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Hi, it's Pete Wilkinson and welcome back to the Strategy Gap podcast.
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Today we're going to be taking a deep dive into building a performance culture.
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And this is the reason why.
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The UK has a productivity problem.
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You see, when Gartner does some research and shows that 90% of organisations fail to execute their strategy, when the CIPD tells us that only 10 to 12% of all UK employees are highly engaged, and when the Office of National Statistics says that the UK is lagging behind the US in productivity terms by 23%.
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Well, way behind Germany and we're also behind France.
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So in this podcast, I want to look at what it means to build a performance culture because it doesn't have to be such dire figures, doesn't have to be as depressing as the numbers I've just shared.
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Because I've seen firsthand companies that are executing 98% of their quarterly strategic goals.
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I've seen companies move from 55% to 95% of monthly goals, and I've seen companies increase their engagement by 60%, doing some very, very simple things.
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So in today's podcast, I want to get into the detail and I want to look at three big areas that I want to share with you so you can think about in your own company.
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The first thing we want to be thinking about when you're trying to get a full performance culture is what I would call strategic alignment and really clear expectations.
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You see, one of the problems that we don't deliver or people don't deliver is because they're not really sure what they should be doing.
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The second area I want to be thinking about is how can you sort of proactively manage your performance.
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If it's not done in a proactive way, if you're not doing the reviews and checking the numbers and having great conversations, then it's it's it's a big problem, okay?
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And the third way we need to be looking at building this performance culture is to really build high trust within the team and get full empowerment throughout the whole business.
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So let's look at each one of those things in a bit more detail.
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So if we circle back to the first one and we think around strategic alignment with clear expectations, there's kind of three steps to achieving that that I want you to think about.
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One is radical transparency.
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This is where we would think about how you can make your goals, your performance, your numbers, everything really clear.
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Now, sometimes you might want to keep information to yourself, but it's not serving you, right?
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What we need to do is get that shared within the whole company and think about ways that you can make some of your goals more transparent.
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For example, do you have a long-term vision?
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Is it transparent?
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Do you have a shorter-term vision?
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Is that transparent?
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You know, do you have regular check-ins, etc.?
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So you're trying to get this transparency around business performance.
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When I talk to a chief exec and I'll ask what the main vision is for the business, and then I'll go and see the team and I'll talk to the team and say, so can you just tell me a little bit about your business?
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There's often a disconnect.
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And one of the reasons there's a disconnect is because there isn't radical transparency in the company.
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It's not really clear where we are, where we're going, and how we're performing.
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So when you start thinking about building the performance culture and you're looking at like how do we get strategic alignment, it starts with having radical transparency and really clear vision about how we're performing in real time.
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The second action, the second step in relation to that, would be thinking about an outcome-based goal system.
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And I'm not really concerned which one you go for, well, it's KPIs, EOS, OKRs, our own 135 balance score card, doesn't really matter, but it is important to have an outcome-based goal framework, some type in your company, so that when you've got this transparency, people can then understand the goals that they are supposed to be, you know, delivering, if you like.
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And the third step in relation to this, this first main action, if you like, is role clarity.
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You do need to have a look at the roles in your company and think about do people have a clear role?
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Do they know what their expectations are?
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Do they know how they're going to be managed and measured?
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Do they know what their goals are?
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You know, they go back, circle back to transparency, and you want to make sure that this that they have a really clear idea about what their role is.
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And all you're trying to do there, thinking about is you're trying to get this like strategic alignment piece nailed so everyone's pulling in the right direction.
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That's the kind of first thing I'd like you to think about.
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The second thing I'd like you to think about is proactively managing performance.
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Um, all too often, if I was being brutal, I've seen it where people just are not doing this well enough, they're not close enough to the numbers, they're not doing reviews, they're not having the right conversations, there's no system in place, and we kind of blame people, but we haven't really trained them.
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So this is about proactively getting a handle on your performance so you are managing it proactively as opposed to being reactively.
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And there's three things I want you to think about when it comes to you know getting that proactive performance management.
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The first one is real-time coaching.
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One of the things that works very well in lots of companies that I work with and see, and they're in the sessions I deliver is they they move away from being pure managers into more coaches, they they don't kind of like manage the tasks as such, they kind of coach for the outcomes.
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So, this concept around building real-time coaching into the skill set for your managers is a very, very clever and good step to take.
