Transcripts
1. Introduction: I don't think you can ever
stop learning and there is always something you can
do to improve yourself, to advance, to
expand your limits, to show up essentially as
your best self every day. I love breaking down what
makes exceptional people take. I think there are
lessons for all of us if we are open to learning, I've always been
driven to want to give 100 percent every day. This passion led me to start my business and get
even more curious about performance and productivity and how we can be at our best. This class is about retaining
high performance and growing at talent. Hi, I'm Abigail Ireland
and I run a training and development consultancy called Understanding
Performance. We specialize in peak
performance for executives and teams and we focus on what
we can do to optimize mind, body, and business factors. When I worked in the
corporate world, I worked in
high-performing teams with very talented people. What I noticed was that
everyone is motivated by different things and
we often get this wrong. Now these days I
work with clients all over the world and
I see the difference in teams that are
thriving and engaged versus those that need a
little bit extra help. Companies often a jumping on the latest trends and tactics to attract and retain staff. But we need to go a little bit deeper if we want to get the best from our people
on a long-term basis. In this class, we'll be exploring how to
build an environment that attracts high-performers
and enables them to thrive. We're going to talk about
individual motivation, why this is important, and we'll explore how to use
feedback conversations to understand high-performers
and what they need to excel. We're also going to touch on the concept of team
dynamics because the thriving culture depends
on getting this right. This class is for anyone who
manages or leads others, whether that's directly
or indirectly, whether working with others in a team environment
or in a project, you're going to come
away with simple, practical ways in
which you can hold onto and engage
your best people. No gimmicks, no cutting corners, but that clarity on the strategic ways in
which you can build high-performing teams that
thrive on a sustainable basis. During this class,
I'm going to give you easy exercises to complete
at the end of every lesson. This is all in the
class worksheets and make sure that
you make notes as you go along and share your worksheet
in the project gallery. I'd love to hear your ideas. Share in the discussion
forum as well and reach out to me
if you're stuck on anything at all
because I want to help you to get the best
from this class. Without further ado,
let's get started.
2. Building the Right Environment: How good would it be if we could build a culture
where everyone shows up or work
ready to give it their best shot
every single day. I mean, with drive, with motivation, people
thriving, collaborating, energizing each
other and wanting to deliver with excellence
because they choose to, not because they have to. Creating a high-performance
environment isn't easy to do, but there are some core
ingredients that we can focus on, such as trust, empowerment, purpose, direction,
and accountability. There are so many variables to consider if we want to attract, retain, and develop top talent. A true high-performance
environment is built across levels from
executive to managers, all the way down to
individual contributors. The essence of high
performance has to seek through every
single person, because each person is a building block of
the overall culture. A lot of the time, you might only focus on giving
attention and direction and guidance when someone
needs to improve or step up. But we need to remember that everyone needs
nurturing if we want to create top teams of individuals who just
keep getting better. Imagine you joined a new
team or an organization. You notice that everyone
you encounter is driven, engaged,
positively minded, communicating openly,
excited about their work, and clear on what
they are there to do. Sounds too good to be true. The chances are you'll be influenced by the environment
you're in and it's [inaudible] to you to
perform even better to raise your own standards and challenge yourself in a healthy way. Now if we look at the concept
of emotional contagion, we know that emotions and behaviors spread from
person to person. If you are around positive, high-performing people, that influence is likely
to rub off on you. Likewise, studies show that negative and disengaged
employees spread their negativity and
toxicity onto others. Low performers impact morale, they put more work pressures on high performance and they spread their mediocrity and lack of motivation to
others around them. What can you do about it? The first thing you
can do is be more intentional in your
hiring processes. Consider what you're looking
for in candidates beyond the technical skills and the industry experience
that they bring. Look for behaviors and examples that demonstrate a
high-performance attitude, self-starters with an openness to feedback, positive energy, a willingness to learn, and a sense of pride
in their work, and be honest about the
current composition of your team and maybe where
the changes might be needed. Think about it, is
anyone coasting, free-riding on up as efforts not really making an equal
contribution to the team? Are toxic behaviors
and attitudes wearing down everyone's mood? I developed a simple
performance matrix that you can use to determine where your
team members sit right now. We have four quadrants based
on results and attitude. We have cruising, losing, surviving and thriving. Now, cruising, if
you think about team members who are
cruising, what's going on? They might be energized, but they might not
be getting results. Have a think about what you can do to drive up performance, drive up the output, drive up productivity
and results. This could mean giving them more challenging
responsibilities. It could mean delegating more often and giving them ownership of specific tasks that
they are accountable for. In the losing quadrant, we have team members who maybe
are really hard to manage. Their not only underperforming, but they're influencing
and spreading negative energy to
everyone around them. They're dragging down the mood and they're causing disruption. So in this case, it makes sense to simply have
a conversation. Be honest about the
impact on the team. You're going to want
to explore how you can work together
to lift engagement, motivation and
ultimately results. A survey by recruitment
firm Robert Half, found that managers
spend around 17 percent of their time managing
poor performers. So think about where
you are spending your energy and whether
this is really worth it. For those in the
surviving quadrant, we need to acknowledge the
efforts they are making. They're striving for results, but they're struggling to
maintain this positive mindset. Spend time with
these individuals to make them feel valued and recognized for their hard
work and their results. Finally, we have the
thriving quadrant, and this is the gold standard. This is where we
want everyone to be energizing each other, working together to
shape a team culture whilst smashing it out of the park when it
comes to results. If your team members
are thriving, remind them of what
they're doing well, find out what they need
to continue to stay in this quadrant on
a sustainable basis. Now take a moment to review
your cross worksheets and plot where your team member sits on that
performance framework. In the next lesson, we're
going to be diving into what you can do to up level
performance across the board.
