Creating the Conditions for High Performance

Transcript

Fiona Gifford, Director of the Performance Collective: We've been doing performance management pretty much the same way since about the 50s and 60s, and it doesn't really work.

[Onscreen action: An animated title reading ‘Creating the Conditions for High Performance’ appears on screen, accompanied by a musical stinger.]

Fiona Gifford: There are a number of reasons why performance management is ineffective in organizations. To begin with, managers are not in a great emotional state for having a performance dialogue. It's something that makes them nervous, they're worried about the impact they're going to have, they're worried about giving people feedback, and the employee themselves is also not in a great emotional state. They're thinking, "What am I going to hear?" Even if they've performed reasonably well.

[Onscreen action: The view cuts away to an animation. A male character in a white shirt and blue jeans runs on screen from right to left. He runs into the word "Performance" and falls down. The word "Management" appears behind him, preventing him from moving in either direction. The words then disperse and reform underneath the character, who is then able to continue running.]

Fiona Gifford: In addition to this, the focus is on performance management. That implies that we, as human beings, have to be managed and controlled if we're going to perform.

In actual fact, we deliver our best performance when we're given quite a lot of latitude about how and what we're doing. If we understand what elements in the environment are going to create the best performance for the team, then the manager can work with those to be the architect of their own high-performing team by creating the right environment. The High-Performance Environment Model identifies the seven environmental factors that are most important in high-performing teams.

[Onscreen action: An animated version of the High-Performance Environment Model appears on the screen.]

Fiona Gifford: The seven elements are: a clear and meaningful purpose, a clear definition of what success and failure means, the range of performance expectations, effective performance measures, emotional consequences, something I call "the way we do things around here," and a feedback and coaching-rich environment. You can't just focus on one element of the model and none of the others. Over time, you really need to look at the whole system because they interact.

[Onscreen action: The male character is shown driving a small red car. The view zooms in to show the car’s engine, with three cogs labelled "Alignment = Achievement," "Performance" and "Engagement." Once all three appear on screen, the cogs start to turn and the engine ignites.]

Fiona Gifford: The beauty of the model, however, is that all of the elements affect the two key drivers of performance.

One is team alignment... Is everybody going in the same direction? Do they have the skills and knowledge to get there? And do they know what their role is in delivering that?

The second one is engagement.... How do they feel about it? How do they feel about being a member of this team? How do they feel about its purpose? When both of these are at their highest, that's when you get real performance, I call it "the Performance Engine."

[Onscreen action: The words "Success" and "Failure" appear on screen, and each morphs into a picture frame. Two versions of the male character appear and start painting in the frames. One painting shows a vibrant storefront with customers inside. The other shows a more monochrome version of the same storefront, with a "Closing Down Sale" sign propped against the window.]

Fiona Gifford: One part of the model that a lot of teams find quite difficult to understand is the definition of success and failure.

When we talk about success and failure, we're trying to actually paint a picture, imagining we have fulfilled our purpose. At some point in the future, what will we see? What will be happening? What will we be saying? What will other people be saying? What is observable in the environment? When we talk about failure, we do exactly the same.

And the reason that we do this is, in the team we want to connect to that emotion, that emotion connects to the other element in the model of emotional consequences. "I don't want to feel like that. I do want to feel as I felt when I was talking about success."

Managers get very excited about the concept of the range of expectation, which is one more element of the model. We're talking about the range of performance, initially.

[Onscreen action: Ten silhouetted characters are shown in a line, each standing over a number ranging from one to 10. The silhouette above the number five becomes visible, and we see that it is the male character who appeared earlier in the video. The female character above number 10 also becomes visible. The other silhouettes disappear, and the right end of the line rises, showing character 10 at the top of a mountain, while character five slumps to the ground. A cloud appears over him and starts to rain.]

Fiona Gifford: We compare ourselves to the people who are nearer to us, most similar to us, so if we were working on a range of a scale of one to 10 – 10 being the top performers – most people are gonna be five, sixes, and sevens. Getting to 10 just looks too difficult. And, if you're a one or a two or a three, damn near impossible.

[Onscreen action: The male character is shown arriving at a race track. The view pans to the right, and we see Usain Bolt standing on the starting line. The race gets under way and the male character is only a few paces behind Bolt. Bolt speeds up towards the end, and wins the race. The male character looks down at this watch, which reads "PB," which stands for "Personal Best."]

Fiona Gifford: Let me give you an example. You're turning up to run the 100 meters race at your local athletics club. You're one of the top runners for the 100 meters so, psychologically, you're feeling pretty confident. You get to the track, Usain Bolt's there.

Now what's happening in your head? You're actually not even thinking about winning probably, it's like... no chance.

Now you're on the starting blocks, the race gets off. You're 25 meters from the finishing line, and you're on Usain Bolt's shoulder 'cause guess what? The range is working on him too. He's thinking, "Walk in the park." So you find something extra, but unfortunately, for you, Usain Bolt can see your yellow trainer in his peripheral vision, and the range works on him again, and he pulls away and, clearly, he wins the race. But I bet your personal best improved.

That's the power of the range. The narrower the range of expectation that you put on your team, the direction of performance improvement will be upwards, so narrowing the range is critical.

One manager I know worked by putting purpose and the range together with her team. Having defined the purpose of the team, she then went on to get each member of the team to define the purpose of their role. She then sat down with them one to one and said, "If delivering that purpose is 10 outta 10 for your performance, where do you think you are and what would get you to 10?"

From that came a really positive and very effective dialogue that resulted in every team member being absolutely sure what they needed to do. And also she knew what support they needed from her and from the rest of the team to get there. It's a very simple thing, dialogue based, it's not difficult to do with your team, and it's a much more rewarding conversation than the usual kind of performance conversations that we have.

About Fiona Gifford

Fiona Gifford was the Director of The Performance Collective and founder of Human Spaces™. Human Spaces are organizations designed to be fit to deliver the organization’s purpose through the realization of human potential and talent.