By Kazeem Olayemi Odeyeyiwa, FCA
Expectedly, the desire of all businesses is to stay ahead of the competing crowd or maintain a strong competitive edge and be profitable. And it is a truism that lasting competitive advantage is possible through availability of outstanding employees to drive various value activities of the value chain.
It takes a lot of time and resources to recruit, maintain and retain outstanding employees. Every once in a while, special employees come along that just really seem to get it. They drive the entire company forward in ways that were unimaginable. Advancement and reward are never an issue for these superstars because they understand the power of cause and effect, and only a worthy company can retain and afford them.
Apart from outstanding employees, there are also other categories of employees, among who are “the coming employees”. The coming or upcoming employees are employees that are still growing. For this category of employees to become outstanding, what seems like four stages of leadership and intellectual influence must take place.
That is, the coming employees must see (or be made to see) outstanding employees as role models. This stage of influence is called “Modelling”. From Modelling, coming employees begin to see outstanding employees as their motivators. This stage is called “Motivation”.
Having become motivated by the outstanding employees, coming employees approach outstanding employees for mentoring relationship. The outstanding employees begin to practically guide the coming employees.
This stage is called “Mentoring”. When the outstanding employees have finally deposited almost all that they know in the coming employees, the coming employees will finally become like outstanding employees. This stage is called “Multiplication” which is technically called “Reproduction”. This process will naturally ensure sustenance of corporate culture of peak performance and possibly facilitate effective succession planning.
According to John Maxwell in his masterpiece, “The 360 Degree Leader”, “The best way to develop high-caliber leaders is to have them mentored by a high-caliber leader. If you lead your organization, you are probably the best (or at least one of the best) leader in the organization. If you are not already doing so, you need to pick the people with the greatest potential, invite them into your circle, and mentor them.”
Recruitment Process
It is noteworthy that any organisation that is passionate about having outstanding employees must first put in place a tested and rigorous recruitment policy that focuses more on personal or general skills rather than technical skills. This is because over-reliance on intelligence quotient (IQ) for employee recruitment can also lead to influx of intellectual employees that lack interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, team spirit, etc., that are critical to becoming outstanding employees.
This is because no employee can become outstanding without the operational support of his colleagues just as no football striker can deliver sterling performance consistently without regular supply of passes to him or her by teammates.
HBR’s Paradox of Work Engagement of Outstanding and Low Performers
John Baldoni, president of Baldoni Consulting, a full-service executive coaching and leadership development firm paradoxically explains in his article christened “Your Least Engaged Employees Might Be Your Top Performers” published in the Harvard Business Review thus: “Some of the most engaged employees in your organisation are your worst performers. And some of the least engaged are your highest performers.”
This inference stems from the new research by a consulting firm, Leadership IQ. The study “matched engagement survey and performance appraisal data for 207 organisations”. According to Mark Murphy, chief executive officer of Leadership IQ, “We had long suspected that high performers might not be as engaged as has traditionally been assumed. But seeing that, in 42% of cases, high performers were even less engaged than low performers was a bit of a shock.”
This conclusion runs contrary to the traditional belief as well as many studies (including the one from Gallup) that show high engagement — that is, how much employees are committed to their work — correlates with better bottom line results, including productivity and profitability.
You could think of these low performers as hamsters on a wheel, spinning fast but actually going nowhere. Conversely, high performers may be coasting like swans on a pond, just gliding by. You do not see their effort because it is below the water. As Murphy says, “In our study, high performers gave very low marks when asked if employees all live up to the same standards.”
The research confirms that while low performers may be more engaged, their efforts may not be as productive, especially since it is the higher performers, despite low engagement, that are doing all the work. The underperformance of the former undermines the effort of the latter. This is especially true, according to the study, when low performers are not held accountable for poor performance. These employees may not even know they are doing a poor job.
Naturally when poor performers are allowed to slide by, it erodes the morale of high performers who feel, again according to the study, “helpless about the trajectory of their careers”.
“We had seen plenty of cases where managers avoid dealing with low performers (because they believe the conversation will be difficult), and instead assign work to the employees they enjoy — i.e. high performers,” says Murphy. “And as a result, they end up ‘burning out’ those same high performers they enjoy so much.”
