Chapter 12
Teach Your Team to Play on the Emotional Edge

We need to play on the emotional edge all day, every day. Leaders don't tell people to relax. Relaxing is the quickest way to shut down your operating system. Instead, true leaders teach people how to recover their edge after facing adversity.

Coaches often talk about playing with emotion and the importance of the mental edge. What do these expressions mean? Can a performer be too emotional? Given a high level of talent, emotion probably does separate the winners from the survivors. Like coaches, leaders need to concentrate every day on developing winners. Emotion can raise talent to an even higher level, not only for individuals but also for teams—sports teams, corporate teams, and family teams.

Uncontrolled emotion, however, can be devastating to performance. Too many times we see the downside of emotion rather than the upside, which is why it's much more common to encourage people to calm down instead of harnessing their emotional energy.

My philosophy is that, for the most part, if you want to win, you never relax during performance. The exception to this is in sport, where taking a calculated mental lapse can help athletes regain their focus. Whether it involves sales, sports, business, or family, act with emotion and perform at as high an emotional level as you can control.

In crisis and conflict, uncontrolled emotions are a serious liability, while controlled emotions can provide a tremendous asset to finding solutions. Emotion is consciously used in recovery from adversity, in focusing techniques, and in concentration. Great players push their emotion to the highest level they can control during performance. Again, this is true in both the sports environment and elsewhere. Getting to the emotional edge is a vital part of this program. To do that, you must first answer the question: What is your emotional edge? On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the optimal level of emotion for top performance. If you're a one, not emotional at all, then you're too relaxed. Lacking emotion means you are not tuned in to what you need to do, so your performance is very low. You tend to make what we call errors of omission, which arise when you don't do something you should. This happens because you don't have the selective attention that you need for physical and mental practice, so you will randomly respond to cues, which sometimes help your performance and other times do not.

On the other hand, if you're up around the 10 level, you are too emotional and you tend to make errors of commission. You react to every mental cue you get, which causes you to take action even when you shouldn't. Recall the selective attention example of a young child learning to catch a ball and responding to every visual cue that's possible. In addition to watching the ball, the child is gathering information from cars, trees, and other things in the background, which makes it hard to focus. Once the catching skill is developed, then the child recognizes the important cues and locks in on the person throwing the ball, his or her arm, the release, and the ball's flight.

Given the ideal situation, the optimal emotional level will be six or seven. At that point, you're on the emotional edge, at your highest level of performance.

The next questions are: How do you get to that level? How do you sustain it? And if you go over the edge, how do you get back? You will notice that we are not concerned with how a person will relax. The important thing to learn is how to stay at the emotional level of peak performance, not how to back off from it.

First, it's best to gradually scale up to the optimal level of emotion. If you get there first thing in the morning and try to hold it all day, your nervous system won't allow it because it is not possible to hold such a high degree of concentration for a long period of time. People who say they go into the zone for two or three hours are not honest because the human body cannot maintain such deep concentration for more than 45 or 50 seconds. Because of these short bursts of focus, everyone's system needs a break, a mental lapse. The key is to control when you take it as opposed to letting your nervous system decide on its own. I call this the timed mental lapse. If you give your system a break of no more than 10 seconds—just enough time to take a deep breath—you can get back to the level of emotion that's going to make you the most productive.

Most people don't raise their emotional level to six or seven for a simple reason: They are afraid. As a society, we're afraid. We're afraid to play or perform on the emotional edge consistently because of what might happen. If you make a commitment to perform at the edge, then you've conceded that at some point you'll go over the edge. Obviously the closer you are to the edge, the more stimuli you will react to emotionally and the greater the chances you will go over the edge.

For example, if you're in heavy traffic in the morning rush and you're already at about a six or seven when some driver cuts in front of you, you're more likely to go over the edge. If you're in the same traffic but you are at a three or a four emotionally when someone cuts you off, your irritation may send your emotional level to a six or seven, but you're still under control.

There is a time to reach the edge and, based on my experience, I am convinced that if you're not willing to go there and take some emotional risk, then you're probably never going to win consistently. You may win on occasion because of your talent, but you won't be able to use your emotions as a supplement, one of the keys that separate the winners from the survivors.

As a leader, you need to constantly be observing people around you as you do your own job so that you can tell if they're getting too emotional. If they're approaching an 8 or 10 on the emotion scale, you can help them get back to the emotional edge.

