Attracting High Performers to Your Team - A How-To Guide
"I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies."
-?Lawrence Bossidy, Chief Executive, General Electric
The Question
How to attract high-performers?
Business problems are people problems.
Whether we're solving people's problems, or needing the right people to solve them, they are central to any operation.
People can ultimately make or break any team or organization, and transform your personal leadership journey.
The right people by your side can expand your leadership capacity and reach, just like the wrong people may hinder it.
A great leader's main purpose then becomes to develop a high-performing team.
But in today's labour landscape and waging war on talent, it's becoming increasingly difficult to focus on developing your team if you are barely keeping up with filling gaps on your team.
This week's newsletter explores how to deal with this initial part of the equation of developing high-performing superstars:?how do you even attract them in the first place???
The Research
Attracting high-performers yields a trickle-down effect through everything they do, even as the tasks become increasingly complex.
A?study in McKinsey?cited that "superior talent is up to eight times more productive."
Not to mention the cost-saving benefits of avoiding a wrong hire, the associated turnover and retraining costs, and the capacity burden on leaders.
High-performers will also readily practice a?culture of leadership?in their own roles, requiring less micro-managing and constant oversight.
In this age of employee disengagement, finding these unicorns are a tall order for companies.
And should you even spot this rare unicorn, without proper recruiting and hiring practices, you may just scare them off before any meaningful engagement.
Some Advice
Finding your stars has no silver bullet strategy.
This is why it is most worthwhile to spend the time to hire slowly to ensure the fit is reciprocal in both directions.
Watch the recent Unicorn Leader podcast episode where Amanda (former VP of People at Rewind) shares her experience on how she looks inward at the organization to help her in attracting and hire excellent employees.??
Your Hack
Attracting stars takes intentional thought and work to develop your employment brand and organizational practices that ensure a genuine and reciprocal fit.
This week's hack is to?create a more individualized employment brand.
Your employment brand is your organization's reputation for the employee experience. It is not another marketing tagline that is meant to appease the masses.
Rather it needs to be agile and constantly adapt to the unique workforce you aim to attract through similar values.
Aiming to check all the boxes for all individuals?won't distinguish you from the competitors. But picking a few elements that you do well as an employer or team and emphasizing them is a more productive strategy.
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So how can you as a manager influence your organization's employment brand?
You need to be attuned to your team members' needs and intrinsic values, to attract other new individuals of a similar calibre.
This can look like having frequent conversations about what keeps team members on your team. You can also aim to involve your team members in speaking with candidates and sharing their experiences during the interview.
If you want to know some starting points of what to potentially focus your employment brand on, consider?Gallup's research:
Similarly,?HBR?identified that employees want "to feel valued, feel a sense of belonging and trust, see the potential to grow, and have the flexibility to integrate work with their personal life."
How are your team and organization measuring up to these needs?
These elements appear in some of the?Unicorn Lab's 6 Level Model of High Performing Teams. Are you prioritizing an environment of psychological safety to help foster belonging? Are you encouraging individual empowerment and a culture of leadership by continuously coaching and helping develop your team?
Parting Thoughts
Culture and what you invest in it from recruitment to offboarding - will all be reflected in your employment brand.
Take feedback seriously and intentionally curate and continue to develop your strong points to attract high-performers.
Steve Jobs summarised it best, "A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players."
Enjoying this topic? Our latest blog lets you read and learn more about attracting stars to your team.??
Unicorn Leaders?— The Podcast
Have you heard the newest episodes!?
Our most recent podcast guests are experienced leader superstars: Brittany Forsyth and Shawn MacDonell.
???Brittany (former Chief Talent Officer of Shopify and founder of Backbone Angels)?shares how her leadership journey and styles grew and evolved as she rose to become Chief Talent Officer of Shopify. She shares her lessons along the way and how they all helped her build her leadership confidence to succeed at a unicorn-level company.
???Shawn?(founder of Creativision)?shares how his experiences have highlighted the importance of becoming comfortable with essential leadership skills like approaching a productive conflict, giving and receiving feedback, and pursuing a proactive action-oriented attitude.
Take a listen & subscribe ??
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Sincerely,
The Unicorn Labs Team
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