(Author's Note: If you want this issue in an MP3 recording format that you can download to your MP3 Recorder, send an e-mail to info@thecoughlincompany.com and in the subject heading write "Business Acceleration Newsletter April 2008" and I'll make sure it gets e-mailed to you.)

Master the Penetrating Power of Precision
How to slice through the recession and survive to talk about it

"I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement."
- e.e. cummings

In the midst of the daily media pounding about the current economic condition of the U.S. it recently dawned on me that the power of precision is available to everyone including executives, employees, and entrepreneurs alike. I also realized that achieving precision is the most effective way for any individual to succeed, especially during tough economic times.

The Noble Calling to be a Precisionist

In Webster's School & Office Dictionary, the word precision means "the quality of demanding exactness." A precisionist is a person who has mastered the art of demanding exactness. The precisionist operates among the very best performers in the world within a given area of focus and constantly works to improve his or her performance.

When customers and employers are hit hard in the wallet they become extraordinarily discerning about where they place their dollars. They become highly selective both in terms of what area they invest in and who they invest in. They develop a laser focus about only going after the type of people they absolutely need, and seeking out only the best of the best within that target.

If you want to fall into that extremely small slice of humanity that others will always seek out, then I challenge you to become a precisionist.

Examples of Precisionists

While precisionists are extraordinary, examples of precisionists are abundant. Here are some of those examples and lessons I've learned from them:

Truth be told, I'm not a golf fan. Watching men and women hit a little white ball into a hole for four days is not my idea of a good time, except...

...when Tiger Woods plays. Then I pile up the pillows and watch the master at work. What I'm really watching is not golf, but rather a precisionist applying his craft. All Tiger Woods does is improve. He searches for ways to become more precise in the application of his craft. People call him superhuman, but the truth is we can all get better at what we do. That's right. We ALL have the capacity to be the Tiger Woods within a given area of focus. The keys are..., well, I'll talk more about that in a little while.

Eric Clapton is the only three-time inductee into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. In his recent book, Clapton: The Autobiography, he said the only way to hone your craft is in front of a live audience. Practice is wonderful, but it won't force you to take your skills to the next level. What a great point.

If you want to be a better leader, jump in and lead, even if it means volunteering to be on an unpaid committee. If you want to achieve precision as a manager, then take on the responsibility to manage a project. If you want to become a truly precise executive, then ask to be held accountable for the performance of a key profit center.

My six-year-old son, Ben, introduced me to a new movie, Star Wars. Somehow I missed it when it came out in 1977. He and I watched it together and were mesmerized. There are six films in the Star Wars series. The characters were developed with such precision that the whole series has a language and history all to itself. And may the force be with you as well.

Barb and I took Sarah and Ben to Springfield, Illinois for spring break this year to see the Abraham Lincoln Museum. Precision oozed out all over the place from the most powerfully precise speech ever given, the Gettysburg Address, to the amazing life-like figures throughout the museum of Abraham Lincoln and his family.

In sports there's Albert Pujols and Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady (most days) and Roger Federer (almost every day until 2008 started) and there used to be Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova. In music there's Celine Dion and Tony Bennett. In business, there's Apple and the American Girl Company, and on television, there's Oprah Winfrey and Larry King and there used to be Johnny Carson. In films, there's Steven Spielberg and there used to be Walt Disney. In his own way I think Simon Cowell on American Idol is a precisionist. He demands exactness from singers in order to give them his praise. Those are my lists. Come up with your own.

A few weeks ago I drove home from my sister's house. On the way I was stopped by a man holding a "Stop/Slow" sign. At first I thought, "How can a person do that job day after day? Isn't that terribly boring?" And then it dawned on me the extreme importance of his work and the work of the crew repaving the road. If he lacked in precision, cars would run into each other, and if the crew lacked precision, they would end up creating a road that was uneven. Precisionists are needed in every industry and every walk of life. They are the ones who stand out in the crowd and establish a higher standard for what is possible.

