Are You Neglecting Your High Performers?

How much time and energy are you investing in lifting the underperformers in your marketing team versus developing your high performers?

According to Gallup, many companies focus around 80% of their efforts on managing poor performers, leaving only about 20% for high performers.

So, you just spent the lion’s share of your efforts on getting an underperforming team member up to par with your performance expectations, possibly with that team member reluctantly even wanting to improve. Imagine the exponential impact you could have generated by investing that energy into lifting your high performers by even just 5% versus lifting your underperformers by at least 20% to meet your expectations.

The potential upside could significantly impact not only your KPI achievements but also the organisation’s success. How much would that be worth to you?

Identifying True High Performers

The next question to ask yourself is whether you have correctly identified the true high performers in your team.

A client recently spoke to me about their high performer who consistently exceeds her targets.

“She is incredibly knowledgeable about best practices in digital transformation and is well-known across the industry in her field,” he said, beaming with pride.

He also mentioned that during team sessions, she doesn’t contribute much and prioritises her own initiatives. When I asked about this, he justified it by calling her an “innovative thinker.” He noted that whilst everyone likes her, she can be condescending and disinterested in topics outside her expertise—behaviours he brushed off as her style.

My client was convinced she was his star performer. So, I challenged him to reconsider whether he had correctly identified the real high performers in his team.

Common Misidentifications of High Performers

Here are common mistakes leaders make when identifying high performers:

• Short-Term Achievers: Those who achieve exceptional short-term results in a company that heavily rewards exceptional KPI outcomes, without considering the discord they may cause along the way.
• Old School Traits: Individuals who fit traditional views of high performers, such as always being the last in the office or working long hours and always being busy, or those who speak with such an air of articulation and confidence, that they convincingly appear to be superior experts.
• Specialised Superstars: Superstars in one complex area, like digital transformation, which other leaders might not fully understand or do not have direct access to the same data.
• Leader Clones: Individuals who are similar to the leader, triggering unconscious bias and validating the leader’s self-perception.

Investing in Your True High Performers

So, once you have properly identified your true high performers, how do you focus on their development and accelerate their impact and outcomes?

1. Just Stop Neglecting Them

It’s easy to leave them to their own devices because they excel independently. But they need guidance too, especially in navigating their development and career paths. While they have great strengths, some areas may need nurturing. How experienced are they in decision-making with broader scope, risk, and financial impact? Can they evolve and grow their maturity in their holistic leadership skills? If you can't support this with adequate time and focus from yourself, consider hiring a leadership coach to work with them directly.

2. Help Them Stretch

Give them high-impact projects that match their career development trajectory (yes, theirs, not just the organisation’s needs) to challenge and expand their skills and provide opportunities for significant contributions. This is not about loading them with more work, but more about the learning challenge stretch.

3. Give Them Access to More

Provide advanced learning opportunities, such as more exposure to the Exec & the Board, cross-functional experiences, industry external exposure, autonomy, external learning, and customised individual leadership coaching (as opposed to cookie-cutter, generalised internal leadership programs).

4. Discuss Strengths & Weaknesses

Ever had a boss who you hear speaks about you highly all the time to others when you are not in the room (which is absolutely awesome, don’t get me wrong) but they never actually let you know directly what they consider your strengths and weaknesses to be? Don’t just praise them behind their back; let them know directly what you consider their strengths and weaknesses to be. Speak about this often in separate, meaningful conversations. At CSR Ltd, we called these “Chatters that Matter,” held at least monthly and separate from WIP meetings.

5. Elevate Them

I’m not a believer in Pass-the-Parcel where every kid gets a prize. Recognise and reward true high performers publicly within the team and across the organisation by championing them with elevated projects to lead or 2IC team leadership responsibilities.

?By focusing on and investing in your high performers, you can significantly enhance their impact and drive extraordinary outcomes for both your team and the organisation.

If you found these insights valuable and would like to explore how you can work with me to invest in the development of high performers and accelerate their impact, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected]

#Leadership #HighPerformers #HighPerformance #TalentDevelopment #MarketingLeadership #ProfessionalDevelopment #LeadershipCoach #ExecutiveCoach