What 8 Traits
Make High Performers
Seek Out New Positions
Contents
- What evidence of “high standards” or “best practices” or “esprit de corps” would you show someone who walked into your workplace?
- How to recognize and reward high performers
- How to multiply a high performance mindset throughout the organization
- Mistakes that senior management teams make that drive away high performers
- Why raising your standards should NOT be subject to a majority vote
- How to deal with pushback when driving your team to play at a new level
- Advanced communication skills to develop to drive out the enemies of HP
- Happy & Productive: How to maximize job satisfaction for each team member whether they aspire to be a high performer or not
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Make your company culture attractive to high performers or risk losing them to someone who does.
The difference between peak performance and high performance: sustainability and consistency.
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What evidence of “high standards” or “best practices” or “esprit de corps” would you show someone who walked into your workplace?
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
Ray Kroc
Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Peter F. Drucker
Entrepreneur
- Promote Appropriately
- Pay Above Standard rates
- Get employees input, then apply it
- Encourage creative innovation
- Clean out dead weight
- Use friendly competition
- Get off their backs
Entrepreneur
- Establish clear development paths
- Allow company culture to guide hiring decisions
- Focus on individual contributions
- Lead by example
- Watch your winners
How to recognize and reward high performers
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Stephan R. Covey
People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards.
Dale Carnegie
- Employees at these high performers were "increasingly satisfied" with compensation, benefits and non-monetary recognition. The organizations were seen as generally showing appreciation for contributions when appropriate. Most important of all, if not unexpected, given the overarching importance of the individual manager-employee relationship, was the sentiment, "My supervisor values my contributions."
Entrepreneur
- When your best people are doing the kind of work that makes a difference, recognize it. One great way is to give them a well-deserved promotion. This tells the rest of the company (and others outside) that you appreciate the extra effort they put forth to make the company more profitable and efficient.
- Give your best people the time and resources to test out fresh new ideas.
Entrepreneur
- Hiring the right people is your biggest hurdle. If you have talented staff members who mesh with your culture, it’s likely that most of them will want to stay with your team. But you can’t just leave employees to their own devices. You must develop their skills, acknowledge their contributions and empower them with leadership opportunities to have the best chance at keeping them around.
Forbes
- Rewarding individual accomplishments shows that you’re paying attention. Managers need to communicate with their people to find out what makes them feel good (for some, it’s a raise; for others, it’s public recognition) and then to reward them for a job well done. With top performers, this will happen often if you’re doing it right.
How to multiply a high performance mindset throughout the organization
To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.
Doug Conant
An employee's motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.
Dr. Bob Nelson
- Loyalty. Long-term career opportunities. Corporate cultures that allow employees to speak their mind. Senior leaders who lead by example. A new study of how high-performing companies motivate their people shows that some old values - as in sound management practices - never go out of style. Because they work.
- Career Development
- Empowerment
- Leadership
Entrepreneur
- Encourage all leaders in your company to set realistic expectations and over-deliver on promises. Back up words with action, and empower staff members to take responsibility for their roles and contributions.And above all, be honest. Your staff deserves to know what’s going on, whether it’s good or bad.
Mistakes that senior management teams make that drive away high performers
Employees engage with employers and brands when they’re treated as humans worthy of respect.
Meghan M. Biro
Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.
Zig Ziglar
- Great employees know what they are supposed to be doing and when it needs to be done. Constant reminders and micromanaging will drive them right out the door.
Forbes - Why your employees are leaving
- Managers - Managers who don't create the right opportunities for their employees, don't communicate with them, and don't appreciate them often find themselves dealing with a high turnover rate.
- Constant Reorganization
- Negative Competition - Pitting people and departments against each other does not encourage people to stay.
- Lack of Support
Forbes - Things that make good employees quit
- Overworking employees - If you must increase how much work your talented employees are doing, you’d better increase their status as well.
- Not recognizing Contributions or rewarding good work
- Not honoring commitments
- Hiring/Promoting the wrong people
- Not letting people pursue their passions
- Failing to develop skills
- Failing to engage creativity
- Failing to challenge people intellectually
Forbes - Reasons Employees Leave
- They Don't Feel Heard
- Low Compensation Feels Like Being Undervalued
- They Are Underutilized And Not Recognized For Their Talent
- Employees Leave Managers, Not Companies - Are you (the manager) a multiplier or a diminisher?
- They Are Unhappy When Unchallenged
- The Growth Pipeline Is Stagnant
- Generational disparity - All generations dislike change, want a supportive coach, desire to learn continually, want to be respected, and need to feel trusted. Traditionalists prefer hierarchy. Boomers are mission oriented. Generation X wants independence. Millennials are team-centric. To engage each, create a holacratic environment where feedback is given weekly on how individual goals contribute to strategic objectives.
