Over the past several years one of the things we have really enjoyed has been writing our blogs. We love doing these blogs for two reasons:

1. We can’t get the topic of Sustainable High Human Performance off of our minds so we need to share our thoughts.
2. We love the dialogue our clients share with us as they digest each blog and personalize it.

We understand that our clients are very busy and therefore they have to be selective in what they can and will read. For this reason we are very selective on the topics we will blog about and we put quite a bit of thought into the blogs we publish. Our approach has always been that if we don’t have something important to share we shouldn’t bother our clients with chatter.

Over the past two years, the positive feedback we have received from our blogs has really increased. We hope this is because our blogs keep getting better but we also think it’s because the need to put the topic of Sustainable High Human Performance on the agenda is increasing. Clients have told us that the blogs serve as really great reminders on some of our tools, thinking, and strategies. Many times we have heard from clients who have told us, “you must have written this blog specifically for me because this was exactly what I needed.” 

As we reflected on all of the blogs we have written, we realized that it is sad that they sleep in some archive where they rarely do what they were written for - to help our clients increase their executional stamina, resilience, mental agility, and energy. For this reason, we decided to package them in Apps so that you could have them handy when you want, or need, a blog on demand.

We are proud to announce that we have two great Apps available on itunes.

1. TIGNUM Thoughts #0 (all our blogs from 2010)
2. TIGNUM Thoughts #1 (all our blogs from 2011)

Both can be downloaded from the iTunes Store free of charge and are designed for the iPad, the iPhone,  and the iPod touch.

We hope you enjoy them and please let us know how you like this format. I can promise you that there are many more Apps to come in the near future from Tignum.

by André Hartwich
Director of Crossmedia

I typically use my time on a flight as an opportunity for recovery.  I often nap, listen to music, read something for fun, or just reflect. Occasionally (although, to be honest, very rarely) I have a conversation with my seat neighbor; my last flight was one of these rare exceptions and I had a very interesting chat with the gentleman next to me. This gentleman was a trend researcher, which fascinated me. Having spent over 45 years in business in many parts of the world, in all different roles, working for quite a cadre of leaders, and working with more than my fair share of consultants, I feel like I’ve seen my share of trends come and go. As we shared experiences, he told me about one of his latest projects which looked at the relationship between companies and their executives and he shared a couple of trends he was seeing. His main observation was a clear shift away from loyalty to just commitment. Now my initial reaction was that this was just about semantics and some philosophical BS. But the more I thought about it, the more I got intrigued.

Loyalty is linked to a deep sense of caring. It is about devotion that is built and nurtured on long-term shared experiences and thinking. It is a combination of “I got your back” and “we are in this together”. Loyalty is about “we”. Commitment, on the other hand, is more about obligations and contractual agreements. It tends to be more short-term (as long as the contract says) and it’s about meeting expectations and “have to dos”. In many ways, loyalty is about the “we”, while commitment is more about the “me”. This goes both ways: the company to their people and people to the company.

As we finished our conversation, I fell back into my reflection mode. Only this time, I was reflecting on what he had said. If this were true, what would the implications be? It would clearly mean that statements like “people are our most important asset” would be mostly lip service. It would not inspire any real innovation from the person nor inspire any real investment in being great from the company. On one hand, it does significantly raise the degree of self-responsibility for the individual. On the other hand, it also means that the company can burn through people and feel no responsibility or guilt. After all, “They commit to the deal so this is their fault”. Statements like, “People make the difference, so make your people different” wouldn’t hold any meaning anymore. We (the company) don’t really invest in you to make you different or to help you grow. This deal-driven, commitment-focused trend feels funny to me. There is no stickiness and instead only a lot of selfishness and short-term thinking.

The question is: Is the trend guy right? Does loyalty still exist or has it been replaced with commitment? In many ways, it is a very fine line and so I accept that it may not be easy to see. It is a lot like a vitamin deficiency where you only see the signs and symptoms when a deficiency exists. So what would the signs and symptoms be of a loyalty deficiency?  In my experience, it would create a status quo work environment where leaders are in short-term survival mode. They would lack the energy or inspiration to go the extra mile or to bring innovative human performance strategies to the table. They would be afraid and uninterested in taking any quantum leaps. They would build silos and defend their territory rather than break down barriers and proactively collaborate. Oddly enough, this was the other trend my fellow traveler shared.