Baldoni says while he finds Leadership IQ’s findings linking high engagement to poor performers to be contrarian, it is not usual for good performers to feel lost in the system. This is a comment he hears frequently in his coaching work.
The question is, what do we do about it? Murphy offers two suggestions. “First, leaders need to set very explicit, and behaviourally-specific, expectations for performance. These expectations need to define and delineate good, great, and even poor performance so employees and managers can clearly define and differentiate best practices, teach those practices to others, and then hold people accountable accordingly.”
Doing this, according to Murphy, “gives high performers confidence that their manager understands the meaning of ‘high performer’ and it holds the manager accountable to actually differentiate employees on the basis of their performance”.
Second, Murphy suggests regular monthly meetings (perhaps lasting no more than 20 minutes) that ask managers about what’s going on in the workplace and how motivated they feel. As Murphy says, “If a company CEO were told that their best customers were unhappy, it’s a safe bet that CEO would be on a plane within hours. If we truly believe that people are our most important asset, shouldn’t we pay a bit more attention to the engagement of the best of those people?”
Senior management needs to communicate more clearly, hold people at every level accountable for results, and actively invest time and resources in the talents of high performers.
All too often, companies do not know their employees are unhappy until they leave. Exit interviews reveal that they leave because they did not believe anyone cared. Research has confirmed the old saw that people leave bosses, not companies. That makes holding bosses accountable for employee engagement critical.
Senior leaders need to do a better job of teaching managers how to be better managers. And they also need to apply such standards to themselves.
Turning Creative Employees into Outstanding Employees
Creative employees are another set of coming employees that that become outstanding employees with proper talent management skills. In fact, unless you learn to get the best out of your creative employees, you will not get the best from them. However, if you just hire and promote people who are friendly and easy to manage, your firm will be mediocre at best.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an international authority in personality profiling and psychometric testing says although every organisation claims to care about innovation, only very few are willing to do what it takes to keep their creative people happy, or at least, productive. The following are some of the things to do to effectively engage, retain and turn coming creative employees into outstanding ones.
Make them feel important. According to T.S. Eliot, “Most of the trouble in this world is caused by people wanting to be important.” And the reason is that others fail to recognize them. Fairness is not treating everyone the same, but like they deserve. Every organisation has high and low potential employees, but only competent managers can identify them. If you fail to recognise your employees’ creative potential, they will go somewhere where they feel more valued.
Let them freely express themselves. Show your creatives unconditional support and encourage them to do the absurd and even fail. Innovation comes from uncertainty, risk and experimentation. That is, if you can predict the outcome, it is no longer creativity. Creative employees are the natural experimenters, so let them try and test and play. Of course, there are costs associated with experimentation — but these are lower than the cost of NOT innovating.
Do not pressurise them. Creativity is usually enhanced by giving people more freedom and flexibility at work. If you like structure, order and predictability, you are probably not creative. However, we are all more likely to perform more creatively in spontaneous, unpredictable circumstances — because we cannot rely on our habits.
Do not constrain your creative employees. Do not force them to follow processes or structures. Let them work remotely and outside normal hours; do not ask where they are, what they are doing or how they do it. This is the secret to managing Don Draper, and why he never went to work for a bigger competitor. This is also why so many top athletes fail to make the transition from a small to a big team, and why business founders are usually unhappy to remain in charge of their ventures once they are acquired by a bigger company.
Surprise them. Few things are as aggravating to creative employees as boredom. Indeed, creative people are pre-wired to seek constant change, even when it’s counterproductive. They take a different route to work every day, even if it gets them lost. Creativity is linked to higher tolerance of ambiguity.
Creative people love complexity and enjoy making simple things complex rather than vice-versa. Instead of looking for the answer to a problem, they prefer to find a million answers or a million problems. It is therefore essential that you keep surprising your creative employees; if you fail to do this, you should at least let them create enough chaos to make their own lives less predictable.
