by Karla Brandau, CSP

Bill Russell played Center for the Boston Celtics through 11 NBA champio nships and is often thought of as the best defensive center to ever play the game. Russe ll writes in his book, Second Wind: Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, of playing in the zone, that place you don’t talk about but where play is effortless. You know how the play will unfold  and where the ball will bounce.

 As a business professional, you can perform in the zone as well, knowing the answer to increasing unit production, moving your marketing efforts in just the right direction and using your intuition to solve team problems.

What is the key to performing in the zone in corporate America?

The key comes from Jim Fannin, performance coach. Over his 25-year career, Fannin has coached greats like baseball star Randy Johnson who pitched a perfect ballgame against the Atlanta Braves on May 18, 2004. Fannin observes:

“The average human has 2,000 thoughts a day. All thoughts are diverse in terms of content, but they all fit into one of three tenses, past tense, present tense and future tense.

Successful athletes and successful performers in the business field spend the majority of their time in the present tense. Peak performance is not achieved when dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.”

In my personal experience, I have found that focusing on past successes makes me lethargic and having the feeling, “all is well” while focusing on failure spirals my energy down to depression. Therefore, Fannin’s advice to be absorbed in the present and focus on the task at hand is a $25,000 productivity tip.

Looking at Fannin’s advice in a deeper way, you are not managing yourself or your people, but you are managing your 2000 thoughts and 10,000 thoughts a day if you manage five people. How do you get yourself and your employees to think in the present tense zone and thus improve performance?

Focus on the fundamentals. Business fundamentals are:

1. Core Beliefs. Go back to your core beliefs and re-embrace them. Help your employees and yourself to remember why the company was formed. Reinforce what you do for a living and why it is important. Do not focus on past problems or the possibility of failure in the future.

2. Focus on goals achievable in the next 60-90 days. When goals are completed in the 60-90-day window, the winning feeling spreads throughout the company. Focusing on goals that can be completed in a business quarter, gives you the advantage of routinely reassessing priorities, market niches, and direction. Your company can reinvent itself every quarter if necessary to keep pace with the global economy.

3. Plan daily productivity. To keep your 2000 thoughts focused on achievable goals, plan tomorrow’s productivity before you leave work. Know the most important task to tackle first. To focus the 10,000 plus thoughts of your direct reports, assign their tasks for tomorrow before they leave for home.

By focusing on a task list based on these fundamentals, you will be so busy checking off tasks, your mind won’t have time to wander to the past or the future. It will be firmly planted in the present.