3 Ways To Identify Your High Performers

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Do you have a high performer on your team? Someone you go to when you need an extra hand or insight into a project or process? Most leaders do. These superstar team members go above and beyond and reliably perform at an extremely high level, meaning they have a major impact on your team’s culture, productivity, and performance. In fact, studies have shown that the top 20% of employees account for 80% of organizational output.?

Identifying these high performers is an important part of your role as a leader, but it’s not as easy as it may seem. Without a clear vision of what makes a top performer, you may be overlooking exceptional workers. Here are three things to consider.?

Appearance vs. reality

No one is truly impartial, and it’s important to remember that appearances may be deceiving. An employee may project an air of confidence that leads you to believe that they are high performers, but beware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This cognitive bias occurs when a person’s lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area cause them to overestimate their own competence. For example, in a study of tech workers, 42% of software engineers rated their skills as being in the top 5% when compared to their coworkers. This huge discrepancy illustrates the danger of this cognitive bias. Not everyone can be a top performer, but beliefs like this can cause people to act like one, and that confidence can be very persuasive. Alternatively, the Dunning-Kruger Effect can also cause those who excel in a given area to think the task is simple for everyone, causing them to underestimate their abilities.?

It’s also important to recognize that our own biases can color our thinking. Affinity bias can help to explain our preference for those that are like us. This works in both our personal and professional lives. Imagine your group of friends; it’s likely that you are the same age and gender, and that you share similar backgrounds and interests. Even if we pride ourselves on inclusivity, most of us tend to surround ourselves with people similar to ourselves (if you think you don’t, you may be a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect). Combating this bias takes conscious effort, so as you identify possible high performers, stay open to those who look or act differently from you and push back when you find bias sneaking into your thought process.?

Clarify your criteria

Strong output isn’t the only thing that determines a high performer; success looks different across teams, departments, organizations, and industries. It’s essential for you to define what it looks like for your team. What traits or behaviors are best suited to the role? How does a high performer communicate? How do they interact with other employees? Do they embody the organization’s mission and values? The less-obvious contributors are equally important to individual and team performance. These “invisible skills” often go unnoticed until someone doesn’t have them. Someone may crush their performance goals, but be unwilling to participate in a group setting. That’s all well and good, but to be a top performer, communication skills are essential. Instead, you’d seek out someone who is eager to share resources and help the team succeed.?

Develop a data-driven method

Observation is an important skill for any leader, but it isn’t perfect. Bias - conscious or not - can influence who we see as high performers. I recently spoke with a Founder and CEO who was told by two of her direct leaders that a few employees were underperforming. As she got closer to the details, she saw that these “underperforming” employees had made errors in the past. However, after analyzing performance data and sitting in on meetings with her leaders and their staff, she realized these employees were performing, and likely weren’t being challenged enough. Because of their internal bias, her mid-level leaders were too quick to make the judgment that these employees were underperforming. Instead, it was her mid-level leaders who actually needed the coaching.?

You can combat this by creating data-driven ways to evaluate your team for potential high performers. Goal-setting frameworks like SMART and OKR are extremely effective in these situations, and their use depends on situation and preference. Defining these parameters eliminates the guesswork and ensures that the objectives are attainable within a specific time frame. You can also consider using 360 feedback, a process of gathering evaluations from an employee's peers, colleagues, direct reports, and supervisor, as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves. This strategy allows for a fuller picture of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, and provides insight on the “softer” skills that are often harder to quantify.? Using these frameworks can help you to combat both conscious and unconscious bias and allows you to make better, more informed choices. What you learn may be surprising; the data may also aid you in identifying potential high performers you hadn’t previously considered.?

Top performers are precious to an organization, bringing a range of skills and abilities that can help organizations to achieve their goals, innovate, build a positive culture, and develop their employees. By determining what success looks like in your organization, creating measurable data points, and opening your mind to potential biases, you’ll be better prepared to spot these high performers and nurture their development.?

What kind of leader do you want to be? Let’s talk about it.?

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