Top characteristics of a high-performing culture - part 1
Goldstone Associates
Executive Search for venture and growth companies. People well placed.
Wavelength’s Adrian Simpson defines 5 characteristics of high-performance culture.
Adrian Simpson Co-founder and Chief Connector of Wavelength Companies Ltd - a UK-based boutique executive education business with a global reach. Their specialism is ‘bringing the outside world in’ for leaders. A grown up, no nonsense, transparent business creating and curating transformative experiences for leaders. They help deliver change. Adrian is also a Keynote Speaker, Podcaster and Leadership Specialist.
How often have you heard business leaders say, “we are proud of our high-performance culture”? “High-performance” is something many large organisations claim, and all aim for, but few have defined what it really means. Fewer still successfully redefine how characteristics of “high-performance” culture evolve when the political, economic and social context of markets shift. Some of the hallmarks of high-performing organisations ten or twenty years ago are now outmoded beliefs that can hold people, and therefore performance, back.
Over two decades, Wavelength has been privileged to spend time behind the scenes of some of the world’s legendary businesses, including Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, JD, Tesla, Southwest Airlines, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Pret a Manger and LEGO. In warehouses and factories, shops and studios, head offices and call centres, thanks to the candour of people making things happen in often turbulent trading conditions, the way these iconic brands do business has revealed what Wavelength believe to be the ten fundamental principles of high performance.?
1) Compelling Purpose
Purpose has had some bad PR in the last few years. Many organisations found themselves playing catch up as global social justice movements heightened consumer awareness of corporate responsibilities. Some have found themselves confecting “purpose” initiatives designed to backfill a perceived void behind commercial imperative with humanity and conscience. Poorly implemented, such inauthentic initiatives are a distraction at best, actively damaging at worst.?
But all high performing organisations do have a purpose, whether articulated or not, that relates directly to what the company does and the motivation of its employees. The Aravind Eye Care System in India is perhaps the best example: to eliminate needless blindness. It’s a purpose that is exhibited throughout its hospitals – literally, on signs, but also in the behaviours of staff at all levels. Note that it is unflinchingly specific – elimination, not reduction; needless blindness, not all blindness. Aravind’s purpose is not to improve people’s vision, it exists to stop them going blind.?
But public services, charities and NGOs, find it easier than commercial organisations to articulate why they exist in a way that both drives the business and connects with staff and customers emotionally. A purpose is not just about reputation enhancement; it’s a foundational strategic principle on which to design the entire organisation from the inside-out.
Other examples from our clients, hosts and partners:
Southwest Airlines: To connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel.
Netflix: To entertain the world.
Apple: to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives.
2) Uncompromising on Culture Fit
Recruiting for “culture fit” has fallen out of fashion, because the meaning of the term has too often been misinterpreted. The practice of recruiting “people like me” leads to the worst kinds of cultural homogeneity and groupthink which can kibosh even the most carefully crafted diversity-boosting hiring processes. But culture, at its heart, is just how people behave.?
Thirty minutes on TikTok can give anyone smart sounding answers to common interview questions, which is why interviewers need to reach deep into the organisations’ core values to find ways to elicit the truth about candidates’ attitudinal fit – for good and bad. Airbnb, a hospitality company, would ask, “When was the last time you showed compassion for another person?” to find people who would instinctively align with its core value of empathetic customer service.?
Filtering out candidates who are nice to the interviewer but rude to the receptionist is one thing. Using the interview process to spot candidates who have the aptitude to excel but lack the experience and skills is another. Having the courage to select, and actively seek out, such candidates takes concerted, sustained effort. But what can seem like a risk is in fact the opposite. But consider the risk of parachuting in a highly skilled individual from another organisation, especially at a senior level, who expects the organisation to bend to their way of working, not the other way around? It happens.?
The whole recruitment operation – from the priorities of hiring managers, the language in job descriptions, the KPIs of the human resources teams and the incentivisation of executive search companies – needs to buy into, then coalesce around, systems that put personal disposition, attitude and character over skills and experience in finding and choosing new people. As Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines once said, “you can’t train nice”.?
