We all ask ourselves the same desperate question from time to time:
How am I going to make this work?!
No matter how well we’ve done laying the groundwork for everything to run smoothly – becoming educated on management procedures, choosing the right staff, treating customers well – we all face situations that challenge us.
If you can keep our cool and adhere to some basic principles, you can not only meet any challenge – you can perform with excellence.
By applying these principles, you can become a super performer and help your business succeed.
1. Pressure equals opportunity. It’s when something matters that the pressure starts to build. Pressure can bring out the best or worst in people. In the hospitality business, its best to remember your training, follow through and visualize success in order to cease the opportunities at hand. As a manager, the best way to have great employees is to be a great employee in stressful situations.
2. Strive to hit .400 every year – keep your eye on the prize; write it down. In order to accomplish the goals you set forth, writing them down and placing the paper where you can see it every night. By doing this you are making your goals clear and objective.
3. Lean toward a “we-centered” ego rather than a “me-centered” one. Your ego doesn’t need to be visible to everyone - or even anyone but yourself. Being a top performer requires ego – it helps fuel self-confidence and provides some of the motivation necessary to achieve. But it should not hinder the performance of your team: your coworkers, friends and family. Over time, by keeping your ego to yourself, it becomes easier to enact a team-oriented ego, rather than a “me-oriented” one.
4. Time to quit? Rub some dirt on it. In life, work is unavoidable, so embrace it, go big, and appreciate the rewards. No matter how difficult the challenge you face or how much it may hurt to meet that challenge, push through and give it your all. Yes, there’s a chance you won’t succeed, or won’t succeed to the degree you’d like. But you stand zero chance of success if you don’t meet that challenge and give it everything you’ve got. You owe it to yourself and your team.
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Source: Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, MBA
Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, MBA, is the James H. Estes Family Endowed Chair of Lung Cancer Research and Full Professor Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He received his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, surgical training at the Mayo Clinic and at Cornell-Sloan Kettering hospital, and has been in practice for more than 26 years. The author of “Super Performing at Work and at Home,” (www.superperforming.com), Cerfolio, who was a First Team Academic All-American baseball player in college, is a world-renowned chest surgeon and recognized as one of the busiest and best thoracic surgeons in the world.