Just what does it mean when you go over the edge? It means that you've become so intense, so high, that you're out of control emotionally. You're not making conscious decisions at that point because your emotions take over. No one wants to be perceived as being out of control. It makes a person look dangerous. You will be less fearful of going over the edge if you know that you can retreat from that emotional level and if you know how to do so. With that skill in your mental files, you can regain control, so you will be more willing to play or perform on the edge, which is essential to winning at the highest level. If you don't have what's needed to regain control, you're likely to stay relatively far from the edge, which makes it impossible for you to win at the highest level.

How do you get back if you go over the edge? Many people in a corporate environment experience mental tension in the afternoon. It drives people away from having conversations and meetings, and from making conscious and often critical decisions. These people are over the edge emotionally and realize that they will not make good decisions. What they need is to let their mental tape rewind.

If you're over the edge, take 10 minutes for a little diversion: close the office door, listen to music, go outside and walk around—all of these activities can help you recharge. I always recommend that people take a power nap. Find a quiet place and get very comfortable, giving yourself the suggestion that you're going to lie down calmly for 10 minutes. It may take several times, but eventually your system will become conditioned and you'll be able to drop off to sleep and wake up 10 minutes later. You will have the energy you need for the rest of the day. This is one way to bring yourself back from the edge. Find a diversion that works to give you a little time out from the work routine. As a parent, you can take a ride or go shopping for a little while. Divert your mind to break the cycle.

Progressive relaxation is another technique that can bring you back. In times of frustration, some people feel tension in their neck, shoulders, or arms; others experience a headache. Progressive relaxation is the practice of isolating different muscle groups and performing exercises to release the tension. Eight to 10 minutes of these exercises will restore your equilibrium.

Don't fear playing or performing on the edge emotionally; it's the best place to be. The problem arises when you don't take a break. Instead, you may become more frustrated and then go further over the edge.

Athletes illustrate this point, often in visible ways. Some athletes who have had a losing experience on the field will go into the locker room, sit down, and read a book to regain control. But other athletes, after a bad performance, will turn over tables, kick lockers, take baseball bats and attack the plumbing, or throw water coolers onto the playing field. You name it, I've seen it thrown—towels, gloves, helmets, bats, folding chairs. Once I saw football player on the sidelines—he wasn't playing at that moment—go so far over the edge that he ran onto the field and tackled the ball carrier. I've seen out-of-control coaches punch players. I've seen CEOs go into an office and wreck it verbally and physically, ruining a relatively good environment.

If people don't create a way to regain emotional control, then burnout is probably inevitable. Imagine a person in a job that is not going well; each day drives the emotional level higher and higher. People call home to say they'll be late for dinner because they feel they need to add hours to the day. If they usually work 10 hours, they add three more. If they usually work five days a week, they start working six. Rather than analyzing the 10 hours of work and trying to get more out of that time, they set themselves up to spend two to three additional hours on emotional endeavors, not productive activity. How many of those people eventually don't call home anymore because it's assumed they're going to be late for dinner.

The backlash comes in the worker's personal life, as more tension and emotion build up each time he or she isn't home for dinner. When you add two or three hours to your working day and then make it part of your lifestyle, you have stolen that time. You've stolen it from your family, your friends, and your leisure time. You've stolen that time from the very side of life that is your motive for your work in the first place.

That is why I keep asking the question: Why do you do what you do? If you don't have an answer, then taking time from your personal life is a nonissue. If you do understand why you do what you do and still steal time, then your frustrations eventually will drive you from your job. You'll wake up one morning and hate your work because it has stolen your personal life.

One of the major responsibilities of leadership is pretty commonsense. It's to make sure that your people understand why they do what they do, understand that for everything that's professionally significant there has to be something personally significant in their lives—and sometimes you need to take those people aside and remind them of this. If you keep working long hours and the mental tape keeps getting tighter and tighter, eventually you're going to wake up one morning and, while you're in the shower, you're going to hear a strange flap, flap, flap. That's the sound of your mental tape self-destructing. And you can't replace it. When it's gone, it's gone. That's the worst-case scenario.

You have to make a conscious effort to play with emotion every day but to keep it under control consciously. Before you get caught up in your job or sport or anything else, stop and think about the ramifications and the toll that uncontrolled emotion takes on your life. You have to understand and recognize the symptoms of going over the edge to know where that point is for you because it's different for everyone. Mentally record feelings during performance when you are successful. Do this immediately afterward before you leave the environment. Mentally replay what you just did and store that successful experience. When you store it, you not only input the mechanics but also the emotions of the experience. This enables you to know when you're reaching that emotional level again. Visualize this again and again and again. Repeat the process until the emotions are stored with the mechanics.