What do you think? Is loyalty a dying thing of the past? What is the impact that you see? Clearly, loyalty changes the game. It creates a winning edge for a company. The problem is this requires risk and it requires an authentic investment in people. Even more, it takes energy, resilience, mental agility, and stamina. That is why these things aren’t a nice to have, they are an absolute must.

Paul Preston
Partner // Strategy Advisor

So often in sports you hear athletes talking about trying to gain a competitive edge. It may be a training secret, some special equipment, a new supplement, or even a superstitious ritual but they all have the same purpose - to provide what they think will help them be more competitive. Occasionally, you see an athlete who won’t settle for just a competitive edge; they want a winning edge. Last year we saw this in tennis player Novak Djokovic as he became more physically fit, adopted a new performance nutrition regimen, improved his recovery between matches, and most important - developed a high performance mindset. The result was clear in that he was no longer just competitive, he was a winner. In fact, he became the #1 player in the world, dominating two of the greatest players in modern men’s tennis (Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer).

The ironic thing is that over the years we have worked with many leaders, and their teams, and listened to them tell us how they want to be more competitive. When we dig deeper, they share stories about streamlining their supply chain, reorganizing their HR functions, redesigning their talent development program, and maybe closing factories or consolidating locations to reduce overhead. Almost always, the goal is to improve their P&L statement so they can be “more competitive”.

This past six months we have heard a different story. It may just be the group of CEOs we have been around, but the conversation is changing. CEOs and their top leaders are looking for a winning edge. Staying competitive is no longer enough. Just like in professional sports, the best CEOs are realizing that in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world, they need to find every edge possible to win.

Looking at the data that we have collected, after working with thousands of executives from all over the world,  we can clearly see an opportunity to create a winning edge that many CEOs and leaders are missing:

_90% of executives say they don’t prepare their brain to perform their best for high impact events (i.e. meetings, presentations, negotiations, strategy work)
_75% of executives say they have no strategies to improve their personal performance for future events
_63% of executives had impaired metabolic function which decreases energy, leads to brain fog, and causes altered hormonal responses
_85% of executives had impaired movement patterns which leads to pain, tension, and reduced energy
_84% of executives stated that they wish they had more energy so they could give more energy to others (colleagues, team members, direct reports, family)

When we look at this data, we have to ask ourselves, what is the opportunity cost of allowing these statistics to persist? What would be the economic value added by improving the executional stamina, mental agility, resilience, and energy of these critical 1% leaders and their teams? How much better could leaders be if they fully prepared themselves for their key events, developed a high performance mindset, optimized their metabolic function to feel as good at 5:00 pm as they felt at 8:00 am, reduced their physical distractions of pain and tension, and maximized their energy so they could be energy givers to their teams and their family?  If you asked Novak Djokovic two years ago what a difference little changes could make, he may have had his doubts. Ask his competition today and they’ll tell you it’s huge.

Have you done everything possible to create a winning edge? Where do you fit in these statistics (and your team)? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Jogi Rippel & Scott Peltin
Co-Founders //
TIGNUM // ENGINEERING SUSTAINABLE HIGH HUMAN PERFORMANCE

I am a student of human behavior and human performance. I love to coach people to help them achieve things they may not have otherwise achieved. Over the years, one of the most fascinating things I have observed is how people often avoid the simple solutions only to lead to more complex failures.

As a wrestler growing up, I remember my coaches telling us that we only needed to master three moves: one from the standing position, one from the bottom position, and one from the top position. They would constantly drill fundamentals into our heads and remind us that it is fundamentals that will separate winners and losers. Of course, thinking we were smarter than everyone, we would try the most complex moves we could find only to get pinned by a lesser opponent who was not very impressed.

A couple of weeks ago, pro golfer Phil Michelson won the tournament at Pebble Beach. His performance was so amazing on the back nine holes that his wife was overheard asking him where such flawless golf came from. The next week I saw Phil warming up for his next tournament and there was his coach reinforcing basics over and over again. You would think that a pro golfer would not need a coach to teach, reteach, and reinforce the fundamentals, but that is exactly what he pays his coach to do.

