Managing and Leading High Performers
By: Nicholas Spallitta
Tags: Transformation, Change Management, Culture, Sales, Customer Experience

I’ve been lucky over the years as I’ve been able to work with some very talented high performing people. When tasked with managing or leading them on a team it can be difficult and often takes a different approach.

For sake of simplification let’s just say that a high-performer is anyone in the top 20% of their role by all measures both objective and subjective.

If you are a leader that wants to win with a great team then more than likely your going to need a some high-performing people on it.

It’s rare that high performers just appear out of thin air. They are created. Not by companies or managers. They are created by their own desire to use their talents to be better than themselves or peers.

“Everybody look at you strange say you changed, like you worked that hard to stay the same” — Jay-Z

As a leader you need to help them focus on how they can progress by making their highest contribution towards the things that really matter for the client, team, and company. Help them eliminate the non-essentials. Then help remove their obstacles so those essential things have a clear focus on them.

Let them have ownership over the prioritization of those essential things. Let them choose to do those few things that really matter. If they are high performers in that role then they will do anything to find success. However, they can’t do everything.

The problem with finding success is that they get more options to do more things. More opportunities often distracts high performers from their highest level of contribution. Also talent does not always equal high performance.

I read a book called High Performance Habits a while back and I loved the way the author categorized the habits of successful people. There is a lot of value in using his research to talk about how we can become better leaders and managers of high-performing people.

Clarity…

You need to help them find it. It’s often not your place to help them personally and being successful is usually not just about work engagement and performance. You can definitely help them professionally reflect on getting better every single day. Being intentional and thoughtful during every interaction with others. Helping them to start finding for themselves what matters most without a lot of advice or direction from you.

Energy…

It’s rare that you have to encourage a high performer to perform. More often than not you need to help them find time to unwind and recharge. Burnout in organizations kills more high performing people’s careers than anything outside of poor management. If you think about it, they are typically related.

It’s easy to tell people to go on vacation. It’s harder to help them get the time. Even encouraging quick breaks in the action to think, take a quick break, to close their eyes, to meditate can be game changing. A short psychological break that releases their tension and refocuses them from one activity to another. This will help them generate energy throughout the day instead of losing it.

Raising necessity…

You need to raise the psychological necessity regarding to why it is important for them to perform well. They need a great reason to go win and want it more than anyone else. The more wins they have the better the reason they need. Usually these things they want tie back to incentives and culture. Sometimes it’s who they do it for… family, themselves, co-workers, a leader, or the mission.

A big part of the high performers identity is wrapped up into performing with excellence. It’s a critical need for them like food and water. Help them manage that identity the right way in the organization. It’s not a passion, it’s not a preference, it’s a necessity for them.

Increase Productivity…

High performers increase the outputs that matter. High performers are also more productive because they see five steps ahead, and align themselves to achieve each of those things. You need to help them and yourself identify the five moves that almost always matter most. What are the wrong moves, the ones that we make and they cost us the game?

Help them understand the key skills the high performer needs to utilize or augment themselves with to accomplish those moves.

One of the reasons high-performers often have trouble teaching others how to do it is that they get to a place where they see the five moves ahead subconsciously. They don’t even realize they consistently identify the right moves before anyone else, they just do it. Many of them will also obsessively analyze their wrong moves, rarely making them again.

Develop Influence…

High performance can be infectious if encouraged to spread the right way via the right methods. High performers often show other people how they think. They show other people what the patterns of success look like in the role. They lift the bar of high performance in the organization.

In order to scale a high performer must be influential. You need to give them the opportunities to help show people how they think and challenge other people in the organization to grow. When you impact someone else’s thoughts in a positive way, you have influence.

Word of caution here. There is nothing worse for an organization than a high performer that lacks integrity. These people can destroy customer relationships, teams, and even companies. If you give them influence then you are making a mistake.

Demonstrate Courage…

It’s important to help high performers speak up for themselves the right way. Many of them get abused by their organizations and even their teams. They need to be comfortable sharing their truth and ambitions with you.

They need to recognize that what they do is not easy and getting better requires a struggle that they need to honor. The struggle is a natural part of the process and it needs to be both expected and respected. You need to help them form the character to start to enjoy the struggle. Brush off the doubt and judgment from those cold and timid souls that do not know victory or defeat.

Courage can come from a lot of places. The most important thing is that people find it when they need it the most. They understand it and they don’t complain it about it. They know what showing up and working through the tough times is necessary for success.