Why raising your standards should NOT be subject to a majority vote
How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?
Harry S. Truman
All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting. If we want different results, we must change the way we do things.
Tom Northup
How to deal with pushback when driving your team to play at a new level
Compromise: the art of sharing a pie in such a way that everyone thinks he has the biggest part.
Ludwig Erhard
- Expect resistance: Have a plan in place to address pushback, including positive reinforcement and consequences that are clearly communicated and understood by all staff members.
- Nix Generational Prejudices: Management can help the situation by actively looking for instances where two employees are butting heads, and intervening to help bring understanding and compromise to the situation. It’s also important during the hiring process to recruit individuals who support the company culture you wish to create.
- Encourage Camaraderie: To cultivate a strong company culture and foster deeper connections between employees, create opportunities for your staff to socialize that doesn’t involve work.
- Identify the Root Cause of Resistance - The most common causes of resistance include:
- Lack of awareness about why changes are being made
- Fear of how change will impact job roles
- Failed attempts at change in the past
- Lack of visible support and commitment from managers
- Fear of job loss
- Involve Executive Leadership: if leadership doesn’t adhere to the plan for change management, it’s very likely your employees won’t either.
- Communicate Effectively: By clearly and concisely explaining why the change is taking place, how it will impact each employee’s job and exactly what is expected of each employee before, during and after rollout—nothing is left to question.
- Do Change Right the First Time: Failed attempts to change aspects of your business process will have a negative effect on how employees view future initiatives.
- Leverage the Right Technology: The most successful work environments are those that are proactive, responsive and intuitive.
Advanced Communication skills to develop to drive out the enemies of HP
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Eric Hoffer
- A culture of voice exists when employees know they can share ideas, concerns and opinions. With a culture of voice, every employee believes they are valued and their voice has merit. They know they can contribute ideas -- even half-baked ones, propose solutions and share recommendations without fear of retribution of retaliation. When voice matters, employees’ sense of significance increases, resulting in emotional commitment.
Forbes
- Team Leaders Resolve Conflicts And Increase Cooperation - Conflicts can tear teams apart and leaders need to work to help resolve differences quickly and promote cooperation. Often team leaders assume that mature people will resolve conflict on their own. If that were true, however, there would be no divorce, separations or wars. In high-performance teams differences are addressed quickly and directly. This requires a level of maturity in team members. When people believe that they are trusted and others have their back, disputes can be resolved. Team leaders that focus on competition versus cooperation never achieve outstanding results.
- Team Leaders Communicate, Communicate, Communicate The Vision And Direction - Be a broken record and help team members to be focused on the vision. High-performance team leaders stay on message, they constantly communicate and keep people focused on the vision and mission to accomplish.
Happy & Productive: How to maximize job satisfaction for each team member whether they aspire to be a high performer or not
A leader… is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.
Nelson Mandela
Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last.
Ian Hutchinson
- Be transparent
- Offer more vacation time
- Make work-life balance a priority
- Encourage communication in common areas
- Create a career pathway
- Build employees up
- Promote a positive work environment - “Happy employees make for a happy company. Within the office, we'll publicly acknowledge accomplishments, provide a group lunch, reserve a prime parking space, or change a title. We'll also help employees to grow and develop, whether by taking on new desired responsibilities or challenges, taking courses to learn new skills, or furthering knowledge of the company by traveling on company business trips." – Jakki Liberman
- Set the example
- Recognize and reward employees
- Always say 'thank you'
- Offer benefits beyond the basics
- Make employees part of the big picture
McClelland’s Theory of Human Motivation
- Identify drivers
- Structure your approach
- Types of motivators:
- Achievement - People motivated by achievement need challenging, but not impossible, projects.
- Affiliation - People motivated by affiliation work best in a group environment, so try to integrate them with a team (versus working alone) whenever possible.
- Power - Those with a high need for power work best when they're in charge.
Sirota’s Three-Factor Theory
- Sirota's Three-Factor Theory of Human Motivation in the Workplace is based on three fundamental principles:
- The organization's goals are not in conflict with the workers' goals.
- Workers have basic needs that organizations should try to meet.
- Staff enthusiasm is a source of competitive advantage.
- The three factors, which together build enthusiasm, are as follows:
- Equity/Fairness – People want to be treated fairly at work.
- Achievement – People want to do important, useful work, and be recognized for this.
- Camaraderie – People want to enjoy good relationships with their co-workers.
Being an Effective Communicator
Daily Practices
- Set an example for how you want the team to communicate. If you want them to be open, then you must be open with them.
- Make time for employee conversation every day. Engage them on a personal level, face to face, rather than using email or text.
- Celebrate individual team members who are doing well and employees as a group; motivate and encourage the team to meet expectations by highlighting the success of others.