Currently in Arizona, professional baseball players are engaged in spring training in preparation for the upcoming season. Once again, coaches are teaching, reteaching, and reinforcing the fundamentals.

The key message is that winning is a product of the flawless execution of fundamental skills.

Having had the opportunity to coach hundreds of top executives, this same ironic phenomenon repeats itself over and over. Brilliant and highly talented leaders get busy, get distracted, and forget to pay attention to the simple fundamentals that create the foundation for Sustainable High Performance. Strategies such as visualizing their upcoming meeting from all angles, setting clear intentions, eating to feed their brain for success, and doing specific movements to improve mental agility can easily be underestimated and forgotten.

In business, just as in sports, the most Sustainable High Performers are the ones who use their coaches and support system to stick to the fundamentals of high performance. Rarely is talent enough to beat the competition; it almost always comes down to execution. The leaders with the executional stamina, mental agility, and resilience will be the ones to win. Being able to feel and perform as well at 5pm as you do at 9am doesn’t happen by luck, it requires a great foundation of high performance habits.

As always, I’d love to hear what you think.

by Scott Peltin
Founder // Chief Performance Officer

Recently, I was talking with a client who admitted that his life has been chaos for the past few weeks. He has had fire after fire to put out, while trying to design and implement some major strategic and tactical changes in his organization. As usual, he started our conversation by apologizing for not fully following the Tignum strategies, but in the middle of his explanation he was struck by a transformational thought, “Actually, Scott, while I know I’m in a totally chaotic period, I am hyper aware of how I feel, what I can do to impact my performance, and how this has to be temporary because it’s unsustainable.”

This statement covers volumes of information in one sentence. The reality is that our clients are under high demand and significant pressure to perform. They have to deal with unexpected urgent and emergent situations that weren’t in their schedules but couldn’t be avoided. They live and perform in an imperfect world where things are constantly re-prioritized in order to be successful. As I listened to my client tell his story, I had a brief flashback to my prior life as a firefighter.

On many occasions we had to respond from call to call. One minute you are cutting someone out of a car and the next minute you are running into a burning building where you have zero visibility and you’re surrounded by chaos. What I learned from these experiences was that the real professionals, the highest performers, developed micro strategies that work on the fly. What I also learned was that those who left their performance to luck made some serious mistakes that at times were even fatal.

Here are a few of the micro strategies that will create High Performance in chaos:

Before/Between

_Prepare yourself for what you are running in to. (On a fire I did a 60-second size up of the situation and mentally rehearsed as many what-ifs as I could while we were responding to the call.)
_Grab quick recovery moments by dis-engaging, moving, breathing, and hydrating.
_Carry High Performance snacks with you because putting out fires requires a lot of energy. (If you don’t have food with you, there is a high probability that you will crash and make some serious mistakes.)

During

_As things speed up around you, slow things down inside you by controlling your breathing and re-focusing on the present task. (In fires this is easy because you can hear every breath in your breathing apparatus but in business this powerful intervention requires awareness.)
_Recognize distractions early and move them off your plate.
_Stay in the moment by fully focusing on what is in front of you (quit multi-tasking). This saves time, produces better results, and requires less energy.
_Vigilantly manage your thoughts - especially those that make you a victim. (Tough times are tough but High Performers reframe and refocus on the actions they need to take to be successful and also be sustainable.)

These strategies are simple but they only work when you practice them and you apply them. I’ve run into fires without a plan, without properly preparing myself, and without the focus that I needed. It’s an awful feeling to be 100 feet into a burning building and realize that you’re in trouble. In hindsight, I am lucky that nothing catastrophic happened, but the truth is, I was going through the motions on that fire - that wan’t High Performance. What I learned is that small things make a huge difference and when you can’t change the chaos, you better maximize yourself.

