How to Work Better and Achieve Greater Results: 18 High-Performance Strategies

Improving performance during change does not have to be time-consuming nor cost a fortune.??

Below you can find 18 ideas to improve performance by making adjustments to your ways of working and thinking (high-level summary from the consulting/coaching work I have been doing with Fortune 100 and leading businesses in Australia across industries in the last couple of years):?

1.Eliminate actions to increase productivity and reduce complexity.?

What can we remove this week??

Elimination is a powerful productivity hack.?

2. Focus on no more than 3 key priorities every day, every week, every month.?

Each of your team members will complete ~1000 meaningful actions in a year by following this approach (at work or home).?

3. Invite senior leaders to speak last so they don’t influence others in meetings.?

This will encourage people to put their opinions and suggestions on the table, promoting innovation, self-leadership, and avoiding groupthink.?

4. Go beyond SMART goals, focus on process goals instead.

The quality of the process/”system” will determine the quality of the outcome.?

And tackle 1 stretch goal at a time.??

5. Assess people’s capacities frequently.?

There are 4 key capacities to monitor: physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental.?

If any of these is low, your team will not operate at their best.?

5. Shorten meetings to 15-25 minutes, whenever possible.?

6. Train your team to operate in cycles of planning, implementation, and reflection.?

Action for the sake of action creates noise and reduces performance. ?

7. Create presentation templates to help people communicate effectively and concisely.

8. Let your staff work on a project they are passionate about.

This is useful to up-skill the team, give people exposure to new business areas, or develop Systems Thinking.?

This will also increase their sense of competence, belonging, and autonomy.?

9. Encourage your team to increase their self-awareness.?

The more they know themselves, the better they can self-regulate and put themselves in a position to add value, influence stakeholders, and solve more complex problems.?

Start by discussing core values, strengths, and how they can operate in a “zone of genius”.?

You can also help them differentiate “high value” from “low value” activities.?

10. Up-skill your team to develop business cases.?

This will help them develop the thinking to identify key problems to solve, quantify the benefit of their actions, and present information in a meaningful way to a wide range of stakeholders.?

11. Accelerate the feedback loop.?

Ask for feedback more often.?

Make the feedback actionable by building a Change Plan.

Then explain what are you doing with the feedback collected to create an impact in the business.

12. Discuss change fatigue in the business.?

• Is it real? How do we know??
• Who is fatigued and who’s not??
• Are we fatigued by change or by the ongoing introduction of change initiatives without proper implementation/embedding??
• What narratives have we developed around change??

13. Improve the quality of the questions.?

Higher quality questions = growth.?

14. Define possible levels of success with your team/s:?

• What does good look like? A significant outcome in your local team, for instance.?
• What does great look like? This could be an outcome that impacts the business as a whole.?
• What does outstanding look like? An outcome that changes/disrupts the industry.?

15. Listen to understand, not to reply.?

By doing so you will start to notice the narratives that shape daily behaviours, practices, and the organizational culture.

16. Ask and start with “why” more often.?

This will help you identify activities that could be eliminated and increase energy levels by focusing on actions that are more meaningful and impactful.??

17. Reflect on your way of being as a leader.

• Who am I becoming?
• Who am I when I am at my best?
• How am I showing up?

18. Understand the assumptions behind behaviours.?

Behaviours are shaped by what we think is possible, consciously or unconsciously.?

The more we can challenge assumptions, the more we can expand possibilities.?

Which one can you implement to move the needle today?