The X-Factor for High Performing Leadership

What is the X-Factor when it comes to you and your team's performance?

We all want to see greater results, especially when we know we are capable of so much more.  

With all the competing priorities and responsibilities it's understandable if you feel like you're only working at half your potential.

A divided focus can really us thin making it hard to show up with all our energy and focus.

In this video, I share with you the number one thing you can do to create the conditions for high-performance for yourself and your team. 

When you dial in this one thing you can expect to see greater productivity, improved performance, and greater results.

In this video, we'll explore a simple way you can create the conditions for peak performance creating greater results on your team.

You'll learn more about...

• The X-Factor when it comes to you creating the conditions for high-performance
• 3 practical things you can do to for greater results

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The 5 Tweaks to Tap Your Next Level of Executive Presence.  Sign up now and I'll email it to you!

The X-Factor for High Performing Leadership

Transcript - March 26, 2020

So what is the X-Factor when it comes to you and your team's performance?

I'm Zach, I'm a leadership performance coach with Create Purpose. I work with a lot of leaders, small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them gain the clarity, focus, and energy they need to create the results they desire.

So today, we're exploring performance and how you as the leader can create the best conditions for peak performance.

How do you create the right conditions for peak performance?

It starts with applying and creating the right amount of pressure for yourself and your team.

It's dialing in the right amount of pressure on yourself and the individuals on your team.

I want to show you something. There's something in high-performance psychology known as the Human Performance Curve. And it speaks directly to this idea of the need for pressure, but more specifically, the right amount of pressure.

So let me show you really quickly, we'll see if this works, I drew a little picture.

What we have over here are performance and productivity, the higher up we go, the higher the performance.

Over here we have stress and pressure. The more stress and pressure we have.

You can see here that in this category right here, there's not enough pressure and look at our performance.

Over here, there's too much pressure and look at our performance.

The idea is you want to dial it in for peak performance because over here on this side of the chart, we're bored. We're not challenged, we don't feel that level of challenge. We're not stepping outside of our comfort zone. We're bored.

On the other side, we're overstimulated, we're over-anxious, we're fearful and the pressure is getting in our head. This is usually when we're far outside of our comfort zone, or we haven't been equipped with the resources that we need to succeed, or we really don't even know what success even looks like.

When it comes to teams, there's usually a lack of clarity, a lack of competency or capability, or confidence.

On the left side, you're bored, there's not enough challenge to create to make it compelling.

So the idea here is to find that peak performance point on the human performance curve of where you're applying just the right amount of pressure, where we're just right on the fringes of our comfort zone.

We're feeling the challenge, but we still have the confidence and the competency to execute.

There's a balance between the two. This is where peak performance happens.

I like to think about it like tuning a guitar. If the strings are too loose, then the music's flat, but if the strings are too tight, they'll snap.

And that's the same thing for us as individuals. If we're too loose and we're too bored, we're going to be flat. We're going to be lethargic, apathetic, we're just not gonna be bringing our A-game to the table.

But you know what, if the pressures to tight, we just might snap.

Some of us do! We feel overwhelmed, we feel anxiety, we feel burnout.

So there's a fine line, there's a middle of the road that actually is going to best serve you and your team when it comes to creating the conditions for high performance.

It's all about applying the right amount of pressure.

I have three things for how you can create some pressure, some healthy pressure that's actually going to drive performance.

The first one is Parkinson's Law.

What is Parkinson's Law? The work tends to expand the time that you give it.

Really anything expands to the space that you give it, whether it's work or time or whatever.

The idea here is you want to create real deadlines for your team and for yourself.

Any of you solopreneurs or freelancers where you work for yourself, this is so important, because you are the only one that's going to set a deadline. And so it's very important that you create real deadlines for yourself.

Real deadlines for your team. Compress the time in which you gave yourself to the work.

If you put more deadlines on the calendar, you're going to be amazed at how much more you have to give and how much more you can produce.

It's going to directly correlate with the results you create in a month.

Parkinson's Law: things are going to take as much time as you have to put forth so if you give yourself two weeks to do a project, it's gonna take two weeks.

It might take two weeks plus three days.

But if you only give yourself three days, you'll get that project done in three days, maybe four days, but you're gonna get it done in half the time.

