, performance improvement,
motivation, marketing and customer service. His use of sports and
performance psychology applied to the business world, sports world
and academic environment helps people achieve their goals, moti-
vate themselves to become peak performers, and continually
increase their levels of skill to achieve measurable performance
improvements.

Achieving High Performance

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Achieving High

Richard F. Gerson, Ph.D., CPT

HRD Press, Inc. • Amherst • Massachusetts

Volume I of the Defining and Delivering Successful Professional

HRD Press, Inc. International Society for

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part

Production services by Jean Miller

Finally, a special thank you goes to my wife and business partner,

Richard F. Gerson, Ph.D., CPT

Performance Motivation: Success and Failure

Performance Motivation and Business

demotivated and unwilling to perform any more. Failure was no

What’s the Difference?

On the negative side, in the two situations described previ-

Performance Motivation and Mega

relationship between establishing and understanding Mega and

Mega will motivate, if you let it.

What High Performance Is and Is Not

occurrence that is due to the skills of the individual performers and

Defining High Performance

variety of environmental conditions. This definition naturally leads

Making a High Performer

Similarly, an organization must stay Focused on its objective

Characteristics of High Performers

How many of these characteristics do you possess? Now, take

After all, as an athlete (player/performer), you came to the sport

Proper Goal and Objective Setting

during the next quarter as measured by gross revenues. A perform-

ments; identify strengths and weaknesses; and determine any

SCENARIO: The company has set an objective that all

Will John or anyone else be able to measure

Another Approach to Goal and

of completing the workday with only 8 or fewer minor mistakes per

One thing we do when we work with high performers, and

Motivating Yourself for High Performance

Goal- and Objective-Setting Exercise

Mega (Ideal) Objective: Write your perfect achievement, your ulti-

Performance Expectations: All objectives are accompanied by

Performance Objective: State how your behavior will change for

*For example, the SMARTER objective of the salesperson to make 10%

are self-motivated choose to actively pursue an objective (complete

The ABCs of Motivation and High Performance

system can lead to a significant winning streak (high perform-

executive was having difficulty communicating with her manage-

consequences: For example, a person says he will donate at least

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Planning for High Performance and Success

unclear performance expectations, feedback and objectives, con-

Performers who are good self managers prepare themselves

to it. We can provide performers with the tools, resources, environ-

Goal and Objective Setting Redux

1. Write down your personal Macro objective, as Kaufman

2. Write down your personal Micro objective. This has to do

Mega: What I do and deliver will result in everyone I interact

Macro: My company will deliver new coaching, consulting,

Micro: I will increase my skills, knowledge, and abilities as I

2. The relationship among goal and objective setting, along with

3. This concept is described by Kaufman in book 1 of this series, as well

4. The concept of BHAG was introduced in several publications at

5. This is just another approach to motivate people to perform beyond

6. Again, see Kaufman in book 1 of this series as well as the references

7. Thad Greene has written extensively on the belief system of

9. This relationship is a foundation of the positive psychology

11. The concept of engagement and commitment to perform well on a