SERIES: Part Three of a Four-Part Article
Is there a way to build a better mousetrap? Of course there is. If done, would anyone want to buy a better mousetrap or are people so complacent that they don’t really want to improve their performance?
Businesses have evolved into using very similar methods for immersing new players to a team and ensuring that all of the government mandates are met. This has detracted from real performance, however, causing it to become the third or fourth most important factor on the list of priorities.
One simple way to improve the performance of every player in an organization is to rebuild the application that one traditionally fills out when applying for a position. Convert this application that one would fill-out away from the traditional “Position Application” and to a “Performance Application” and share this new insight with everyone vested in these results - everyone should know the performance abilities of every player on a team. Once this knowledge is shared, everyone can be held accountable for drawing upon one another – in an appropriate strategic and tactical manner – for peak performance!
Cultivating performance greatness from the beginning can be drawn from the valuable information that one would give you if asked the right questions. Consider:
- Basic Contact Data - Obvious data collection points on an application, such as name, needed contact data, address, phone, DOB, etc…
- Formal Education - Solicit all levels and highest level of formal education attained.
- Work - All applicable previous work positions and additional questions as to how any of this data would be an added value to you and the present team. Allow them sell themselves and illustrate how they can impact the team, if allowed to join, by aiding it in increasing revenue, saving revenue and/or increasing productivity.
As a tactical leader, to cultivate peak performance and coach greater performance on a daily basis, you actually will not be drawing upon this information for someone to perform, but rather:
- Practical Education – Solicit from individuals the last twenty or forty seminars, symposiums, home study courses completed or workshops they have attended. Ask them to recap how at least five to ten of these can be immediately drawn from for utilization in your environment. Solicit how these ongoing educational exposures can actually have more immediate and lasting positive performance impact upon you and the team than any traditional formal degree!
- Certifications – Solicit the totality of any life certifications they have attained and ways others on your team could glean value from them. Inquire how those could be drawn upon and in what ways they could serve as the team’s subject matter expert in those domains, thus leading others’ performances to greatness!
- Must Have – Also solicit on this performance application by category prompts all the necessary skill abilities a person must have to even rise to the state of peak performance in any specific functioning area. You know what people must have to be true performers and what the functionality traits are that one must possess to be successful; don’t keep those a secret. Rather, enter them into this application template.
In essence, consider expanding the traditional second data collection field of education into both the “Formal” and now the “Practical” educational requirements or ideal sought capabilities. Most organizations DO NOT COLLECT this data presently!
Once this data is collected, don’t keep it a secret. Broadcast these performance insights both horizontally within your business area and vertically to leaders to have as strategic access opportunities.
Performance success does not just happen. Success leaves clues, and the purpose of this “Performance Application” is solicit exactly that – performance showcase snapshots from the past that can be extrapolated for the future.