3) Relentless Alignment
Even with a sincerely held, motivating purpose, and a team of committed people working towards a common goal, work is still work. Few of us are ever lucky enough to come to work simply for the love of it. Reward systems are more than just financial, of course, but working back from remuneration is a good way to keep people focussed on what really matters.?
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No organisation is perfect, and a key role for leaders is to choose what not to do. Especially in complex, global companies where different divisions and disciplines have competing priorities, mission-creep is inevitable unless leadership makes clear matters and what doesn’t. Leaders can often fall into a trap where the headline strategic priorities, for example service excellence or product innovation, don’t match up with what teams are incentivised to deliver, for example sales growth or budget efficiency.?
First, measure what matters. If the goal is revenue growth, or brand saliency, or NPS, name the metrics that count and report back routinely. Second, incentivise progress on what’s measured, through group and individual bonuses, perks and treats, both financial and otherwise. Reward milestone achievements, collectively and individually, so people built trust in the process and pride in their contribution.
Getting everyone united behind a common goal doesn’t happen once a year at the annual strategy meeting, or even monthly in a Town Hall. Company priorities need to be baked into the day to day workings of every division, every discipline, every team and ultimately every staff member. Misalignment between what leaders say matters and what people are rewarded for delivering breeds mistrust.?
And remember that measurement doesn’t always have to be on hard metrics. The hugely successful UK retail chain Timpsons, whose tagline is “Great Service by Great People”, has built its success through knowing its people as individuals, many of whom are ex-prisoners. It’s the kind of thing that lots of companies say but few support with meaningful action. At meetings with Timpsons managers, senior teams are challenged to answer detailed questions about the shop floor staff who run their branches – What’s their partner’s name? Do they have a football team? What would make a great birthday gift for them? It’s a way of holding the whole company accountable for making sure that conversations and relationships between colleagues are the lifeblood of Timpson’s culture.
4) Authentic Leadership
Ed Schein, professor at MIT, said, “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.” Or in other words, “you either care about your people or you don’t” which was how Declan Ronayne, former CEO of Irish retail chain Woodie’s put it. Of course culture is everyone’s business, but leaders can sometimes need reminding that the whole organisation is watching their every move, all the time. Hiding in a top floor office sends a message as clear as anything that might be said from the platform at a strategy presentation.?
Leaders’ behaviour will be mirrored by the executive team, middle management, and right across the business. “Servant leaders” prioritise the good of the wider organisation over their own objectives. They empower people to make their own decisions through an embedded system of mutual trust. They build and nurture frameworks of collective accountability, not command and control from the centre. Most importantly, perhaps, they listen.?
Particularly post-Covid, there is a further expectation that senior leaders avoid the infallibility trap. It’s easier to say than to do but being genuinely willing to be challenged, even to being proved wrong, is critical to fostering trust. Likewise, role modelling candid conversations about individual challenges, whether its slip ups and professional mistakes or deeper, more personal experiences of grief and mental ill-health for example, are hallmarks of strong, authentic, modern leadership.?
5) Brilliant Basics, Magic Moments
There’s no point offering a free gift with an online order if the order is damaged on arrival, or arrives late. All organisations in which customer service is truly precious are obsessive about the basics. Understanding the basics that really count is itself a strategic decision, because depending on the brand, sector, product and mode of delivery, what constitutes fantastic customer service varies enormously. It may be that speed of delivery matters more than personalised service; or that reliable, detailed product advice at the point of purchase counts for more than breadth of choice. The early execution of the Apple Genius Bar rendered the aesthetic distinction of Apple’s hardware in a high-touch, “exclusive” customer care proposition.
The Four Seasons, one of the world’s greatest luxury brands that has set the global standard for high-end hospitality, has a three step rule of service excellence.?
Thank you and full credit for this insightful thought leadership article goes to Adrian Simpson and Wavelength. Thank you for sharing! Connect with him on LinkedIn here Adrian Simpson and Wavelength Companies Ltd.
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Goldstone Associates - generalist executive search.
Cross sector, function and geography.
Co-Founder, Chief Connector, Keynote Speaker, Podcaster, Leadership Specialist, Wavelength Companies Ltd
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