The Challenge We All Face

Finding examples of precisionists is not very hard to do. So why does becoming a precisionist remain such a great challenge? Well, we get a little busy with our lives and before we know it today is over with and we're on to tomorrow, and we haven't exactly made very much progress in becoming more precise in what we're doing. In other words, the busyness of life takes over our best intentions until bedtime beckons us.

I think it's time, and even more so in these tough economic times that we keep hearing so much about, for us to step off the train of constant activity and make real progress toward becoming true precisionists within one area of focus.

The Process of becoming a Precisionist

Step One: Select one umbrella.

Your umbrella is the area of focus you've decided to achieve precision within. This is the area you're committing to operating within over the long term.

Walt Disney was not a great golfer and Tiger Woods never made great family films. They each operated within their own umbrella: Disney in family entertainment and Woods in golf. However, within each umbrella there was plenty of room to maneuver and create.

Walt Disney made family films and television shows, he created theme parks, he licensed products, and he started amazingly popular clubs like The Mickey Mouse Club. Tiger Woods plays in professional golf tournaments, he designs golf courses, he promotes golfing products, he hosts his own professional golf tournament, and he created a foundation that has introduced golf to millions of kids who otherwise may never have played the game. Having one area of focus isn't a limiting factor; it's actually a freeing factor. It allows you to operate with extraordinary freedom within a given umbrella and that enhances the synergy between everything you do.

My umbrella is democratizing great performance. Ultimately, my goal is for anyone who wants to be a great performer in a given field to have easy access to the practical steps necessary to achieve sustainable and extraordinary results. My mechanism for trying to accomplish this is to explain simple practical processes that hopefully anyone can use to achieve better sustainable results in their most important desired outcomes. My current target audience consists of business executives and managers. However, these processes for improving performance can and have been applied by people in not-for-profit, religious, academic, and community organizations.

I've worked full-time for over ten years, and still do, to find the actions great achievers have used to perform at incredibly high levels. I then worked, and still do, to hone these seemingly unrelated actions into very practical processes of three to seven steps each that hopefully any person can understand and implement regardless of their education, title, income, industry, age, or authority. My main work today is to continually refine these practical processes for improving performance and develop new ones so they become more powerful for more people.

What is your umbrella? What is the area of focus that you are going to consistently work within to become a true precisionist? Answer these questions carefully.

Step Two: Maintain a high degree of focus for at least fifteen years.

Tiger Woods played competitive golf at age seven and won his first Masters golf tournament at age 21.

Walt Disney started making animated shorts at age 19 and made his first full-length animated film at age 35.

Steve Martin did his first stand-up comedy routine at age 18 and began selling out major venues at age 33.

Harrison Ford set out at the age of 22 to become a great character actor. He received his first major part in 1977 at the age of 34 as Hans Solo in Star Wars. He became Indiana Jones in 1981 and now at the age of 65 he will be starring in the fourth Indiana Jones movie in May. He's a precisionist.

I first read the e.e. cummings quote at the beginning of this newsletter in Steve Martin's magnificent book, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, one hundred days ago. It has kept me awake almost every night since. Strengthening my content and delivering it with a degree of precision that creates movement in other people toward achieving sustainable improvement in their most important desired business outcomes has become a near obsession for me. I'm nowhere near where I want to be, but the pursuit of precision is my daily companion and it will be for at least the next fifteen years.

If you want to be a precisionist in any field, remain committed to constantly improving within your umbrella for at least fifteen years. It doesn't matter whether your focus is to be a great entrepreneur, singer, executive, leader, writer, or manager.

You might be wondering how pursuing precision can help you slice through a recession if it takes at least fifteen years to become a precisionist. Here's how it works. The moment you commit yourself to a specific umbrella, a specific area of focus, you begin to attract to you people and opportunities that help you hone your craft within that arena. In doing so, you become more attractive to other people. They know what you are focused on and they admire you for pursuing excellence in that field. They may not say that to you, but that's what happens. You probably won't make a million dollars, at least not right away, and that's ok. You are on your way to becoming a precisionist in a field that you have passion for and that sense of adventure is worth a great deal.

