In the Army, soldiers who have given up on doing anything more than the minimum required to get by are said to be on the Road Program.

That's Road, as in Retired on Active Duty.

Take a look at what you've been doing over the last 6 months or so. Would an outside observer believe that you too are on the Road Program? Or are you doing whatever it takes to add value to your organization?

We all go through periods in which we're not as motivated to perform as we should be. That's to be expected. But periods of malaise that seem to last longer and longer each time they occur are a sure sign that you're a candidate for the Road Program.

The key point to all of this is that it's your responsibility to do something about it. Whether it's recharging your passion for what you're doing, or accepting that it's time to move on, you owe it to yourself and those around you to get off the ROAD.

The Houston Chronicle on Sunday featured an article about the New York Jets' rookie Head Coach Rex Ryan. I highlight it not because of what it says about Rex Ryan as a football coach but because of what it can teach us about team building.

Reading the article reveals 3 team building truths that you can incorporate in your team building efforts:

1. Set concrete goals and get your team's buy-in.

See, he couldn’t get them to believe unless he believed. Ryan began that process with a training camp that was focused on team building. Looking back on it now, it’s eerie how it has worked out.

“It’s something I thought was important, to get away where they just had each other and they could bond together,” Ryan said. “I think that was the important thing. They don’t want to let each other down. They don’t want to let themselves down, they don’t want to let each other down and they believe in the players that we have here. They believe in our systems.

When the Jets held their first team meeting after making the playoffs, Ryan passed out an itinerary that included practice schedules right through Super Bowl Sunday.

2. Team building "events" should be relevant to the organizational mission.

One day, Ryan is asking them to bring in their high school video to add comic relief to a team meeting.Another day, he’s turning routine pass drills into on-the-field competition, complete with rewards for the winners. Ryan might turn a defensive strategy session into a game of Jeopardy.

3. Look out for everyone on your team, not just the superstars.

And maybe most important of all, every player knows Ryan has his back. He tells them so. He tells others, too.

“He loves his players,’’ Jets linebacker Bart Scott said. “He’s not just there watching. He’s interacting not only with the people who are perceived to be the stars or the starters. He’s there with the last men on the roster as well. He understands that this is a business, but you can go about your business and have fun and enjoy it as well.”

There is, of course, much more to building a High Performance Team, but incorporating these three team building truths in a team building program would be an excellent place to start.

Tom Peters makes an excellent point when he asks:

Why does the Army, from recruit to general, train and train—but, mostly, the private sector does a smidgeon of individual training and virtually no unit training, let alone combined unit training?

I spent countless hours training during my Army career. Some of it was general; physical fitness training and marksmanship, for instance. Some of it centered on battle drills; developing instinctive reactions to common battlefield occurrences. And some of my training focused on preparing for specific missions.

All military units conduct this training, but the High Performance Units I was associated with excelled at training. They excelled because they understood and incorporated the 5 Rs of High Performance Training:

• Resources. High Performance Training is resource-intensive. It requires an investment of time, money, material, and personnel. For instance, one High Performance Unit I served with expended more ammunition for training in a month than similar units went through in a year.
• Realism. High Performance Training is realistic. Our training for a specific mission would include traveling distances equal to what we would travel during the actual mission, under the same conditions as we would likely encounter and culminated at a rehearsal target site built to look as much like the actual target as possible.
• Rehearsals. This is also referred to as the "crawl-walk-run" method. In training on especially complex tasks we would start with the basic individual tasks and methodically work up to the full unit tasks. Rehearsals were also used anytime live ammunition was to be used; we would train first with blank ammunition and not switch to live ammunition until we had mastered the drill we were conducting.
• Repetition. Practice something often enough and it becomes a subconscious, reflexive action.
• Review. One of the most effective tools for improving performance is the after-action review. Our training always ended by talking through what we did, why we did it, what worked, what didn't, and what we could do to improve our performance.

The effectiveness of the 5 Rs was driven home for me when I attended a briefing on the accident rates of aviation units involved in Operation Desert Storm. Prior to deployment, aviation units that I would consider High Performance (based on their consistent use of the 5 Rs, among other factors) had an accident rate that was somewhat higher than their counterparts. After deployment, however, their accident rate was substantially lower than units that didn't strictly adhere to the 5 Rs.

