ENGAGING YOUR PEOPLE FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE
High performance is a term like many others in the corporate world: over-used, yet rarely understood. We are fortunate enough in our day-to-day lives to network and socialise with many high performers. Furthermore as we partner with organisations on search campaigns, we are often asked to find and attract people who are high performers.
Yet what happens when we find these high performers? How do you ensure that your organisation is able to capitalise on their investment in high calibre individuals? With these questions in mind we hosted an Executive Leaders dinner last week. The topic of conversation was quite simply how do you engage your people for high performance.
We were delighted to have in attendance over 40 Executives (CEO/GM/CFO/HRDs) from Adshel, Alfa Laval, Avira Energy, Brambles, Breville, BWS, CQMS, Eclipx, EndomolShine, Fairfax, Flexigroup, Goodman Fielder, Integrity Group, Macquarie, Mauri (GWF), Northcott, NSW Health, Nude by Nature, Oilsearch, oOh!Media, Optus, Pepper, Police Bank, SBS, Schneider Electric, Stockland, Study Group, Seven West Media, TAFE, TNT, Tourism Australia, University of Western Sydney, UNSW, Westpac and YWCA NSW. To run proceedings we had John Colbert from Corporate Edge share some fascinating views, insights and stimulate our thinking.
Although lead by John, it was very much an inclusive discussion where all were encouraged to share their thoughts. John opened by noting that high performance can only be achieved when the appropriate leadership behaviours were in place to facilitate maximum performance.
After a variety of input from across the floor John felt there were three critical factors that must be in place to pursue high performance. Given the audience, as senior leaders, you must ensure your organisation shares a common vision of:
PUTTING CULTURE FIRST: We must pursue a purpose driven environment where employees are trusted to do the right thing and collaboration is the dominant paradigm. Through this process a work environment where people are motived not by control but by common values and culture.
HAVING INSPIRATIONAL CONVERSATIONS: As a leader, you should inspire those throughout your organisation. People must believe that they are capable of exceeding the norm. Therefore you must invest in helping them realise their own personal vision, tell them they are capable of great things and challenge their acceptance of the status quo.
TAKE OWNERSHIP & ACCOUNTABILITY: You cannot expect people to strive for high performance if the appropriate levels of behaviour and standards are not ingrained across the organisation. Leading by example you must encourage the right behaviour through relevant, not always revenue based, targets and provide opportunities for people to expand and grow.
Given the nodding throughout the room, it was evident that there was a lot of people who shared John’s views. It prompted a number of questions and the only real limiting factor to discussing this topic was time! With that in mind, it may well be worth re-visiting the theme in 12 or 24 months to see how we have all got on aligning our organisations to the above criteria.
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