Upgrading your understanding of high-performing businesses

I’ve written about ‘the riddle’ of performance before. It’s a crucial distinction for a CEO to be clear on.

‘The story’, or the narrative, that a CEO forms about their work experience shapes everything:

• Hold a narrative that says being a CEO means overwhelm, and so will it be.?
• Hold a narrative that says being a CEO is about a meaningful pursuit of optimal performance, and so will it be.

No business can ever be at optimal - at least, not for long. which implies that there will always be a need to refine your business. These refinements can take the form of the never-ending-to-do-list which makes for an arduous CEO journey in pursuit of a never-attainable goal. Or they can take the form of a highly compelling adventure that stretches you, grows you, and enlivens you.

This has everything to do with how you relate to ‘Performance’ as a concept. Performance can elicit a wide range of responses: fear; threat; aspiration; intrigue; and intellectual challenge.

It’s interesting to me to observe how little thought this topic receives amongst CEOs I work with. While it is, I assume, the fundamental desire of all CEOs, when I broach the topic, there is very little in the way of formed thought as to how to achieve it.

One quite common and useful construct is the Fly-wheel that Jim Collins introduced. Many CEOs have gotten good value out of identifying their businesses’ fly-wheel (i.e. the lever of highest leverage) and developing it. It’s a good start, but it doesn’t have whole-system orientation, meaning that the fly-wheel taken on its own is useful but not as useful as a fully-formed view as to how the multiple elements of your business come together to produce performance.?

This is where the riddle comes into play and where your ‘story’ matters.

The riddle approach means that you are constantly assessing how your system is responding to your CEOship, that you are trying new approaches and keenly observing their impact, and that you accept that not all moves you make will pan out as you expected. And when they don’t, you can objectively understand the reason behind why they didn’t so that you can change your approach for your next refinement.?

As you can tell, this requires a very particular mindset - one of exploration and adventure, rather than forcing. This requires many CEOs who exist in a state of overwhelm to a shift to a state of wellness, or wholeness. This will often require outside assistance to curate this journey back to full physical, mental and emotional health.

From those places, the ‘riddle’ of performance feels attractive and compelling, thus making the pursuit of performance an attractive and likely successful venture.

Cracking the Performance Riddle: The Performance Delta

The Performance Delta codifies where a business is losing performance.

A sophisticated process that assesses a business through seven performance ‘lenses’, the Performance Delta paints a comprehensive picture of where a business is leaking performance, and names specific ways to plug these leaks.

Email [email protected] to find out more about The Performance Delta.