A few years ago I worked with a pro baseball player who was a great hitter but he was inconsistent. Sometimes he was terrific, and other times he was terrible. When I met him, he'd fallen into a bad slump because he was trying not to miss, not to make mistakes, not to look bad as opposed to swinging to hit the ball to be successful.

We talked about his problem. “Can you remember one time when you hit the ball and it was like music? When it was vintage you? When it was perfect and everything was place?” I asked him.

Suddenly that big athlete came to the edge of his seat and his eyes began to well with tears. “Yeah,” he said, “it was against Philadelphia, seventh inning. It was cold that night. We were behind 3-2. The count went to 3-1, and I hit a fastball. It was inside, and I hit it, and it didn't feel like I hit it, but it went over the fence. It was a great feeling. We won.” And he kept on talking about that hit.

“How many times have you thought about that hit since then?” I asked him.

He looked surprised. “You know, this is the first time.”

The information had been stored mentally, and when the hitter recalled the performance, he replayed not only the mechanics but also the emotional feeling he had. Within a couple of days the hitter came out of his slump. He started hitting as he had before. It wasn't because he changed the mechanics of hitting; it was because of his ability to recall the winning emotional level that enabled him to repeat the performance.

You can do that in every walk of life. You always store the information, whether it's good or bad. It's just a matter of finding it and pulling it up. Although it's not an easy task, the more often you retrieve the information, the easier it becomes. The rule is that before any performance or activity, you visualize a previous similar experience. It will serve as an incentive or a motivator and also raise your emotional level to the desired point. Then if you should go over the edge during a performance, all you need to do is take a deep breath, visualize, and return to the optimal level. You can do that in a matter of seconds.

Particularly important here is to apply this sport concept to business. If you're getting ready to have a meeting, pull up a memory of a good meeting you've had before. Recall it in your mind. Play it through in real time. Anticipate questions and answers you will face in the meeting to come. And after this process, you'll be more comfortable and closer to the emotional edge.

Remember, you do not want to relax and fall all the way down to a one on the emotional scale and then, immediately before the performance, try to climb back up to a six or a seven. Unfortunately, most people engage in yo-yo emotions. They spend most of the day going up and down so they're emotionally fatigued by the time it's over.

Everyone has what is considered a normal daily activation level. Here's how it works: The emotional arousal level goes up to a certain point when you get up in the morning, dress, and head for work or another activity. The level varies from person to person, but you work off that base all day. It goes up and down, but stays close to that starting range. If an important telephone call comes in, suddenly you have to elevate your emotional level because it results in better, quicker decisions. After the call ends, the emotions drop back to the base level and you relax. Then, you have to attend a meeting and your emotional level rises again, but it returns to the base level afterward. The result is mental and emotional fatigue, not because you went back to the base level but because you had to raise the level to make important decisions. It makes sense to go to the edge and stay there, eliminating the need to spend so much time and emotional energy going up and down. Staying on the edge, of course, is not a static situation. You'll fluctuate up and down a little, but you'll be able to hold a relatively clear emotional line all day once you have mastered this technique.

Most amateur golf matches, for example, are lost after the 15th hole, not because of a bad shot but because of bad decisions. That happens because people work so hard mentally during the first 15 holes that they're fatigued going into 16. A quick remedy for those of you who are golfers is to never lock in on a shot until you get to it. Don't waste emotion when you're walking to the shot. Don't waste emotion when you're riding the cart. You lock in, you select a club, you hit it, and you save tons of emotion if you practice that.

Note: You must understand a very important effect of staying on the edge. You'll be perceived as a threat to people who are relatively relaxed and never rise above a two or three on the emotional scale. That means you have to be totally committed to playing on the edge. You also need to feel good about being up there and winning. Eventually, you'll reach the point where you're able to go to the edge and stay as long as you want. That's when you're going to do things that other people cannot do and achieve things they dare not try. This does not always create admiration and respect. In fact, it often engenders envy and contempt.

There's no question that when we talk about emotion we're basically talking about anxiety. By definition, anxiety is a generalized feeling of fear or worry about things that might happen or of the possible consequences of the events. Unlike stress, which was discussed in Chapter 11, anxiety is sometimes hard to get a handle on even though we talk a lot about it. If this emotion were defined in stages, the first stage would be feeling nervous. The majority of people say their greatest fear is speaking in front of groups. If you've done this, you know you get a rush through your system. Your voice may change. You get muscle tension.

The second level of anxiety is tension. It may result from a lack of knowledge or worry over the consequences of your upcoming actions.