3. Understanding Individual Motivation: In order to get the best
from your entire team, you need to get down to basics, and understand what
motivates each individual. It is definitely not a
one-size-fits-all approach. We're all driven by
different motivators, and acknowledging this
means we can boost individual engagement
and retention. When we're happy,
we perform better. There are two different
types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation relates to doing something because it is rewarding and satisfying for
you on a personal level. You want to do it, and
you find it fulfilling. On the other hand, extrinsic
motivation involves taking action or behaving in a certain way because
of an external reward, a pressure or potentially
even a punishment. Extrinsic motivators
include money, power, fame, trophies, recognition, as well as the
avoidance of embarrassment, judgment, or other
negative consequences. For example, you might learn a new language because
your work demands it. You might fund raise for a charity because it
makes you look good. You might even pursue assessing
career simply because of the status or work overtime on a project because your
boss asks you to do it. Intrinsic motivation,
on the other hand, involves personal
satisfaction, personal growth, and doing things that
align with your values. Using the same examples, you might learn a
new language because it's fun to broaden
your horizons. You might fund
raise for a charity because the purpose is
close to your heart. You might pursue
a certain career because you enjoy the work or work overtime because
you are doing something that you
are passionate about. Think back to when you
started your career. You may have been motivated
by the paycheck at first and then career development and then opportunities to learn. As you progress, may be
into managerial roles, you may be motivated by new responsibilities
or incentives or the ability to take more
ownership and drive decisions. Then moving on into
executive roles, maybe the motivation
is status and power, or the ability to influence and actually turn your
vision into a reality. We're all motivated and
driven by different things. Professor and
academic Edgar Schein introduced his concept of career anchors based
on his research in the 1970's and 1980's, he defined eight
career anchors that aligned to our values or
motives and our talents, some of which are deeply, deeply ingrained
from an early age. These anchors influence
the choices we make about the work we do and how
we spend our time. The eight anchors are technical and
functional competence, general managerial competence,
autonomy and independence, security and stability,
entrepreneurial capability, service and dedication
to a cause, pure challenge, or
even lifestyle. The best way to understand what drives your people is
to have an honest, open conversation
with each individual. To get started,
simply write down the names of your team members, and alongside that note down, what do you think
their motivators. Next, setup time to
meet with each person to test out your assumptions.
Be fully present. Listen carefully to ensure you are clear on
what each person needs to do and what is important to them
in work and beyond. Once you have this
understanding, you can align work
activities to best suit each team member's
skills and motivations. Actually, the fact that
your simply showing an interest in the individual can itself drag motivation, and engagement and
high-performance as people feel more valued. You can use your
class worksheets to note down your thoughts
on what motivates your team. Also take five minutes right
now to schedule a coffee or a virtual coffee with
each team member to talk through maybe
future opportunities. Basing this on my motivations, and talking about their
motivations in more depth. Take notes so you can refer
back and remind yourself of what's important to each
person whenever you need to.