Motivation is going to show up because you're going to get energized because you're moving the ball down the field and that's extremely, extremely motivating.

So remember Parkinson's Law, apply it to yourself, apply it to your team by creating real deadlines, real lines in the sand that you're committed to having the project done by that time.

Number two: Raise the necessity for yourself and your team, in whatever it is that you're doing.

Oftentimes, as leaders, we're really good at telling people what they need to do. This is what I need you to do. This is where we're going this is the next step. Can you please get this done for me by Friday, right?

We're really good at explicitly telling people what to do.

But oftentimes, what gets left out is the necessity around it.

Why is it important to us, to this team, to this company, this organization, to me as an individual? What's in it for you?

Raising the necessity will instantly increase the level of motivation and engagement on your team.

As a leader start to explicitly communicate, why it's important, why is this so necessary that we knock this out of the park?

What does it mean for you?

What does it mean for me?

What does it mean for this entire organization?

What's it going to enable us to do?

How is it going to foster the mission and everything we're doing?

Help people see the necessity around what you're doing because as you're raising necessity, people tend to bring their A-game.

That's a great question to ask too. If you're on your own, and you're building a business, and you don't have a team yet or if you are leading a team, start asking the question first to yourself, who's counting on me?

Who needs me to show up as my best self today?

Who needs my A-game?

Who needs me to bring it today?

Who's counting on me?

Even ask that question to your team and make sure it's explicitly clear to your team. This is who's counting on you, and this is why it matters to them. This is what by the actions you're taking, and by you knocking this project out of the park or closing the sale. This is what it means...

For not just the business and profitability. Yeah.

But this is actually what it's going to allow us to do. And this is what it's going to mean to the person on the customer service team who's trying to get a promotion or they're trying to move up in their career.

We need growth, we need opportunity and you creat it.

There are all kinds of things you can link the activities and the results back to that will raise the necessity.

Number three is creating an environment of accountability.

This is all about staying connected and creating an environment of accountability.

I don't mean walking around with a wooden stick and tapping people on the wrist whenever they're not doing what they said they'd do and write their name on the board when they get an answer wrong.

That's, that's childish, accountability. That's what we did back in grade school. What I'm talking about is we're all adults here.

We tend to rise to the level of expectations.

So when expectations are explicitly clear and given to us, and we know why it's so important, and we're able to raise the necessity around what we're doing.

Then there's also this other point where there's this level of accountability that I know in a week from today, I'm going to be sitting down with my manager, I'm going to be sitting down with my team member, and we're going to be talking about where they're at.

Are they on track? Are they off track?

As simple as that.

Are you on track? Are you off track in it?

If you have to report to somebody and tell them explicitly, I'm on track or I'm off track, I promise you, it's going to raise the necessity. You're going to prioritize it and you're going to dial it in a little bit more because it's going to create just a little bit more pressure for you to deliver. You'll know that there's somebody on the other end that you're going to be accountable to.

There's just something for you in that it really does serve you to have somebody that is creating accountability for you. Not that they're sitting over your shoulder watching your every move, it's a simple touchpoint...

Something like, "Hey, are you on track, are you off track? You're sharing the story with other people and naturally, you're going to get enhanced results.

How many more people are more likely to go to the gym, if they know they have a friend that's meeting them there at 6 am in the morning, right?

If there's somebody else's showing up, then you got to show up. That's what I'm about here and creating an environment of accountability.

To wrap up...

I've been exploring how you as leaders can tap your next level of executive presence and leadership presence, and I put together a white paper on the Five Tweak to Tap Your Next Level of Executive Presence

Below you'll either see a link or a form to sign up where I'll send you an email with the white paper included.

I really want you to check it out because as I've coached other leaders, I see these things time and time again.

As you start to make these shifts, a lot can change really fast.

So, the way to create a high performing team is to dial in the right amount of pressure.

Stay tuned for the next video...

I've got one more video coming at you in this leadership series.

It's going to be special because we're going to be talking about three key traits that all remarkable leaders have and what they role model within their organizations and their teams.

I don't want you to miss that.

So stay tuned, subscribe down below I'll send you the white paper on how to make some shifts and how to level up your executive presence. And you'll also be the first to see the next video as it comes out next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai