Surround yourself with people that perform

Why make life difficult for yourself by being Mr Solutions man or Lady Answers or Ms Instructor, constantly being interrupted, asked to make decisions about or respond to, unimportant issues/events.

Do you find yourself answering the same question repeatedly?

Do you find the same error re-occurring?

Do you mostly find yourself busy or very busy?

Are you lacking a succession plan?

Do you find your “to do” list grows exponentially when you are absent?

Does your company or your department underperform when you take 2 weeks holiday?

Do you feel unable to 100% trust your lieutenants?

If you answered yes to 2 or more of the above questions then you need to build a better business or department by starting to surround yourself with high performers. High performers can take the weight from your shoulders, be developed, become empowered and ensure the smooth running even when you are absent.

High performing leaders should spend at least 33% of their time working ON their business, the rest is spent working IN their business doing the routine. For managers at least 20% of their time should be spent working ON developing/improving their section/department.

Surrounding yourself with high performers certainly makes your business life easier with your next level down fully engaged.

Surrounding yourself with high performers will:

- Help support you with a brain-trust to plan your business or department’s growth.

- Give you the time to lead strategic or essential change.

- Give you the time to be curious and challenging over your business processes.

- Enable your business to respond quicker to change.

Allow you to identify the new behaviours and environment which will move your business forward.

Surrounding yourself with high performers starts with significantly upping the quality of your recruitment process and not being content with a “he/she fits ok – lets try him/her out” approach to key positions.   

A high performance recruitment process includes:

1)      Getting your recruitment right first time

- Seek high performers out – competency based is a good start. 

- A broad range of psychometrics, assessments – e.g culture fit, tough interviewing and top grading techniques such as thorough background checking and vetting.

- Work closley with a recruitment consultancy that is in tune with your needs

2)      Have a compelling vision which inspires buy-in.

3)      Have an Onboarding programme – a far more thorough approach than orientation/ induction. 

4)      Setting and managing expectations with minimum 90 days probation.

5)      Develop/use coaching skills. 

6)      Assuring regular feedback, training and development.

Many senior executives get stuck transitioning from product developers/sellers to business builders and people developers. This results in either the business plateauing or being sold to someone with the business skills and infrastructure to realise the potential. They get stuck as they resist devolving control to more adept people such as IT, Operations, Marketing or even accounting specialists.

Yes devolving control comes with initial risk, just as a child learns to ride a bicycle there will be falls and upsets, yet a parent does not say “you fell once – no point in learning to ride”. Perseverance is worthwhile.

Devolving control also comes with a perceived decrease in status. The choice is then delegate and grow or fail to delegate and stagnate. It’s your call.

So surround yourself with people that are high performers, have a team of people that can cut it – empower them, trust them, lead them by setting vision and goals, agree the path forward and support them in their execution. You will then be in the best position to grow or change.