4. Harnessing the Power of Feedback: When you're trying to
figure out what motivates your people and what they
need to thrive at work, it's crucial that you can have a good, honest conversation. You need to encourage
transparent, open communication and
build trust along the way. Feedback is a crucial
mechanism you can use to find out what's working and what isn't working
for each person. You can then discuss
what you can do to support your people even more
effectively in the future. It's also useful for
fine-tuning performance and working towards the culture
that you want to create. Think about a time when you've received and took on
board feedback that helped you to become even more
effective at what you do. What would've happened if
you didn't take it on board? Where would you be today
and how long would it have taken you to realize you
needed to change something? Take this approach when having conversations with your people, take on board their feedback, and also provide yours. I'm going to share
with you some tactics in order to help you
to do this better. Firstly, make it a two-way feedback conversation
by giving your team members information that
they can use to close any gaps that are hindering performance and their
ability to thrive. You can refer back to the performance matrix and discuss what you can
collectively work on. In addition, ask for feedback on what people find
frustrating or challenging, demotivating about ways of working or even the work itself, and then commit to doing
something about it. What we want to do is to
make sure that you plan your feedback conversation
by using key principles. Think about what a good outcome
would look like for you, the other person,
and the wider team. Consider possible reactions and plan for these in advance. Stay calm, open-minded, stay focused on being
a good listener to really understand what the other person
is saying and to get the best from
the conversation. Also, draw down the evidence and examples you
want to share with the other person to
backup your opinions and views and to be
subjective as possible. Be supportive and collaborative, working together
towards a way forward. Now, it's time for action, I'd like you to identify one
to two team members you'd like to have a
conversation with, to discuss performance. Use your worksheet, write down your thoughts
on what they would see as frustrations and
blockers to high performance, and then before going
into the conversation, put yourself in
their shoes and try to see things from
their perspective.
5. Honing in on Team Dynamics: Whilst understanding
individual motivation is the critical first step, we also need to consider team
motivation and dynamics. Essentially, good people want to be around other good people. Say, if we can get this right, it helps to retain
high-performers and attract a pipeline of talent. Team dynamics involves developing
a sense of team spirit, collected motivation, and a common purpose that
everyone is excited about. It's easier said than done more, and it's easy to do badly. Now, this is even
more important to consider when teams
are geographically dispersed and it's often harder to build
that team spirit. When you bring together a
group of high-performers, you need to create a
cohesive team mindset as well as an appetite for
individual high-performance. If this isn't unwell, individual players can
become too self-oriented. Strengths can become weaknesses
as people work in silos, they over compete
with each other, they might stop
sharing information, they might lose trust, and they might become suspicious
of each other's agendas. As a result, we
see cracks appear. It becomes evident that each person is too
focused on themselves. This can be disruptive
and it can damage relationships,
outcomes, and results. Often teams that operate in cut-throat
aggressive environments see themselves as
high-performance because they are relentlessly
pursuing results. But the reality is that
they're unlikely to be performing and thriving
in a sustainable way. People are usually less engaged, less energized, and
less motivated, they usually burn themselves
out and they're anxiously striving for
individual successes over those teams successes. A true high-performing
team consists of individuals who work in symphony towards
a higher purpose, not just to satisfy
their individual needs. They have their own objectives and they've got their
own responsibilities, but they're connected and
they collectively working towards a goal that is
larger than themselves. They have healthy and
open communication. This includes a willingness
to give and receive feedback. They have psychological safety. They've got a common
vision, shared purpose, and an understanding of the
value of every single role, responsibilities,
and contribution. They also support each other whilst providing
healthy conflict, so having the comfort
to disagree and challenge each other
without taking offense. Everyone has a role to play in building a
high-performing team, and individuals must collaborate and work towards
the greater good. A manager's role is to build opportunities for
healthy dynamics amongst team members and to notice in advance those cracks that
might need attention. An executive needs
to role model and set the tone for what they expect from the rest
of the business. As these leaders are in such
an influential position, so it's important that they showcase and celebrate
best-practice. Now giving recognition for great examples of teams
working in Thriving Together is a powerful way to encourage this
across a business. I'd like you to think back now. Think back to a time
when you were part of or you observe a genuinely
high-performing team. You probably notice that people worked well
with each other, they worked well together. They strive to do their best, but they were also
supporting others on the way because
everyone was clearly making progress towards
a common goal and everyone had an overarching
purpose in mind. People are comfortable with checking in on each
other whilst leaders provide great direction that helps team members to succeed. Now think back to a time
when you were part of a team where dynamics
weren't so smooth. Maybe people were freewriting, taking credit for others work, being goddess and
overprotective, not collaborating well,
maybe too focused on their own agendas instead of
what is best for the team. It's pretty obvious you'd rather not work in
a team like this. Here are some tactics
that you can try it to develop healthy team dynamics. Firstly, you could run a team brainstorming session
to gather views on how your team work
together and how they can work together
more effectively, including agreeing and
overarching shared purpose. Revisit this regularly and have quality conversations to ensure that every single
person is aligned. Involving your team
when coming up with ideas means that they feel included and they feel
part of the journey. You can also privately
evaluate your team members on a scale of 1-10 of how much
of a team player they are. One being mainly a
solo contributor, 10 being a total team player. Now, look at the trends
and those qualities that those further up the
scale have in common. Then you can discuss these
generally with your team. Seek ideas from every team
member on what the team can do to consistently
showcase these qualities. You can also conduct a personality profiling
diagnostic for your team so they can understand
individual strengths and areas for improvement and also get a better
understanding of what you can do to enhance team dynamics. Remember, the more you understand what drives
each individual, the better you can be at getting the team to work
effectively together. Another thing you need
to remember is how to address poor
behavior immediately. You need to call it out. If you are a manager, it is your job to be a
positive role model and set the tone from the top of what's acceptable and what's not. Also, take time each
week or each month to celebrate and spotlight collaborative
team-centered behaviors. This is going to provide
focus for other team members and give them something
tangible to aspire to. You can schedule in regular team-building
activities throughout the year to foster a sense
of team spirit and bonding, whether that's virtual
or face-to-face. Just remember to be careful to include everyone and ensure that all interests and
preferences and needs are considered to avoid
excluding anyone. It's time for action. Pick one tactic that you feel confident
putting into action. Note down what you've chosen
on your class worksheets and commit to review your progress
in three months time. Identify someone in your team
who you can ask to hold you accountable to take action and write down their name
on your worksheet.