Only involve them in meaningful work. Natural innovators tend to have more vision. They see the bigger picture and are able to understand why things matter (even if they cannot explain it). The downside to this is that they simply will not engage in meaningless work. This all-or-nothing approach to work mirrors the bipolar temperament of creative artists, who perform well only when inspired — and inspiration is fuelled by meaning. This rule can also be applied to other employees: everyone is more creative when driven by their genuine interests and a hungry mind.
Notable Attributes of Outstanding Employees
The following are some of the attributes that outstanding employees possess. If your managers do not value these attributes, maybe they are not the right managers for your organisation anymore.
Outstanding employees are highly expressive as they ask for help whenever they need it.
They form great relationships with people inside and outside the company. They know which teams they are a member of and work to strengthen their team relationships so that things do not get tense or stressful in a clinch.
Outstanding employees know more than just the procedures their job requires. According to “ForbesCareers Newsletter”, they know the reason why their jobs exist and that knowledge lets them suggest tweaks and innovations that let them work more effectively.
Outstanding employees notice what is going on around them at work, and they integrate their constant learning into the way they do their jobs.
Great employees look ahead and anticipate problems that might emerge on the job. They bring up potential problems early and push to get those problems addressed before they can do harm.
Outstanding employees tell the truth about sticky topics like workload, work/life balance, difficult customers (or vendors, fellow employees or managers) and ineffective procedures. They find their voice and use it even when no one else dares to.
Outstanding employees do not rest on their educational credentials, job title or honours bestowed on them. Liz Ryan is CEO/founder of Human Workplace and author of Reinvention Roadmap, they are open to new ideas no matter who suggests them. They share their own thoughts, not the conventional wisdom they have been taught by other people. They do not brag about themselves.
Excellent employees are coaches and mentors to people around them. They often hear “You are so generous to share your expertise!” They do not take the view that knowledge is power. They know that knowledge is only power when it is shared with others. Outstanding employees address conflict rather than avoiding it. When they step into a conflict resolution process, they maintain respect for everyone in the mix. They do not place blame on other people. Rather, they do not apologise just to keep the peace.
Outstanding employees have a personal career plan or direction in mind. They do not assume that their employer will manage their career for them. They manage their own career.
They enthusiastically learn all aspects of business. According to Kevin Daum, a career management expert, outstanding employees understand they are part of something bigger and more worthwhile than just their jobs. They look to learn other areas of the business and be fluent in finance and management so that they will positively impact multiple areas of the company.
Outstanding employees steward their organisations. They treat the organisations as if they (the organisations) were theirs. They look to make prudent decisions about expenses and opportunities with the long-term future of the company in mind. They easily assess risk versus reward, selflessly when making decisions.
They generate viable opportunities. Outstanding employees know you do not have to be in sales or marketing to help a company grow. They see company growth as a collective effort and constantly keep their eyes open for ways to more than pay for themselves.
Outstanding employees resolve issues before they are issues. Amazing employees are always looking to improve systems proactively, and they do.
They tell it as it is. Amazing employees understand that hiding bad news helps no one. They find kind ways to bring uncomfortable information to the surface, but they bring it to the surface. They tell people what is necessary before major damage is done.
They demonstrate high standards with low maintenance. Managers always feel relaxed when they can trust an employee to perform a task to the same high standards they would expect from themselves. Not all can do this without constant attention or difficulty. Amazing employees quietly drive their own high standards.
They grow themselves and others. They not only drive their own careers but inspire others to do the same. These employees lead by example in how to advance without creating animosity or resentment. They see and create their perfect future, and also bring others along.
Motivation and Regular Training of Coming and Outstanding employees
It is noteworthy that to achieve and sustain corporate peak performance, organisations need to motivate employees and cultivate the culture of regular training of upcoming and outstanding employees. This training will ensure enhancement of the capabilities of upcoming employees to become outstanding while assisting existing outstanding employees to sustain and even exceed their peak performance and avoid complacency or diminishing returns setting in.
According to Andy Grove, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee, these are motivation and training. Motivation is the key ingredient for success in any organisation. You can have all the technical skills in the world, but if you cannot motivate your team, it will be difficult to achieve success.
Motivation has long been recognised as being vital to the fulfilment of human potential. It has never been so important, however, as in our current era of drastic social and technological change and the stress that necessarily results.
