Ultra-Fast-Super-Productive-High-Performance-Manure
It’s Bullshit!
Adam was always the “high performer” in his company. The management loved his ideas, his energy and his results. They publicly rewarded him a couple of times, awarding him the “best innovator” title. As time passed, however, Adam realized others seem not to want to work with him. One day, he went for a drink with a couple of his colleagues. One thing followed another and — partially because of the alcohol — Adam asked the others whether they really don’t want to work with him. The answer others gave him was shocking: yes, they did not want to work with him because he was acting like a prima-donna, a super-hero who always wanted to get all attention, all the great ideas. Who never helped others because — as some of his colleagues remarked — that would decrease his own performance. Adam was devastated. To add to his frustration, in a few months, the “best innovator” trophy was not won by him, but by a team of (by Adam’s standards) average workers. He could not understand how is it possible that a group of average people would have better ideas than him, the top-performer, but yet they did.
Teamwork is what matters
Betty joined this new team a few months ago. She is by no means a rock-star developer. But she is keen to learn, always willing to help others and she is committed to success of the entire team. This is why, over these few months, she has become an indispensable part of the whole team — helping others and tying the whole team together.
Her presence in the team has also affected the others — and both Charles, Dan and Emily would say that Frank, the lead technical developer, has stopped acting as a primadonna anymore and that he also started offering help and explaining — something they haven’t seen him doing in the past.
And Frank would be the first to admit that he was skeptical about betty joining the team because he thought he’d have another person who he just has to instruct, but that Betty’s curiosity showed him better solutions to several problems he’d never discover alone.
The team is not delivering one innovation after another, but customers are pleased with the product and the team comes up with a truly “wow” feature from time to time — mainly through discussions and constructive debate with frequent respectful disagreements that push the whole team to better and better ideas.
Myths and truths about performance
The illusion of “top talent” and “high performance”
If you are striving for hiring high-performing individuals or top talents, be aware that it’s a counterproductive strategy in environments where teamwork trumps individual achievements — such as software development or any other knowledge-intensive or creative work. (Or any highly team-dependent environment, such as basketball.)
Moreover, talent and high-performance are not portable across organizations. (Boris Groysberg writes about this extensively in his book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance.)
Talent — an innate ability to excel at something — probably plays only a marginal role. It’s the practice and experience that matters. (As Geoff Colvin found out during researching his book Talent is Overrated.)
The Set-Up-To-Fail syndrome
As illustrated by the first story, managers often create low performers themselves by not creating enough room and opportunity for others.
The syndrome usually starts with good intention on both sides — the manager just wants to help and the employee on the other hand just wants to show she can think for herself and come up with solutions of her own.
The deadly spiral this leads to is very different to stop. Add to that wasted time of the manager, frustration of the employee and also the not insignificant costs of hiring someone who used to be a top talent and you quickly realize this is not something you want.
The power of helping others
Adam Grant describes people whose first though is helping others as givers and they are the heart and soul of any team — provided of course your corporate environment supports and recognizes giving as opposed to just taking.
The responsibility for performance
Instead of trying to codify what (high) performance means, management guru Peter Drucker suggests that for knowledge and creative work, we should put people in charge and let them decide on their own. This is in line with David Marquet’s advice about ensuring competence, providing clarity and giving control.
Convinced? Then try these ideas!
Hire cooperators
In software development, or any complex endeavour, you need teams to succeed. Having them usually starts with hiring. So next time you are about to hire someone, don’t look only at technical competence, look also for how will the people be willing to help others on a team.
Allow people to choose their work
We all know that people work better when they are able to identify themselves with the work they’re doing. One way you can help that is to allow people to choose what they’ll be working on. If you are working on a couple of products, why not ask people which ones they want to work on? Or why not — when you have a new product — just ask everybody whether they would like to work on that?
Don’t expect the impossible
The goal is not to push everyone to the limits — similar to redlining your car — , this works only in the short term and then destroys people. Therefore focus and encourage on occasional superb ideas (that often come after some time of mediocrity). Be also prepared to fail many times and try to extract as much learning as you can from each failure. (Amazon is a nice example of this approach.)
Get rid of individual ranking
Stop labeling people as “top talent” or “low performers”. Give goals to teams and then treat teams as indivisible units that share both the glory and the pain.
Look for the silent, overlooked
Who on your team is overlooked, but actually the glue that holds the team together? Think about how can you identify, reward and retain them. (One way is to constantly emphasize the value of helping others.) Remember—these people are the backbone of your organization and without them, there’d be no teams and probably no successful products.
