I don’t think we really want high-performance

We’ve just had the Olympics in Paris, as you know. It’s clear that high performance equates to a medal in this environment. If someone doesn’t get a medal does that mean they are not a high performer?

If the medal is the only goal then yeah maybe. Or maybe not. Are they high-performance or not?

I think we are good at creating phrases we like the sound of – like high performance. But not so good at defining what they mean. And we often miss the opportunity to put tangible measures to assess if we are doing well, or not.

Phrases that we use, often without clear measurement are ‘engagement’, ‘productivity’, ‘innovation’,? ‘authentic’, and my personal favourite (not); ‘best practice’ and ‘world-class’. My friend and author of Prove It, Stacey Barr, would call them ‘weasel words’. Words that mean lots of different things or not much at all.

If we want to have a ‘high performance’ culture (and I write this doing a little sick in my mouth) these are the things we need to implement and therefore measure:

1. Everyone is aware of the clear strategy and purpose and how that translates to their role
2. Attracting awesome people is not hard
3. Ideas are offered at all levels, strategy comes outside of the leaders
4. Mistakes are openly discussed, and learned from
5. Feedback is a normal part of everyday conversations
6. Holding each other to account, on work and behaviours, is the norm
7. Meetings are productive, minimised and people are clear on their role in them
8. There is a palpable energy because people love being at work

You can see these things. And if we decide to – we can measure them too. If you want high performance, be clear on what you want. Create measurements for them. And then do the things that are also missing – hold people to account on them.

Want to learn how to make sense of the weasel words and create a culture of real, measurable results? Then check out my upcoming session on ‘Why it’s so hard to create high accountability cultures’ here.