Consistently High Performing Organizations

I suspect it’s trite to say, every leader wants to create a high performance organization or that people want to be part of high performing organizations. But what does it mean to be a high performing organization?

In selling, is high performance “hitting our numbers?” Is it max’ing our comp plans? Is it about our personal success?

While those are aspects of performance, when we assess the data research shows us, the majority of individuals and organizations are failing at this. Despite all the investments made in tools, technology, training; despite our leveraging all the fashions and miracle cures we see in social media; despite the relentless focus on activities, volume, and velocity; despite the attitude, until recently, “grow regardless of cost,” the majority of organizations are failing at this.

We all know the data plummeting win rates, quota attainment, tenure, engagement, declining retention, and more.

Many organizations, will claim to be hitting their goals–and they may be, but they are underperforming their potential. I’ve referenced the organization that was successfully scaling year after year, hitting their numbers. But when I looked at win rates, they were 17% and win rates for $1M + deals were 9%.

Hitting our numbers is not necessarily an indicator of being a high performance organization.

There must be something more to creating and sustaining a high performance organization. What are some of the elements?

There are some things, that while they may be important, are not key indicators of consistent high performing organizations. Some of these include:

• Hot products, hot markets: While these drive short term growth, often in spite of anything done in the GTM efforts, these, alone, don’t drive sustained high performance. Markets change, better/different products emerge. Just look at the corporate graveyards composed of companies that, for a moment had the hottest product in the markets. Many of the consistently highest performing companies sell products or services that are highly commoditized.
• In recent years, our GTM strategies focusing on efficiency, volume, velocity have been claimed by many to be the “secret to success.” But they aren’t succeeding. To produce the same results we produced in the past, we have to 10X the activity levels required to produce those results. I had always though scaling referred to the outcomes created, not the efforts to maintain a certain performance level.
• Technology coming to the rescue! We’ve seen skyrocketing tech stacks, with continued bragging “mine is bigger than yours!” But we don’t see performance growing in proportion to the promise of those tech investments. And today, AI has come to the rescue. We can do even more in less time. We can provide greater insight. The technology is very immature, currently, it does have a lot to offer, but currently the focus is on volume and velocity. Been there, done that, struggle to see where it has consistently driven higher levels of performance. Ironically, a multibillion organization that has consistently had the highest growth, profitability, and performance, for at least 10 years, just invested in their first CRM system 4 years ago.
• And we make investments in all aspects of enablement, content, marketing programs, training and other things. All intended to drive performance.

Don’t get me wrong. All these things are important and contribute to driving and sustaining high performance. But there has to be something more, something that we are missing that is critical to consistently driving high performance.

Over the past year, I’ve been studying companies that have existed, and been strong performers, for over 100 years. Some have existed close to 1000 years. I’ve been trying to understand what drives their success over such long periods of time.

When you think about this, you know it can’t be hot products. Products they brought to the market 100 years or more have been displaced many times over. It can’t be a specific leader or founder, I don’t see many any of the original founders to these companies. It can’t be hot markets, because every market goes through huge changes in those times.

What are some of the elements that drive consistent high performance over years and decades. As I’ve studied these, a few consistent themes emerge:

1. Strong corporate culture, values, purpose. These drive everything the customer does. It is who the company is, what they stand for–for their people, their customers, their markets, their communities. It’s important to recognize these aren’t “stagnant” things. Culture, values, purpose will evolve and shift over time. But the commitment to these as the “North Star” driving everything the organization does, is key to sustaining their performance over years.
2. Strong leadership and vision. Having a clear long term vision is critical to navigating the changes, disruption, challenges that emerge over the years. This vision is grounded in the culture, value, and purpose; but it’s the leadership that translates that in to what the companies do, and how they grow, adapt, and change. They come to the role with a mindset around “built to last.” Sadly, too many leaders have the mindset of “built to exit,” or “I’ll move on to something else in a few years.”
3. These would be insufficient without high levels of employee engagement. Stated differently, these organizations create environments where people thrive. Not just their employees, but also their customers, partners, and communities. As much as too many of today’s leaders would prefer to ignore, business is about people engaging people in meaningful, high impact ways. It’s about constantly creating meaning and engagement in each interaction.
4. Quality and consistency. These organizations insist on maintaining the highest standards in everything they do. Too often, we think of quality as a product/offering attribute. But it’s the quality of the experience each individual the organization engages. And it’s the consistency of delivering those high quality experiences year after year.
5. Adaptability, experimentation, and innovation. These organizations consistently out perform others through constantly adapting everything they do, through constant innovation–not just in products and offering, but in who they are, what they do, and the experiences they create. They experiment in everything they do and the offerings they create. They are driven to be constantly and consistently relevant. And they recognize embracing change is critical to their sustained success and performance.
6. Financial “prudence” and stability. They recognize they are playing a long game. They recognize they will face market, economic, and other disruptions, putting in place risk management strategies to help navigate these uncertainties.

High performance is not just a focus on this month, this quarter, this year. It’s a mindset, a set of principles and values that focuses on driving the highest levels of performance year over year over year over year…..

Too many seem to have lost sight of this–both leaders and individual contributors. As a result, organizationally and individually, we don’t achieve what we could, we don’t seek to understand what’s really possible.