The 5 Rs of High Performance Training are as applicable to business as they are to the military. Adopting and adapting them for your specific needs will help you move towards High Performance Success.

Can't make it to one of my Building Your Perfect Team workshops? Then I have good news. Your copy of my new action guide, Building Your Perfect Personal Team, is hot off the presses and ready to mail.

Building Your Perfect Personal Team will lead you through the process of building Your Perfect Personal Team. Each section starts by asking you to consider how you will apply The ARC of High Performance Success in your relationships. The ARC is based on my core philosophy that success must be grounded in three basic values; Accountability, Respect and Commitment.

You will then be presented with a number of exercises, checklists and suggestions to help you choose each member of Your Perfect Personal Team. One of the most important of these exercise, and one that you will see repeated in each section, is determining how each potential team member measures up against the seven characteristics of a Perfect Team Member.

This action guide will help you choose the best possible team to help you achieve your goals. You can reserve your copy here, and I'll put it in the mail as quick as you can say "Building Your ARC to High Performance Success."

Every now and again a book comes along with a message so clear and an approach so common sense that the reader can't help but wonder, "That seems so obvious; why didn't I think of it?" Scott McKain's Collapse of Distinction is just such a book.

His message is that businesses, in order to thrive in the marketplace, must find ways to offer 'uncommonly excellent' customer service. His approach is to outline the four steps to discovering and implementing those areas of differentiation that will position a business ahead of its competition in the minds of its customers:

1. Be clear on whom you are and what you offer
2. Be creative in exploiting potential points of differentation
3. Effectively and consistently communicate your unique story
4. Focus on the customer experience

He makes effective use of stories and examples, both from the business world at large (Have you ever wondered why Circuit City collapsed while Best Buy thrived?) and from his own experiences in small town Indiana (Pay close attention to the effect McDonalds had on two competing local restaurants), to drive home the power of distinction in building a strong business.

Another effective technique that McKain employs is to end each chapter with an executive summary in outline format, making it easy to go back and capture specific points at a later time.

As a side note, it's probably not a coincidence that Collapse of Distinction is one of the first two titles in Thomas Nelson Publishing's NelsonFree program.  Purchase of a NelsonFree title provides a physical copy of the book along with easy access to both audio book and e-book versions; all for one price. It's a unique program that, if it strikes a chord with buyers, has the potential to cause a fundamental change in the way all publishers market their titles.

I can't help but wonder, though, if a need or desire to cut the production cost of the physical book in support of the NelsonFree initiative is responsible for the decision to publish it as a casebound book and use dull grey illustrations and pull quotes; decisions more appropriate to a textbook than a quality business book.

But those are minor irritants, and if they're the cost of obtaining access to audio and digital versions of this important text I'm happy to pay them. Because in the final analyis Collapse of Distinction is an important book that has already impacted the way that I run my own business. I feel safe in saying that it will take its rightful place in the rare collection of business texts that are as applicable to the sole proprietor as they are to the multi-national corporation.

If you're a college basketball fan, or if you live in the Commonwealth of Kentucky or Memphis Tennessee, you know that THE big news today is that John Calipari has left the University of Memphis to Coach at the University of Kentucky.

I watched the news conference introducing Coach Calipari and was immediately struck by the power and underlying truth contained in a number of his statements. Two in particular I thought worth sharing with you. These are paraphrases, but they capture the spirit and intent of his words.

First, about about making promises:

Don't make promises, make commitments.                                         

To spell it out for those few who might not get the point I'm driving at, promises can (and will) be broken. Commitments will not. And without commitment your chances of achieving your goals are poor at best.

Then, about who deserves the credit for success:

If I've done my job right, 10,000 people will be able to say "They couldn't have done it without me"

The best leaders and the best team builders understand that success belongs not to them but to the team. And because they understand it they go to great lengths to ensure that credit is shared and that everyone believes they played a role in achieving success.

Think about those two statements and ask yourself whether they reflect the way you lead. If they do you are on the path to High Performance Success. If they don't maybe it's time that you make a change.