Turbocharge your organization with performance driver mentality

After a few recent days racing cars around tracks, a number of similarities struck me between what we experience as drivers in motorsports, and what we see with drivers at work. Whether you're racing around a track or simply driving on a regular commute to the office, we are all considered drivers. We are also all workers, some of us at a regular pace, and others at higher performance. Whether you end up first or last, fastest or slowest, everyone gets a equal chance on the track or an opportunity in the workforce. While everyone gets a chance, only a few can end up leading the pack on the track or in an organization. As we get into four specific considerations on how you can exhibit behaviors of performance driver and leader, remember one underlying truth: passion is key to success. You need to have an innate interest and enjoyment in what you do, whether it’s the workplace or a hobby like motorsports. With that pre-requisite in place, here are the top four tactics the track will teach you that also apply to turbocharging your impact to your organization: utilizing a mentor and team, identifying your racing line / plan, continually improving, and utilizing data.

I. Utilize a Mentor & Team

The first recommendation the track brings has more to do with others that it does with yourself: look for a mentor you can learn from, and a team that you can rely on. On the track, especially new tracks, it is common to do a lead follow exercise with practice laps and feedback from a mentor around where the best positions and acceleration points are to get the fastest time around the track. The mentors usually have significant amounts of practical experience, especially around the domain or topic in which you are interested. Find one or more mentors that can help you become familiar with your role, job, and responsibilities. Ideally these are individuals you can consult with higher level strategy questions around the guidance needed to make the right decision on your own, and to help grow your career. A mentor can also provide a benchmark for a desired lap time, and it is important to have a high performing benchmark to compare against. Organizations are routinely benchmarked in terms of industry and performance, especially in financial settings when looking at required returns or risk (beta) of a firm. Always set a goal for improvement.

The next reality is that the driver is at the mercy of his/her pit crew, sponsor, and the broader engineering team. While the driver may be in the spotlight, their success is simply a function of their team. At the end of the day, they are also playing a individual role, with specific objectives in the success of the organization. Similarly, you need to learn to count on your coworkers as your team, and ensure to give them recognition when earned. A victory or successful project is never done alone, so ensure to make the entire team known and appreciated. A team will also help ensure you make the right decisions, assuming you both consider both their objective and subjective opinions and arguments. You want to have the most and relevant information available when making a decision, and having a diverse team will help do so. These decisions will help drive your business strategy forward. Key to a strong team working together is a strong plan for them to deliver against.

II. Identify Your Racing Line – Have a Plan

The second recommendation is around ensuring you know your racing ling - the plan you and your organization are executing against. The racing line is a term used for the ideal path around the race track, one that will let you carry the most speed around the track, the longest. Similarly, businesses have plans in which they also operate, on a set path to achieve a successful outcome. Now, the racing line is a theory. It can be drawn out and conceptualized before actually driving on the track. All the theory in the world cannot make up for implementation. Theory is core to good implementation, but only once you actually try things in practice and identify what does and does not work, will you continue to grow experience.

In practice, you’ll also find that there are many different lines that you can take that yield almost identical results. Similarly, businesses constantly have different ways of achieving an account (e.g. build, partner, buy), and it is up to them to pick the route that works best for them. It is important to have a multi year plan and vision for where you're organization is going. On the track, it is critical to look ahead as you will steer and go where your vision is directed. Knowing and focusing on where you are going is key to ending up where you want your vehicle, and your organization, to be.

There are two realities that occur however. Firstly, things commonly happen that take you off the racing line. Oversteer, understeer, another car, there are many reasons why you can’t stick directly to ‘the plan’. In business, the same occurs. Organizational changes, market moving information or m&a activity, and new startups delivering against your same goals. The key thing is to correct quickly when the unexpected occurs, and identify the quickest path forward. This also means having more then one plan- similarly to how you would find a best case, worst case, and other forms of scenario analysis in financial management. On the same regard, planned changes should be done smoothly and with gradual change that organizations can realistically uptake. You can't accelerate and turn at full speed and expect results; as you gradually turn a wheel you gradually get off the gas (string theory). The more you turn, the less gas you can give to have accurate results; conversely, the less you turn, the faster and further you can push the gas.

One of the easiest ways to improve and keep performing at a high level along a plan is to also be proactive wherever possible. The fastest way out of a corner is figuring out the right speed and turn into the corner. To do this, you need to identify where you have been driving, and where you want to be going next time around. Listening to the way the car reacts and behaves is critical to knowing you adjustments can or can’t be made. Similarly, you need to be proactive and listen to the reality of business strategy and financials in your organization. Is a project bleeding money? The best way to improve your next fiscal year is to accept the sunken cost and forego it in favor of other higher NPV/IRR projects in the backlog. Resistance to change leaves organizations performing inefficiently relative to modern organizations, that will most likely have lower cost due to modern efficiencies in delivering the same outcome. Improvement isn't a one time activity; it is something an organization and driver continually strive for.

