When you do an honest assessment of the company you lead, or the department, or the social organization, or even if you just lead one other person, if you did an honest assessment of yourself and your charge would you say that you are high performers, or just average?

Why? If you are average why aren’t you better? And if you are a high-performer, please respond to this article and tell us what makes you such.

We’re all products of our environment, and undoubtedly my desire for high performance is rooted in my growing up. I believe part of it began in the little church I attended as a child. I remember when I was only five or six visiting the church nursery where the smaller children stayed during the service—if they came at all—and discovering every toy was broken; and later learning that we took toys to the nursery after they were broken and no longer useful to us at home. Even at six I knew that wasn’t right: it wasn’t high-performance.

There were no break-out people in my little community. Excellence wasn’t a value. “Good enough” was. We didn’t produce academics, intellectuals, or athletes. In fact, we probably weren’t #1 in anything other than the number of graduates receiving government welfare checks. Yet somewhere, somehow, I developed a craving for more and a desire to excel. Thankfully, I’ve been able to do that most of my life.

For reasons unknown to me I attended the large University several hours away when few of my classmates went to college and those who did mostly attended a small school of a few hundred very close to home. That didn’t make me better, but certainly different. I was suddenly swimming in a pond with a larger number of better equipped competitors. And I thrived

In my 20’s I founded a church and can still hear the haunting ring of the man who told me “You’ll never succeed. You are too young. Those people in that area have too much money. They’ll never listen to you. You can’t do this.” In a way he was right. It skinned me up pretty badly. But we started at zero and ended up with several hundred adherents a few short years later. Today, some 20 years hence about 2000 people consider that their church home.

In the fast moving stock broker world I was considered a “fast starter” who won every award and incentive contest trip I was eligible for climbing to be the #14 producer out of some 3500 in my company. In the insurance industry I wasn’t just part of the Million Dollar Round Table, but was Top of Table, which I recognize means little to anyone who isn’t in the industry, but it means that 99.9% of people in the industry were behind me. I was a high performer.

The team I lead now started out badly in debt and closing the company doors was a real possibility, but today we are a paragon of success among our peers, at the pinnacle of accomplishment.

I’ve just always wanted to win. I don’t know why. But I’ve always wanted to be with high performers and I think that is a valuable trait.

Why High Performance Matters

High performance matters because you and I have been entrusted with gifts, not just natural abilities and skills we’ve developed, but true gifts integral to our purpose on earth. It’s our obligation to use those gifts to their maximum in honor of the One who gave them to us, and for the benefit of all the people who are depending on us. Remember Core Value #1: It’s about the people depending on us!

You and I aren’t accountable for what we couldn’t do. For example, no one is ever going to criticize me for not playing in the NBA. But we are accountable for what we could have done with what was given to us. We must do our best. We must achieve the maximum possible. God wants a return on what He’s given to us. That famous Physician Luke wrote in the New Testament book that bears his name “To whom much is given, much is required.” You and I have a great debt we owe for the oxygen we breath. Life isn’t a right, it’s a responsibility. Carry it out well.

Performance at a high level honors God and helps people. Those two things are at the very core of everything we ought to be about.

How to Recognize a High Performer

There are any number of ways, some of which are more obvious than others. Beyond the normal metrics of “paychecks and points scored” I’d suggest to you that high performers carry some of these characteristics……

#1. HP’s show up on time, ready to contribute. HP’s don’t come sliding in just as the shift begins. HP’s don’t show up in a meeting having not done their homework. HP’s are prepared and ready to contribute to whatever they are involved in.

#2. HP’s are risk takers. They understand that every great achievement in human civilization came at risk to the achiever. Swimming in deep water requires getting out of the boat. When the settlers came to the new world, beached their ships and set them on fire, they were committing to perform and win. When the signers of our Declaration of Independence put their signature on the document, they sealed their fate. There was only one way: Forward! They were committed to winning.

#3. HP’s are insatiably curious. They ask lots of questions about lots of things. Many of those things aren’t even “on topic” but that’s OK. The high performer knows that the more rocks you turn over, the more crawdads you’ll find. They like to learn about things that ostensibly have nothing to do with them. They like to take things apart to see how they work. They want to understand the inner-workings of businesses. They love exploring new concepts and ideas. Thus, they read, attend lectures, listen to speakers, read some more, study, discuss with others, did I mention they read?. And in all that poking around and learning they develop thinking skills and see applications of principles that other people miss.

#4. HP’s have high expectations of others. They ask hard questions of others. They are focused on winning and when someone on their team isn’t carrying their weight, it’ll usually be pointed out by a high-performer. HP’s expect everyone to play their position. Using an athletic metaphor, they expect everyone to be a “defensive stopper.” They don’t tolerate whining and excuses. To HP’s it’s all about performance, as it should be.

#5. HP’s are accountable and hold other people accountable. They know that at any moment someone may call on them to defend themselves in relation to their performance, so they typically make sure their performance is defensible. They are also quick to question others in the same way.

#6. HP’s use their capability to the maximum for the right purpose. HP’s recognize that there is no glory in being at the top of the ladder leaning against the wrong wall. They’d rather be at the bottom of the right ladder and climbing, than at the top of the wrong ladder. Therefore, HP’s are quick to recognize when a situation, a placement, and teammate, or an approach isn’t working and they take prompt action (typically thought to be too aggressive by lower performers) to remedy it.

#7. HP’s have good attitudes. They know the old Proverb “A merry heart doethgood like a medicine” and they strive to be a merry-maker. One of my personal affirmations that I say to myself every day is: I am enthusiastic and enjoy turning up the confidence and energy thermostat in every room I enter.