The third level is fear. It stems from a perceived threat and can drive your performance higher until it reaches a certain level. Then it can drive you out of the optimal zone. This level is often referred to as being psyched up and sometimes psyched out, having butterflies and choking. If you reach that level and do not take control of your emotions, then you reach the panic point. That's the most serious level of anxiety.

The best antidote is patience, which is very difficult to practice if you're in a panic. Unless you have a vehicle in place to control your emotions, you can develop phobias that may drive you completely out of a particular environment.

In working with athletes, I encounter this question constantly: Do you motivate athletes in sport psychology? To the contrary, as I've said before in this book, I've never in 45 years tried to motivate an athlete. In fact, I spend most of my time trying to get athletes down to the edge as opposed to up. Most of them are already motivated; it's a prerequisite to being where they are.

In sports, a lot of players are known as practice players. They perform like champions in practice but don't play well during the game because of their anxiety level. This is related to the fear of failure. The fear has crossed the point from being an incentive to performance and has become a detriment. It's common for aggressive athletes to work on raising the anxiety level of opponents to drive down their performance level, and many times it works. Of course, it can also have the reverse effect. Raising the anxiety level can actually improve performance, so players role the dice when they employ that device in a contest.

You have probably seen that kind of psychological competition quite often. It's the manipulation of anxiety levels by fans against the opposing team and between colleagues, and siblings, and even parents and children. Nothing physical happens, but there is a play on the anxiety level. For instance, when a game-winning field goal is about to be attempted, the opposing team will call a time-out to create time for the kicker's anxiety level to rise, maybe impeding his execution. It's also common in sales presentations. Some people want to go first while others prefer to go last. It depends on where they are psychologically and emotionally and what they believe is most beneficial to them.

Look for telltale signs from your mental files to alert you when you're not where you want to be emotionally or you're over the edge. One sign is less efficiency in your performance. Another is freezing up in high-power situations. Forgetting assignments, losing touch, and other negative side effects are also common.

In baseball, for example, a player may lose the feel for the ball, and proneness to injury may also be a sign of an ineffective emotional level. Athletes who want to play but are afraid of failure will find a way to be injured just before they are to perform. A minor-league pitcher with whom I worked had major-league talent but every time he got called up, he would get injured. This happened three times. First, he turned his ankle; the next time he ran into a wall; and finally he hurt his back. He had a good career as a minor-league survivor but never pitched in the majors. It was the result of his fear of failure, another emotional issue. He was afraid to win, even though he wanted to be a great competitor. He feared that if he won, his accountability would increase, expectations would go up, and so would his responsibility. Surviving was more comfortable than truly winning at what he wanted to do. It was very sad to see in such a talented person.

Every day in the corporate environment, leaders must constantly be aware of whether people have a fear of success or a fear of failure. One of the telltale signs of a fear of success is that a person will perform at an acceptable level but never take a risk. In contrast, people who have a fear of failure will accept challenges that are so easy that if they're basically breathing they can succeed. Many people encounter the fear of success or failure, the loss of emotional control, or ignorance of their optimal level of emotions. These controllable shortcomings cause a constant rising and falling in performance. You can be a 10 emotionally today and down to 1 tomorrow, then back up to 10 the next day. This is frustrating, but you learn to understand your emotional levels and gain control of them. You cannot only empower yourself but also help others to grow stronger and better, especially those closest to you every day. It takes time, effort, and sufficient practice to build confidence. It's very difficult to build if you never get to play or perform.

The key is to motivate people to reach their optimal level, which comes from creating an environment that's conducive to performance; maintaining a consistent, sustainable emphasis on performance; and setting realistic goals but making them tough enough to stretch your system. As we talked about in Chapter 4, they should be specific but attainable, and you should set time frames to reach them. Anxiety is good when it's under control. You want your performance anxiety to be relatively high as you anticipate an upcoming event, then you want it to slide back a little as you step up to the task at hand. Once you get started, it will increase as a natural consequence of your actions and situation. Your post-performance anxiety may rise or stay even.

A vital part of dealing with anxiety and emotions is your team, both the personal and professional. This chapter ends with some practical exercises. Have your team practice some situations that artificially create pressure. Use verbal and nonverbal positive reinforcement to build confidence and self-concept in people.

img Teach Your Team to Play on the Edge

List verbal reinforcements that create confidence for you.

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List nonverbal reinforcements that create confidence for you.

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List the professional situations that create pressure for your team.

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List verbal reinforcements that create confidence for your team.

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List nonverbal reinforcements that create confidence for your team.

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