6. Retaining Your Team: Once you've got an
understanding of what motivates a person
intrinsically, extrinsically and collectively
as part of a team, you can start to build
out your strategy to engage your high
performers and provide a boost to those that need a little bit more help moving
up the performance matrix. If you have top
performers in your team, it makes sense to retain them. Researchers from
Indiana University estimate that high performers
are up to 400 percent more productive than the
average person and the cost of replacing them can be a
150 percent of their pay. So retention is
therefore a no-brainer. Going back to what motivated
you throughout your career, in your earlier days, it may have been
financial rewards or development opportunities. In a managerial role, it could be status and title, job security, the ability to lead and to have more autonomy. In an executive role, the sense of power
could be important, that ability to
make a difference, to drive changes and so on. Company perks may seem
attractive on the surface, but are not always
valuable if they're not aligned to what really
matters to people. Because everyone is different, this can be really,
really hard to get right. Think about what would
be most relevant for you and your business
and your team members. Google is a great example of a company that has
an innovative range of incentives and perks to retain and delight
its employees, including financial and
non-financial incentives. Google is known for
offering everything from free food to its
staff at its canteens, to a policy encouraging
staff to spend 20 percent of their working time
learning new skills or investing time inside projects. By understanding that everyone
is motivated differently, Google can tap into those intrinsic and
extrinsic drivers on a number of levels.
What can we do? We can develop a plan
of action to align activities and tasks
with motivators. For example, you might provide mentoring opportunities
for those who get a sense of fulfillment from helping others to develop. You could provide a
learning budget to engage those who enjoy
acquiring new skills. Map out a strategy
that will capture the hearts and minds
of your people. Ensure that top performers
feel valued and reflect this appropriately in their
pay and incentives. It seems obvious, but we already know that it
costs a lot of money to replace a top performer more than it takes to pay
them what they're worth. So don't overlook top performers because they are doing well. Remember that feedback and recognition are still
appreciated by most people. In fact, high performers
are even more likely to want to
know what they can do to perform even better. Take time to give feedback
on what they are doing well and what they
can do to improve. Give top performers the space
to do things their way, autonomy and empowerment
make high performers thrive, so take care not to stifle them. Be there for support, but demonstrate that you trust them to just get on with it. Choose one of the tactics and think about
how you can weave it into your upcoming
conversations with your team members. Remember to understand
their motivations and to give and receive feedback on ways in which to elevate or sustain performance. Now, this person could be a thriving top performer or someone who needs
a bit of a boost. Perhaps someone in
the losing, cruising, or surviving zones of
the performance matrix. Use the class worksheet
to start preparing for this conversation
by making notes on the activity questions, which are, what intrinsic motivators are most important for this individual? What extrinsic motivators
are worth considering? What does this person
need to contribute to high performing
team dynamics? Finally, what can
I do to support this person as
practically as possible?
7. Final Thoughts: I hope you enjoyed my class on retaining top performers
and growing talent. Now, spending time
on this can really have a positive impact
on your company culture. As mentioned earlier,
please do complete your worksheet and share it
in the project gallery as I'm really excited to see your
completed work and provide feedback to help you to continue to grow within
your organization. Please do ask any
other questions within the discussion
section of the class, and I'll be happy to weigh
in on those as well. Thanks again, and I
hope to see you soon.
Abigail Ireland, Peak Performance Strategist