Reflecting back on my conversation with my client, the most important thing he said was, “I am very aware of my performance and I know when I’m stretching myself and this makes me constantly do every little thing that I can to be better and more sustainable.” I’d love to hear what you’re doing to create High Performance in your chaos.

by Scott Peltin
Chief Performance Officer // Founder

Recently, while watching a fantastic documentary about Formula One three-time world champion Ayrton Senna, I was struck by the eerie similarity of “The Black Weekend” at the race in Imola and the tragedies happening in today’s business environment. On the weekend of May 1, in 1994, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger died in a crash during a practice run and one day later during the race, Williams driver Ayrton Senna crashed and died. Up to this point, everyone had become complacent about the hazards of racing but suddenly there were two deaths in one weekend. Just two weeks later in Monaco, Karl Wendlinger had a horrific accident at the first chicane after the tunnel, leaving him in a coma for several weeks.

Usually after a series of tragedies like this you expect an expert advisory committee to be formed and to create some statement to the media about the proposed changes that will be coming. This did happen, but there was a huge difference to previous similar events. Formula One Association President, Max Mosley, appointed Neuroscientist Professor Sid Watkins to be the Chairman of the expert panel. When Watkins started reviewing the situation, he candidly told Mosley, “You know this will cost an awful lot of money to make Formula One safer.”  To this comment, Mosley replied, “You have carte-blanche just fix it.”

Now, flip to the current business world. Over the last 7 years we have witnessed highly talented executives, who were full of potential, also crash. In October 2010, the young CEO of SAP India collapsed and died. In October 2011, Sanofi’s head of the Asian business passed away during a business trip. In November 2011, a highly talented and sought after CEO of Lloyds Banking Group, Antonio Horta Osorio, took a leave of absence from the company due to fatigue and mental exhaustion. Here in 2012, after a major recession, and in the times of downsizing, cost-cutting, and constant transformation, almost every week we hear stories of burnouts, unexpected deaths, and even suicides. But what happens when these tragedies occur? Usually there’s a short period of shock that quickly passes, there’s the usual chatter in the media (unless it is hidden, which we are realizing is more common than not), the HR partner and placement firm searches for a replacement, and then it’s back to work as usual.

So what did Watkins do with his carte blanche? He changed the game. He headed a group of specialists from various backgrounds and they analyzed every single aspect of Formula One. They looked at circuit design, race car design, race rules, driver training, the mismatch of car performance to driver capacity, etc. Quickly changes were made to the tracks, the cars, and the drivers. Today, steering wheels collapse, drivers are exceptionally fit, safety is engineered into every aspect of racing, and the cars and drivers go faster than ever. The irony is that even though performance has increased, there has not been a single death in Formula One since that tragic weekend in 1994.

As we travel around the world and analyze executives, we are shocked to see that the number of executives who are Sinking and Floating is quickly increasing. We think this is because when tragedy occurs, nobody takes carte blanche. They return to business as usual without realizing that the actual result is decreased performance, decreased passion, and increased probability of another tragedy. Maybe this happens because these executives don’t have celebrity status like Ayrton Senna. We can also argue that Formula One lives from sponsor and TV money, and dead bodies are bad for business. The fact is, this is also true for corporations. Floating or Sinking leaders hurt the morale, they kill the KPIs, and they lower shareholder value.

Just like Formula One, the battle in business to keep the best talent is raging. The financial and morale cost to replace a leader is significant. Even more, the benefit of having Sustainable High Performing leaders is huge. This is why we ask ourselves, when are the boards and C-suite members going to take the quantum leap (similar to the one that Formula One made) and start innovating new high human performance solutions?

What would you do if you had carte blanche to help create the new norm in Sustainable HIgh Human Performance at your company? We would love to hear your suggestions, success stories, and challenges.  We are curious and excited to change the game.

by Jogi Rippel
CEO // Founder

Using data to make decisions is critical in business and many companies have become very sophisticated about it. They use real time dashboards about supply chain data, sales data, financial data. They look at key ratios and many even use special algorithms that combine superficially unlinked data to review past performance and predict future performance. A performance analysis can be done anytime and anywhere. Surprisingly though, there is one area where so few companies use data to make strategic decisions -  the area of human performance. Sure there are engagement surveys and 360 analysis, but what is the real added value? The data is never real time, it’s often completed with cynicism, and it’s not directly linked to business performance today, tomorrow, next week, and over the next months. Where is the innovation in this area?

