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Focus For The Week

High Performance Actions are bespoke, never ‘off the peg’.

The foundations are universal.

But your behaviours are crafted to hit your goal. You decide on them, you trust in them and you adapt them as you learn.

Your Decision

Sometimes it happens in the Swiss Alps. Sometimes it takes place in a swanky city centre hotel. Once it took place at an elite equine stud.

Am I describing a dangerous liaison?

Not quite, but it’s definitely high risk, passionate and often there are tears along the way.

For 2 to 4 days we will work together, through an agenda that is both emotionally and intellectually demanding. Mirrors will be courageously held up (and courageously looked into), frank feedback will be given, past resentments cleared, hopes and dreams articulated, roles and high performance processes and behaviours debated in detail.

Eventually the Executive Team will agree their High Performing Team Contract. Each member will commit 100% to adhering to it, and to holding others to account on their commitment.

The contract is signed; a new age dawns.

The topics covered in that High Performance Contract, the headings, are universal. The High Performance behaviours that the team members enthusiastically sign up to within the contract are anything but universal.

The High Performance behaviours are entirely bespoke to this team and to their desired Result.

Of course! You may say. How can an elite sports team, the exec team of a global tech company and the leaders of a household FMCG brand agree the same things?

But none of the differences is industry specific. Not one. If you’ve not been in such an environment yet, let me take you inside.

When leadership teams gather to increase their performance, they first need to decide what the team exists to do. Most leadership teams do not have this clearly defined.

‘We are here to hit target’ / ‘drive the transformation’. No, that’s the outcome that flows from you all doing what you do well. What do you actually do as a team and how do you need to behave together to do it?

Once their required high performance outcomes (‘a global organisation that fully understands and is empowered to act fast to deliver the plan’) are clear then the behaviours required to deliver the high performance outcome can be defined.

Specific behaviours are agreed to deliver a specific outcome.

When you hear off the peg ‘behaviours’ or ‘values’ you are not in a high performance environment. And you know they are ‘off the peg’ if they are not crafted specifically to deliver a result and linked to that result for everybody involved.

If we must ‘respect each other’ or ‘put the customer first’ and you don’t know WHAT the Result is that this should deliver, then it may be creating a very pleasant and principled environment. But it is not a performance environment.

If this is your workplace, relax. I once encountered this very problem in a (poor performing) F1 Team. We can all, always, fine tune and move forward.

So it is for you and for me and our own Actions. We can all, always, move forward. You can start today!

If you want to enhance your performance, you might start by googling ‘high performance behaviours’. You will soon encounter the current fads.

High performers are in the ‘5am Club’ and have a strict daily morning ritual. Perhaps they fast intermittently.

They probably do 6 weekly sessions of cardio, 2 sessions of weights and eat a specific protein to body mass ratio.  They rarely leave their ice bath, in which they read a non-fiction book each week, whilst listening to podcasts and spending quality time turning blue with their partner, resolving conflict constructively, before their yoga class.

But now you are super aware that these are only actually High Performance behaviours if linked specifically to delivering the defined High Performance outcome. It has to be bespoke!

Your Action

What one Action could you incorporate into your calendar daily to make the greatest impact on achieving your Result?

Luckily, we have the DARE mental model to guide us. Decision. Action. Result. Evaluate.

To define our high performance Actions, we go straight to the Result we’re seeking and work back. Or take advice on how to work back.

We’ll get the Actions wrong at first, of course, so we take advice humbly and we Evaluate rigorously.

But we have to start somewhere – and today is the best day to begin. What new High Performance Action will you choose to regularly do? And if it works, why not choose another to add? Let’s go!

Your Result and Your Evaluation

Thank you to Matt, a rising marketing leader in well known consumer goods company, who was inspired to write in by last week’s newsletter on Evaluation.  He has asked that he and his workplace remain anonymous. 

Jim, when you spoke to us at X___X three years ago you said that we write our story through our Decisions, Actions and Results. To be honest, I totally disagreed and was quite angry with you. I didn’t like you and you seemed to have lots of things going for you that I just didn’t have. I didn’t feel that I did take decisions. In my head, I just did what I had to do to survive and I did not have a lot of control. 

Over the months that followed it stuck in my head though. What I put in my mouth. What time I went to bed. These were all my decisions and my actions and had results for me. I began changing them and how I felt changed too. It was a weird feeling because I honestly hadn’t thought I could make a difference to my own life. It made me feel more optimistic and even a little bit powerful. I also had a lot more energy from better sleep.

I started wondering what else I could change. I didn’t like my company, but I didn’t think other places would be interested in me. When I began testing that with some applications I found out I was right! But I was out there and getting interviews. I also got good feedback on what I needed to show them and I worked on it instead of just hearing the ’no, not you’ that I always heard before. To cut the story short I went back to one of the people who rejected me a year later and he said yes. I now have a team in a company I love and we are winning. They like working for me and I am getting noticed. 

It was easy to accept that I had no control because it let me off the hook but I am definitely enjoying taking life into my own hands and creating my Results. 

Thank you.

Please do share your story of your Decisions, Actions, Results and Evaluations. Your story will inspire others around the world. our community of over 25,000 Darers with your breakthrough!

My Week

This week brought wonderful highs and a tedious low for me.

I headed to Rome on Sunday with the outrageously talented film and stage actor Ian Hughes to work with one of my very favourite executive teams on enhancing their “Stagecraft and Storytelling” to lead and inspire their organisation through transformation.

We hired Rome’s beautiful Teatro Flavio and the team progressed at the speed of light as we showed them how to work a space, create stories for and connections with the audience and lose PowerPoint as their writing tool.

A Monday evening flight to Malaga to join a global team taking an incredibly exciting new product to market that will positively change many lives and families on Tuesday. I love the energy when a team comes together from every continent – 2D relationships turning to 3D with hugs and smiles. And the commitment level in the room to “Be The Change’ was sky high as we ended the day. A special mention to their fabulous leader Corinne, whose energy was utterly infectious, and to her wonderful leadership team.

Thursday saw a trip to the Belgian Coast to join the Belgian leadership team of a global consultancy firm looking to accelerate their High Performance journey.

But somewhere during my travels I contracted food poisoning. ‘The show must go on’, as they say, but the weekend will be very quiet. Strava followers will notice I have been unable to train since last Sunday. Arrrgh!

Write your story! 🖋️

Jim