III. Continually Improve Yourself, Your Process & Your Technology

The third recommendation is to continually improve yourself, your process, and your technology. When driving on track, you generally get multiple laps (assuming no vehicle mishap). With each lap, you get an opportunity to identify where you made mistakes (went too fast, braked too late/early, turned in too late/early), so that the next time around you can make an improvement. It is the traditional plan, do, check, and act that we see for years in business, applied to becoming a better driver. The great thing about opportunities, experiences, and work is that you rarely only get one chance, project, or task sent your way. You will continue to get more work and responsibilities as you progress, so long as there you can keep up with the work. And keeping up is critical. What differentiates professional drivers from the rest is not just a fast lap, but repeated, predictable, high performance. Once teams have created the best car from an engineering standpoint, the final variable to optimize on is the driver. At your work, you need to be committed to delivering on your outcomes, with a desire to improve yourself and the organization each day.

While you want to perform at your best, it is just as important not to exceed your limits and to know where you are. Don’t drive over a speed you are comfortable with. And as you increase your speed, do it incrementally. The crawl walk run approach applies to many projects the same way it does the track. While Speed and velocity is key, if it’s not sustainable and it’s too much it will hurt you in the long run. The same way you can’t run a car around an entire track at redline, you can’t push yourself to work at a rate that is beyond a sustainable manner for your physical and mental health. You must maintain a pace you can keep up.

Continual improvement also means a willingness to change. An organization must be aware to uptake the latest technology an trends. If we look at performance cars, innovation has driven ABS brake system that can brake a car faster than any human, new electric drivetrains that provide instance torque and performance beyond conventional engines, while continued material engineering and aerospace engineering (abs, electric, etc.). The same goes for organizations - adapt or be left behind. Identify not only what your customers are looking for from your solution or product, but also identify the new technologies (e.g. AI) that can disrupt how you traditionally did business. This identification, and indicators of the need to change routinely come from looking at data.

IV. Utilize Data

Collecting and analyzing data also becomes key in identifying areas for improvement. Taking advantage of all the information when making decisions means also taking advantage of data. When we look at driving on track, tire temperature, engine temperature, track conditions, all affect the type of performance you can expect. There are many more data points a team collects on a car (traction, downforce, oil, etc.) to further optimize it’s path. In the same way, an organization collects metrics on its own performance, from the adoption to its product to the conversion of different marketing campaigns. The important questions to ask is: Why are you collecting the data, and what changes will you plan to make in response to the data? We don’t need noise and junk, we need something actionable.

When we discuss data and taking action on data, it is important to identify a common method in identifying areas for improvement. In financial management, it is common to conduct scenario analysis where a specific variable (e.g. sales, cost of goods sold, inflation, taxes, etc.) is varied, while all other values are held constant, to see its impact on another variable. When it comes to driving on track, similar data driven exercises are held to identify the best setup for a car. Should the suspension be softer or firmer? Is there more or less camber required? Does the aerodynamics of the rear wing need to be adjusted? While there are many variables to consider, it is important to note that the driver is one of the biggest variables in the car. In these cases, the best driver for a team is one that is predictable and can remain constant as the other variables change. In an organization as well as the track, a high performer is one that produces top results consistently. It's not just about setting one good lap time, it's about consistently being able to produce similar best in class results.

While opportunities for continual improvement are one area data can be used for, data also helps provide leading indicators into issues that might arise. Vehicle data around oil and fuel levels, tire temperatures, and boost pressures can indicate if preventative maintenance is needed. Preventative maintenance will save significant overhead costs in the long run, whether you look at it from the perspective of a car or organization. In organizations, it is rare for firm bankruptcy or product decline to strike overnight. There are usually indicators you can identify, whether it's industry or market level guidance, or more specific financial ratios like quick ratios, eps, inventory turnover, etc. Identifying current levels versus target levels will help forecast issues and offer opportunities for correction.

With these considerations of utilizing a mentor and team, identifying your racing line / plan, continually improving, and utilizing data, you’re just beginning the journey to becoming a performance driver in your organization. If you’re a new grad and interested in identifying more tips that will help you not only become a driver, but a leader in the pack, then I recommend you read the book, Tips for New Grads to Succeed in the Workforce. Have you identified any other parallels between a hobby, like motorsports, and your profession? Let me know in the comments!