I would like to share an example from outside the business world that is considered cutting edge, innovative, world-class, and game-changing. Several years ago, the AC Milan Soccer Club developed a new training facility called the Milan Lab. The heart of the lab is not a modern gym, nor a special training tool - it’s a computer that is fed a lot of different data about the players. They look at on-field performance data such as heart rates, kilometers run, sprints versus walks, shots on goal, etc. Surprisingly, they also collect emotional and psychological data on the players on a weekly basis. Using special algorithms, the computer analyzes all the data and generates a simple traffic light report. Red means this player is not allowed to play today. Orange means this player can play but he is under observation. Green means this player is allowed to play. Finally, blue means this player is at peak performance with resilience. The coach is only allowed to pick the team for a match based on the traffic light report derived from the data they have collected. You may think this is impossible, but the results from using this approach are astonishing:

.01 They reduced the injury rate and severity significantly. In the world of soccer, this is pure capital because it impacts not just the potential performance of the player but also their value to the club.

.02 They realized that age is not a good key criteria for performance. Younger players often were “orange” while several players in their mid 30’s often showed “blue”. Traditionally, players at this age would never get a contract extension but using this innovative approach they did. This added great experience to the team and reduced the cost for new younger, more expensive players.

Let’s transfer this to the business world. Imagine you could do something similar with your key teams.  Not for everybody, but just your critical teams that work on the most critical must-win projects. It may be a transformation team, an innovation team, a key account team, a product launch team, or a crisis team. Imagine you had some insights into the real-time human performance side of these teams and as a leader you would know who to push a bit harder and who to hold back a bit.

Imagine you could make sure that you don’t overload your team and force them to crash. Imagine you could make sure that your team could bring their best talent to the table. Imagine you had some insights on how external performance killers such as travel, meetings, emails, conflicting priorities, deadline pressure, etc., were impacting your key players.  Imagine you had a dashboard and could do a weekly or monthly analysis on how your key players were doing. Not just from the business numbers, but also from the human performance side of energy, resilience, mental agility, and stamina. You would know if they were Swimming, Floating, or Sinking.

Some might say, “This is impossible,” or “Big brother is watching”.  Others may be afraid of this much transparency. We agree and disagree at the same time. While an approach like this could be tricky because within many organizational cultures a person running in “red” may be labeled as “weak” or as a “risk”. In the world of sports, running in “red” is accepted and sometimes part of the deal. They know that the demands are exceptionally high and we are human beings with human limitations based upon our physiology. This may mean that a system such as this would require some trust and guarantee about the usage of personal data. At the same time, we believe that this could be a really valuable approach for critical mission critical teams. After all, what are the consequences of a bad decision during a merger or acquisition? How catastrophic can a bad decision be during a crisis such as an oil spill or a tainted product?

The truth is, these mission critical teams usually consist of highly successful, extremely talented, and well-trained individuals. Does putting them in a pressure cooker and then increasing the temperature without the insights provided by real data really make much sense? Imagine how you could support your critical talent better if you really understood what they needed.

At Tignum, we are fascinated about this topic and have started two research projects to dig deeper. We would love to hear your view on this kind of thinking. Are we crazy? Is this off the chart? Or are we on to something that you would love to explore further. Drop us a note.

By Jogi Rippel
CEO & Founder

At Tignum, we think a lot about the future. We wonder how the current demands on top talent can continue to grow. We wonder how the human physiology, which was never really designed for our current business demands (time travel, multi-tasking, information overload, shift work, constant unrelenting demand, growing complexity of issues, ambiguous goals, constant change, etc.), will be able to withstand these changes. We realize that the discussion of how to maximize the energy, resilience, mental agility, and stamina to be able to meet the growing demands of business is still in its infancy. It reminds us of the discussions around strength and performance training in sports only 30 years ago. There were those who hung on to the belief that an athlete either had it (the power, the speed, the agility, the focus, the talent, the drive, etc.) or they didn’t.  Today we have well proven and accepted strategies for developing almost all of these elements of success.

