Every system, we’re told, is a product of the sum of it’s parts. You are only as good as your weakest link is what most of us hear. Remember, we are wired for loss aversion. Please, my friend, stay with me. You really need to rewire to thrive…
As leaders we study systems for a living and are always trying to build redundancies into our financial system, our product design, and our technical solutions. We don’t want the system to fail because of a weak link we failed to account for. The same is true for most leaders and the way they look at their people. We are fixated on our weakest players. We are running our companies with our eyes on the bottom feeders and getting them up to the performance bar. We have bought the lie that we are only as good as our weakest link, right?
The fact is you are only as good as your high performers.
High performers, in nearly every system whether it’s the military, the world of sports, technology, or something as mundane as cleaning your carpets, outpace the average by 500%. Your system needs another one, two, or three, 5X performers. Focus here. Your problem isn’t the bottom feeders. Your problem is holding onto ’em too long. Loss aversion wiring keeps biting your behind. Are you getting this?
Put your team under more pressure. Study the details of how they respond. Put them under more pressure and do more of the same. High performers are resilient, we know, and stand up under the gun. Put them under pressure before you hire them. Practice this as part of how you hire. Challenge your new recruits, put them under pressure, and look for the hidden virtues that lead to high performance. Look for resilience. High performers thrive on the pressure, most humans wilt. Your system is made up mostly of wilters. That’s your problem.
This is why I put all my potential clients under pressure before I let them hire me. I make them answer 80 discovery questions. I tell them the truth about how hard this work is gonna be. And, once we start practice together, I push them harder and harder and harder. I want the best clients beside me and after a dozen years of building, I’m getting exactly the kinda practice I deserve. I’m better as a builder, today, because my clients are the best I’ve ever been around.
Think about how great your system would be if you had one more 5X performer beside you. Focus here. And, keep kicking your own. What? You afraid you won’t have anybody left? Go back to the top of this rant and rewire you some belief; loss aversion, not so much…
BUILT TO LEAD 