.png)
https://www.loom.com/share/03cf8888d9a14fc29e466ceedff3d4f0
Before we talk about the how, let me share with you what I believe a high performing team looks like. Taking from my experience coaching Series A through D CEOs and execs, as well as my time managing a team of stellar Mochary Method coaches, I was able to synthesize these commonalities.
They are aligned with and motivated by the company vision and culture
High performers deeply resonate with the vision of the company. They are proactive in aligning their personal vision with the company vision to create win-win scenarios.
They embody similar values as the company culture. For example, many companies we coach (and our own) have a cultural norm of transparent and immediate feedback. The high performers in these environments truly believe feedback is a gift; they are active in giving and receiving.
They execute quickly
They are comfortable navigating ambiguity. They feel secure to iterate, fail and learn rapidly. They take an idea and run towards completion with accountability.
They leverage their Zone of Genius
They have awareness around what their ZoG is and spend the majority of the time working in them. They also understand their weaknesses, and are proactive in outsourcing, delegating or making it awesome.
They bring solutions with an owner mindset
They think of problems with a framework akin to Issue Proposed Solution, where they present you with solutions to get feedback. They state their intention and explain why instead of asking for permission (see Turn the Ship Around: “I intend to …”).
They lift each other up and strive for positive sum
High performers enjoy working with other high performers. They raise the bar constantly. They are eager to help their teammates and understand that we win together.
They master the balance of asking for help and figuring it out
High performers don’t wait too long to ask for help. When they do, they clearly state their request and the work they’ve done already in tackling this problem.
If you resonate with the above, the following steps will make your high performing team a reality at your company.
In order to create high performing teams, you have to hire and fire well. We have a full process on **Recruiting.** I will include some other battle-tested tools that help with the hiring process.
New hire and manager’s 30-60-90
A 30-60-90 is a desired outcomes plan written in SMART format when a new hire hits the 30-day, 60-day and 90-day mark.
I encourage my clients to come up with a 30-60-90 for the new role before the recruiting process starts. This will help you envision success for the role, and therefore you can better communicate it with a candidate. In addition to that, a CEO can come up with her own 30-60-90 to think about how she can best ramp up for this role. This is what I call a manager’s 30-60-90. See below for an example:
If you’re hiring executives, you may provide a rough draft of the new hire’s 30-60-90 during the hiring process and have a working session with late-stage candidates to finalize the plan. This is a great opportunity for you and the candidate to get a sense of working style, as well as see if you’re a great fit for each other.
Screen for value-fit
The best way to screen for culture is through direct personal experience or referrals.
For direct personal experience, design a trial project or period with the new hire where you can observe them in action. To hire our current team of coaches, we invited dozens of stellar candidates to participate in a week-long coaching bootcamp after moving through an interview process. We got to see how they interacted with each other and us in real-time. We also got to see how they performed.
As for referrals, here are some great questions to assess a candidate’s value:
Anti-sell
Anti-sell is where you transparently share the uniqueness and the drawbacks of a role. You clearly state your values and filter out candidates quickly. It also creates trust and transparency with the candidate. Though anti-sell can be done at any point of the hiring process, I recommend that you do it early on to be sure you’re only moving on aligned candidates.
Anti-sell is effective when combined with selling the vision, company, leadership and the opportunity. The candidate should already be excited about the opportunity before you anti-sell.
It’s a radical method. But if candidates get through the anti-sell and still decide to continue with this process, you have increased the probability of them becoming a high performing candidate who is aligned with company vision and culture.
If you’d like to try anti-sell, here’re some real examples I’ve heard from CEOs:
This role pays 200K. Someone with your experience can easily go to a larger tech company and get paid more. You’ll never be able to make a high cash comp at our company. But we will give you the best coaching, development opportunities and exposure. What are your thoughts?
Not everyone is used to my management style. I’m direct and have been called “aggressive”. If there’s a feedback, I’ll give it to you immediately and honestly. However, I fight like hell for my direct reports to get the opportunities of their dreams. I challenge them so they have years of growth in months. People who like my management style have stayed with me for years and decades through multiple companies. Are you into that?
If you observe hesitation from the candidate, it would be a great opportunity to get curious and see if there are things you’d like to share to assure them. If not, then it’s likely not a good fit.
Fire well
According the Matt Mochary, the single most important thing to build a high performing teams is to fire well. This means that managers let go of every single not-good and good performers. Leaving ONLY high performers. This doesn’t get done enough. Even if it gets done at the CEO level, it is difficult to implement with other managers at the company. Here are the key components to firing well:
Trust is created with clarity, care, transparency, and consistency. Trust is the prerequisite to feedback. Feedback is the prerequisite to high performance.