There is a lot being written and discussed lately in business about the New Norm.  Much of this focuses on the impact of the global markets, social media, technology, and the collision of a new and old generational version of values. At Tignum, we discuss the New Norm from two perspectives: 1) How will the external performance killers change? and 2) How can we help the critical 1% leaders and their teams exceed these performance killers to deliver great results (for the short, medium, and long term)?  In 2007, Sylvia Ann Hewitt published an article in the Harvard Business Review describing a rare breed of workers that had what she termed “Extreme Jobs”. She described workers who worked long hours, under significant pressure to win, who were available to their clients and co-workers 24/7, and were rarely disengaged from work. These workers ran on pure adrenaline and caffeine and often burned out early in their careers.  In April 2010, Heike Bruch and Jochen I. Menges wrote an article in Harvard Business Review about a new phenomenon they named the “Acceleration Trap”. They described a trend they were seeing where not only did individuals burn out, but companies were burning out as well.  Forced by a global recession, these companies were overloading and multi-tasking their talent at an unsustainable pace of expectations that they called the “Acceleration Trap”.

Today, these aren’t called “Extreme Jobs” anymore - they are the “New Norm”. The speed of the “Acceleration Trap” isn’t a temporary acceleration to meet a crisis - it has become the “New Norm”. This year we are working with some cutting edge companies who won’t accept the “New Norm” of creating short term success by grinding their critical % to the bone. Together we are creating a “New Norm” where leaders support their critical 1% teams like the franchise players that they actually are (top talent is needed everywhere). We are changing the way the work is done. We are changing the work environment to be more conducive to producing great results. Most important, we are changing the way these executives approach and prepare themselves for their work (and their time away from work). Unlike sports, we don’t have 30 years to figure out how to exceed the demands of the “New Norm” of business.  As we develop and implement specific high performance strategies to different critical 1% teams, we will keep you posted.  So keep your eyes on this space. 

At Tignum, 2012 isn’t just another challenging year for business. It isn’t just another year of political grandstanding with theoretical solutions to our economy. To us, this is a quantum leap year where we tackle the external and internal performance killers that destroy the full potential of great leaders. This is the year where we create a “New Norm” where the Sustainable High Human Performance element of business isn’t just a nice to have, it’s a strategic must.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts and solutions for the “New Norm”.

by Scott Peltin // Founder & Chief Performance Officer

Recently, I was cleaning up some files and I found an essay from entrepreneur and writer Seth Godin that he wrote 9 years ago about the power of opportunity. At the time I originally read the article, we were in the development of Tignum so it really resonated with me. Interestingly enough, as so many people around the world are gazing at their 2012 planners and what they want to achieve, I think it resonates even more now.

Here is a short excerpt: “...stop thinking about how crazy the times are, and start thinking about what the crazy times demand. There has never been a worse time for business as usual. Business as usual is sure to fail, sure to disappoint, sure to numb our dreams. That’s why there has never been a better time for the new. Your competitors are too afraid to spend money on new productivity tools. Your bankers have no idea where they can safely invest. Your potential employees are desperately looking for something exciting, something they feel passionate about, something they can genuinely engage in and engage with. You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It’s never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment—just one second—to decide.”

As always, we understand that there is a huge gap between knowing and doing, so we asked several leaders to give us the behaviors they want to implement in 2012 to “create excellence”.  We combined their thoughts with some of our own and created a top 10 To-Do list:

.01 Inject energy and fun.
.02 Care about what works.
.03 Say no to boring (meetings, people, and initiatives).
.04 Focus on what’s productive.
.05 Innovate yourself as you go (your resilience, stamina, brain agility)
.06 Don’t be afraid to fail - forget about perfection.
.07 Cut the crap (emails, meetings, projects, processes)
.08 Be prepared - always (travel, meetings, coming home).
.09 Create meaning
.10 Make your personal sustainable high human performance your default.

After working with over 8,000 high performing executives all over the world, one thing we have learned - the true Sustainable High Performers (Swimmers) don’t count on luck. They design every single day to make it happen. We hope this list provides you some inspiration. Print it. Copy/paste it. Share it. Live it. And let us know what you would add.

A happy and successful 2012 to you.

by Jogi Rippel
CEO // Founder