What is a Slump?

I was reading the sports page this morning and ran across an article about Travis Hafner (right), the designated hitter for the Cleveland Indians, concerning how he has emerged from his season-long hitting slump.

The point of the article was that Hafner hasn't produced his usual results this year so fans and the media proclaimed that he was slumping. Yet there are a lot of major league baseball players who would love to have Hafner's numbers from the first half of the year. And it appears that Hafner has worked through his hitting issues over the past few weeks.

So, what is a slump? Is it a period of time when we don't get the results we're used to and we're disappointed? Is a slump a result of never actually gaining the results we should or that we expected? How do we deal with slumps - by fighting through it or trying to change our approach and use different tactics to change the results?

Slumps in business are a lot like slumps in sports. They're very frustrating and can get us focused on the wrong things - like "what am I doing wrong" - rather than "what is my ultimate goal and where am I going"... And much like in sports, business slumps are the result of many different things that are slightly incorrect rather than one big, massive error that - if corrected - will change everything.

A famous golf coach, the late Harvey Penick, had a wonderful perspective on slumps in golf, sports, life and business. Harvey said:

"It takes as long to play your way out of a slump as it did to play your way into a slump..."

If you're in a slump in business, life - or your golf game - work on the fundamentals first. There are no silver bullets - just good, solid, proven principles that have worked for thousands of people in your position.

Now here's hoping Hafner doesn't go 0-for-4 tonight against Chicago...