How would you rate your team’s daily performance? How would you rate your own? If you are like most owners, you’d like to amp it up a little – achieve more results in less time. That’s for you and members of your team. You want more volume, fatter margins, great cash flow, and not to worry when you take your spouse on that long promised vacation.
But then life happens. Competitors get crazy with pricing. What should be easy is hard. You may even run out of energy, patience or enthusiasm at times. So what then? Use these seven techniques to get yourself and your team back into high gear.
- Provide Inspiration not Perspiration. It’s a myth that high performance is driven. It’s not. It’s inspired. So the first person who needs to be inspired is you. Your inspiration comes from your big “why” which then translates to their why. If it’s been awhile since you contemplated your why, take an afternoon off and go somewhere alone to deeply think about your why. Not your father’s, not your grandfather’s, but yours. Here’s what I know – my own company made huge strides when I figured out I loved family companies. When I articulated my big why to my team, it fueled us all. When clearly communicated as a company we have the knowledge to save families from breaking apart via our practical learning systems, the magic began to happen. What’s your why?
- Set and Share a Humongous Goal. Human beings respond in mind-blowing ways to crazy huge goals. Study any high performance company that has achieved extraordinary results and without exception you will find a gigantic goal was put in place at some point in their history, usually by a visionary CEO. At Meridian, as we began to blast out beyond our Petro-only roots, the goal of serving 100,000 families became absolutely energizing. By having a why, and then attaching a quantifiable measure, you’ll be hopping out of bed in the morning feeling absolutely privileged to lead your team.
- Turn Conflict To Cooperation. In fast-paced, high growth environments, there is always conflict. How adept are you at resolving differences and creating cooperation in and outside of work? As the leader of your company, you shine when you encourage divergent views, then quickly resolve conflicting viewpoints into shared solutions. When unexpected conflicts arise, as they of course will, your swift response and sharp resolution skills lower your personal stress and worry as well as that of your team. Luckily, conflict resolution skills are learned, not graced at birth, so no matter your flight or fight propensity, can be developed and honed.
- Focus Despite Distractions. Tenacious focus amidst a sea of distractions pays handsomely. In an age when numerous opportunities and unforeseen challenges abound at any given moment, your ability to focus is critical. Get unfocused and pulled by every shiny object and you and your team will feel whiplashed, overwhelmed and confused.
- Apologize and Forgive Quickly. A high performance team does not mean perfection. Research has shown that high performance teams fail more frequently than low performance teams because they embrace risk and view failure as learning. The Harvard Business Review found this so important they devoted one entire issue to it. At MIT, sociologists are conducting in-depth remote technology assisted pattern studies of high performance versus low performance bank call centers. They are identifying whys and hows with particular attention to high performance environments where when inevitable failures happen, they are analyzed using these four questions::
- “How did I approach this?”
- “How prepared was I?”
- “What was within my control to change and what was not?”
- “Of the things within my control, what other actions could I have taken that might have produced a different outcome?”
With this self-responsibility centered learning approach, apology and forgiveness are mandatory. As a leader, use these same four questions yourself, apologizing when you fail, and modeling forgiveness when others around you miss the mark.
- Hold Powerful Trust-Building Conversations. In our work with thousands of family companies over the decades, building and maintaining trust is vital to high performance and starts with the leader. Stephen M. Covey, The Speed of Trust author, defines trust simply as confidence. He then provides 13 behaviors to increase trust which I am paraphrasing here as being truthful, transparent, consistent, doing right (always), keeping commitments and giving trust. So no hidden agendas, no soft peddling, no excuses. How good are you at holding powerful conversations that build trust with your team and customers? Always meet your commitments before expecting others to meet theirs so there is no hypocrisy in your organization.
- Practice Positive Realism. While your team needs to know you have a positive outlook on life and business challenges no matter how formidable, that you are ready to take any hill, they also need to know you have your feet firmly planted in realism of the current situation. How high is the hill, what is the terrain, what abilities and tools will be needed to successfully scale that hill? In a study of 200 of the highest performing CEOs, Positive Realism was one of only three common traits found. It looks like Boy Scout or Girl Scout training on being prepared comes in just as handy running a company as it does getting a merit badge!
By becoming more aware of your own habits and behaviors, by working on yourself first, you’ll raise the performance levels – yours and your team. Wishing you every success!