Dr. Walter Doyle Staples, author of “Power to Win” and one of most-celebrated American authorities on human-potential issues says there can be few subjects as fascinating as positive and stimulating motivation if only because it means so many different things to different people. Only positive motivation will bring about productive results because it concentrates on desire, whereas negative motivation concentrates on fear.
To motivate your team, one of the things you need to do is to find out the level of their motivation. Everyone has motivation. Your employees are motivated on some level and it is your responsibility to find the level of their motivation and move them (the employees) to the next level. The key to this motivation is to be consistent with all your employees at all times.
If you show sincere in your employees, they will definitely be motivated. Understand what your employees are passionate about in their lives. Try to know their personal needs, what brings them joy or pain, what their short- and long-term goals are, etc. Once you can find out these, you can move them to a new level of motivation, because you have shown enough care. Once you understand your employees’ needs and goals, they will take more interest in understanding and achieving your goals.
Sykes suggests that to motivate your employees productively, you need to listen to What’s in It for Me? (WIIFM). Sykes educates that to truly be a motivator, you must always be in tune with your employees’ WIIFM. Find out why it is beneficial for them to do a task, etc.
Once you have found out the employees’ motives, you have discovered how to motivate them. Giving your employees the opportunity to be proud of their work constitutes yet another of the many ways of motivating them. Napoleon Bonaparte corroborates this by saying, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.”
Reward team members publicly for a job well done. Give them an opportunity in a team meeting to explain how they accomplished a task. Let your organisation give recognition to these employees by personally sending a note, recognising them in an organisational or team meeting, or creating a Hall or Wall of Fame recognition for them that really have gone beyond the call of duty.
Also let your employees know why doing a particular task is important to you, the organisation and to them. Employees like to know why tasks are being requested of them so that they can feel involved and that the task is worth it. To motivate your team, you need to expect the best from them. If you expect the best, your employees will rise to that level. You do it with the words you use.
Also, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in an organisation. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they have developed a training programme for their departments.
Motivating Outstanding Employees through Appraisal
At times, outstanding employees are not accorded the necessary recognition. Experts say if you are an outstanding employee stuck in an undeserving organisation, your path is clear — it leads up and out of there, and on to your brilliant future.
The employee appraisal process therefore gives organisations the opportunity to praise employees who are outstanding. To ensure that these employees truly understand how much you appreciate their contributions, carefully select the words you include on their evaluations. By picking just the perfect words, you can communicate your appreciation clearly and allow them to bask in your pride, likely bolstering their commitment to the workplace.
Fatal Error of Recognising only Outstanding Employees
Human Resource Management experts are of the opinion that in as much as it is good to motivate and recognise outstanding employees christened, it is will be counterproductive according alone them the recognition, compensation or motivation.
Steven Brown, author of 13 Fatal Errors Managers Make with the subtitle And How You Can Avoid Them, predicates his displeasure with recognising only top performers on the fact that if you take all the top performers in your industry and hire them for your organisation, at the end of a year, only one person will come first.
In Brown’s words, “Before you begin to think how fantastically such employees would perform, on the average, I have some bad news for you: You cannot hire all the top performers, and you cannot build any department within a company with only top performers. No matter how great your financial resources, recruiting abilities, or connections, your efforts will fail. Why? Because … many top performers just don’t exist, and even if they did, only one person can get the top spot, while the others get the title also ran.”
He stresses that many managers waste much time trying to make themselves the first to achieve the impossible feat of hiring only top performers. “Simultaneously, they unintentionally discourage their middle (or steady) performers, who make up the backbone of any successful organization. All profitable companies build their business on good, reliable middle producers, plus a few superstars,” educates Brown.
Parting Shot
From Brown’s submission therefore, it makes sense for organisations to always recognise outstanding employees to sustain and exceed performance while recognising coming employees where necessary to as a way of challenging them to increase their performance.
Kazeem Odeyeyiwa, a Professional Accountant, Certified Information System Auditor and an alumnus of the London Business School undergoing a Doctorate of Business Administration Programme at the California Intercontinental University, USA, is the Managing Director/CEO, Repton Group based in Nigeria.