#8. HP’s are learners who want to grow. They know a lot already (did I mention they read?) but they also know there’s lots they don’t know. Last weekend I went to the bookstore and bought eight new books. I’ve probably bought 20 books in the first quarter of this year and I read everyone of them. They cover many genres of literature. I find a nugget in every one that makes me better.

#9. HP’s are believers. HP’s believe in what is possible. They are optimists. Their glass if half full. They’ve won the game before they even come to the field. My buddy Jay Vigneaux says that “Believing in yourself tells God that you believe in Him. Because He already believes in you.”

How to Develop a High-Performance Culture

#1. Be a high performer yourself. You’ll never have a high performance culture if you slack as a leader. Your people won’t read more than you do. They won’t question more than you do. In fact, you should expect that the best of them will max out at about 80% of your performance level, so figure out where you need them to be and then exceed that by at least 25%.

#2. Ask people for their help. People love to be on a winning team. They want to live a life worthy. They are moved by vision. Help them see what you hope to produce, ask them to help make it happen and then show them the benefits they’ll receive when you become a high producing team.

#3. Cast vision, great vision. The greatest things I’ve ever done in my career were empowered by tremendous vision, and the laggard seasons in my career were times when I didn’t have a vision myself and thus my team didn’t either. YOU MUST HAVE VISION! If you aren’t in pursuit of a dream worth your all, you are pursuing the wrong thing. Big dreams are galvanizing. They draw big dreamers, and big players. Someone once said (and I’ve loved it for decades) “Make no little plans for they have not the power to stir men’s souls.”

#4. Expect a High Performance. Once you’ve cast the vision and asked people for their help, if they said “yes” then you should be able to expect their activities and commitments to reflect the commitment to that vision. Begin evaluating them against How To Recognize a High Performer standards. If they don’t meet those standards, don’t be discouraged at first. Maybe they just don’t understand. You get what you train. So begin training the behaviors that are required to produce high performance. If you’ve gotten their commitment and trained to it, you then have a right to expect high performance.

#5. Measure it. Ah, this is where it will get sticky……comparison. Only that which gets measured will improve. If you aren’t measuring your performance and that of your team, you won’t see improvement. If team members resist being measured, then they don’t understand the value of knowing how they are doing; instead they prefer the vague blackness of assuming everything is alright.  That’s a sure sign of a mediocre performer.

Recently I had an experience with a person who refuses to be accountable to measurement (he’s not on my team. I wouldn’t allow that.) Today I had interaction with a several people who are influenced and affected by this person. They complained about his lack of impact and that he wasn’t helping them to achieve the team goal. Of course he’s not. The people he’s working for aren’t expecting high performance from him and aren’t measuring him to be sure he produces it. There’s no accountability. Where there is no accountability there will be no performance.

We recently hired a salesman who really wanted the job. He pursued it. He convinced me. I hired him. He attended our first team meeting where we went around the room and were accountable to each other for our commitments to perform. He promptly resigned. He didn’t want to be accountable.

#6. Don’t let low performers drag you down. You become like who you hang out with. If you hang out with laggards, dullards, or people who are at best average, they will influence you to be like them. It’s a sociological fact. Likewise if you hang out with sharp people who are better than you, who are performing at higher levels, you’ll begin to enhance your performance. In a perfect world I’d like to be the lowest performer in every room I was entered. That would mean that everyone there was outperforming me and that I could learn from every person there. Wow! What opportunity!

#7. Focus on what is right instead of what is wrong. Life isn’t perfect. Your performance is unlikely to be flawless every time. Instead of focusing on what you didn’t do well and need to improve, why not focus on what you did right and try to figure out how you can get just a little bit more of that.

I lead a group of friends in a weekly study and discussion. We met earlier tonight. One of the ladies in the group talked about how she’d changed her mind and decided she was going to approach her days positively. On Monday morning she got out of bed in a great frame of mind and all was well for 20 minutes, until she rounded the corner from her bedroom to her kitchen and saw all the mess. She was overwhelmed by the mess she had to come home to later that day after work and it derailed the positive day to which she’d committed.

My encouragement to her was rather than counting all as loss and surrendering to the negative, be grateful for the positive 20 minutes she had and figure out how to get just a little bit more of that. For every minute that she could incrementally increase the positive she was stealing from the negative. If she can train herself to do that over a period of time she’ll learn to turn her whole day around.

Rewarding High Performance

Honestly, I don’t know that I know how to do this beyond the normal ideas of more money, bonuses, etc. I do occasionally give a team member a gift. I try often to compliment them for doing a good job. Most importantly, I tell them I love them.

That’s right. “I love you” are words we use among our team. They aren’t cheesy. It’s not false and stilted—uncomfortable. It’s true. I do love them, and I believe they love me. We share that. We care about each other (sometimes enough to kick each other in the butt), and we are committed to each other. You see, we are the people who are depending on each other, that’s why Core Value #1 means so much to us.

I believe great leaders are lovers. They love the people they lead, the people know it, and the people love the leader.

Finally

It’s a lot easier to be average than to be a high performer. Nobody expects much of you if you commit to being average. When you commit to being a high performer the costs go way up. It’ll take more of your time. More energy. Greater commitment to do the right things rather than doing things rightly.

Your peers may try to drag you down because your higher performance suddenly makes them look bad. Sometimes being a high performer is lonely. You’ll be surrounded by more “friends” back in the average pack. But are they really friends? Or, are they acquaintances?

You’ve only go one life. You can either live it lost in the average, or you can commit yourself to making the most of the gifts and opportunities you have. The choice is all yours.

The world needs you. People are depending on you. Now, go make a difference!