Step Three: Leverage technology.

I used to think that technology meant computers, software, and electronics. I wasn't even close. In Webster's School and Office Dictionary the definition of technology is "science used in a practical way." The definition of "science" is "systemized knowledge obtained by study, observation, and experiment." Consequently, "technology" means "systemized knowledge obtained by study, observation, and experiment that is used in a practical way." I LOVE that definition. That's exactly what precisionists do.

Tiger Woods is a student of golf: the history of golf, the great players from the past, and the different holes on the different courses. He experiments with different types of shots until he's able to use them in a practical way during a professional golf tournament.

Walt Disney constantly observed people and experimented with different ways to tell entertaining stories in practical ways. He was one of the first to use color in films, he embraced television when others ran away from it, and he created the first ever theme park.

We all have the ability to leverage technology in order to increase the exactness with which we perform. The key is to constantly study, observe, and experiment within our selected umbrella, and then use what we have learned in practical ways that add value to other people.

Step Four: Embrace simplicity.

Over the past eleven years, I've noticed that highly paid, intelligent, and hard-working individuals oftentimes subconsciously make their work infinitely more complicated than it needs to be in order to justify their salary and prove their commitment to the organization. They work 80 hours a week on ridiculously complicated processes that generate small increments of improvement.

If that statement applies to you, I have one piece of advice: stop doing that.

Instead I encourage you to embrace simplicity. Hone your processes until they contain three to seven steps that you can execute within a reasonable number of hours a week. (And 40 hours a week is a good place to max out at.) And then be ok with achieving great results with simple processes. Don't fall into the trap that says, "If this simple process generated great results, then a really complicated process would generate even better results." It doesn't work that way.

Last year I bought an $1800 computer that required five steps to assemble. I also bought an $18 toy for my daughter that required assembling hundreds of pieces with dozens of steps. Which company do you think provided me with the most value?

During the Q&A session after delivering a recent keynote, I was asked, "What should a person do when his or her boss gives 20 goals for the person to achieve?" I said, "The person should ask the boss for the three most important goals and then work to improve results in those three objectives. He or she should then stop focusing on the other 17 goals. Attempting to achieve 20 goals is a proven formula for ruining your career and hurting your organization's results. If the boss keeps insisting for discussions on the other 17 goals, I suggest the person say, 'I want you to be successful, and I'm not going to help you succeed if I dilute my efforts over 20 goals. So I'm going to remain focused on the three goals that matter the most to you and this organization.'" That's how you move closer to true precision at work. Did I mention that courage and sacrifice and perseverance all play a part in being a precisionist?

In the March 17, 2008 issue of Fortune Magazine, Apple was named the Most Admired Company in the World. In an interview with Fortune, Steve Jobs offered some penetrating insights on being a precisionist. Here are my favorites:

"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. So it'd better be damn good."

Select your umbrella, maintain focus at learning and experimenting and observing and improving for at least fifteen years, leverage your body of knowledge in practical ways, and embrace simple ways to deliver value to other people. The journey to becoming a precisionist is an exciting one.

Book Recommendations

This month I read three extraordinary books by precisionists. These three books are arguably the most important books ever written in the history of the United States. They are Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches. The first two were written in the same year, 1776. Wealth of Nations is a very long and difficult book to read, but in its own way provides a precise and comprehensive explanation as to why capitalism is a very effective approach to building a great society and how to build such a society. Common Sense is 67 pages of pure brilliance and explains with an extraordinary degree of precision why the American colonies needed to separate themselves from Great Britain and begin a new nation with a new form of government. I encourage you to read it if for no other reason than you will see a beautiful example of precision. Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches provides verbatim Lincoln's greatest speeches including the Gettysburg Address, his two inaugural speeches, and his speech to the Cooper Institute. Lincoln was the true master of conveying powerful concepts with an incredibly high degree of economy of words.

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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