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Going back years ago, I never really wrote on flip charts when I was doing strategy sessions, I never really wrote uh when I was asking for ideas about people, you know, how could you become more productive and effective as a leader?
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I never used to write coaching and mentoring on the board.
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And now, like thankfully, I'm I'm starting to do that.
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And this whole concept is thinking about your current breed of managers in your company, and are they just managers, or are you deploying, you know, a really good simple coaching technique to get that extra performance out of people to help them to understand where they're going in relation to that?
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So, the first step, if you're gonna try, you know, you're going for this proactive management, if that's the big action, and then you've got your three steps to deliver that.
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The first step is obviously the real-time coaching, the second one is what I would call like data-driven accountability.
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So, like, how can you use data to help your managers make the right decisions?
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Sometimes we manage and lead based on feel, and we think we're doing all right, or we think the team's performing, or we think the team's not performing, and we're doing it on opinion rather than real data.
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So, this data-driven accountability step is about what has to happen for you to build the right sort of um data points that you can measure and and record that information.
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So, if it's if it's KPIs, if it's OKRs, if it's EOS, whatever it is, but you know, where are you capturing that data and then using that to have proper good coaching conversations?
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All too often we do it on feel, and I enjoy feel, get it, but we need to really have that data-driven accountability, and then once once we've starting that, so we've you know, you've you've you've got this, you know, real-time coaching, managers starting to coach all the time, you've got the right data, and you've got the accountability based on that, and then the last step in that in that sort of trio, if you like, is all around like are you giving enough recognition and reward?
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And I don't just mean you know, pay rises and bonus, that that's that's an element, of course, it is, but also like you know, how are you how are you saying thank you to people?
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How are people getting recognized when they go the extra mile, when they deliver the results?
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Because in most companies, recognition's quite poor.
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And if I was to challenge you as a leader, I'd probably say, When did you last give yourself recognition for a good job?
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And if the answer's three, four, five months ago and you haven't done it for a while, then I would be, if I could be brutal with you, I'd say, Well, is that because you've done nothing that deserves recognition, or is it because you've not let it land, you've not noticed it?
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And I bet it's the latter.
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And the problem with that is that if you don't recognize recognition in your own performance, you probably not recognize it enough in your people's performance.
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So we need to really get that kind of thought through.
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The final main action, I said there was three, the main the final main action is this whole concept around building high trust and empowerment through the whole team.
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Um, if you can build high trust and you have a team that feels empowered, then you are really motoring towards this performance culture, and that's what you know the companies that you know are seeing 98% achievement of strategic goals or seeing a 60% increase in engagement.
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Um, these companies are doing that very, very well.
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The company that moved from 55% to 95%, it's because they really have high trust and they've started to empower their team.
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And one of the first act, one of the first steps in that action that they took was what I would call decentralized decision making.
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So it's like taking the decisions that you know need to be made, and where can you push those down through the organization to the people on the front line that are actually executing and delivering the performance?
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Sometimes, as a leader, you keep hold of things too long, and what that does is it makes people feel you don't trust them, that you haven't got confidence in them.
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So, one of the big actions that you could take here is decentralizing decision making, really pushing it down and thinking about what decisions are you making that could be made by someone in your team.
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And and if you've got that high trust and you're building high trust, then they know that you know they um they they are able to make those decisions and it's not the end of the world, and they'll learn, you see.
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So you may be making too many decisions.
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That's the first step.
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The second step is what I would call failing forward, and you've got to make the organization um a safe place where people can stretch, they can you know take on more responsibility, try new things, knowing that if they make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
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And often, you know, in most businesses, if we make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
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But the culture that you may have or the trust levels you may have is that people are resistant to that, they don't want to make that big decision because they go, Well, if I make that and I get you know do it wrong, and they're gonna do someone's gonna shout at me, or they're gonna get you know told off, it's gonna be not a great place.
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And so what they do is they they'd rather not make the decision than make the wrong decision.
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But this is all this this last kind of action is all around high trust and empowerment.
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So it starts with you making the decentralized decision making, is the first step.
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The second step is you're gonna be failing forward and you're gonna let people realize that if they make a mistake, it's just data points.
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We're gonna just learn.
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Hey, we tried that, it didn't work, so I'm going to, you know, look at how we could do that differently.
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Think about the lesson learned.
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What will we do differently next time next time?
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And make that kind of part of what you do in that failing forward idea.
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The third and final step, if we're trying to build high trust, is about this open challenge culture.
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And what I mean by that is that when this trust exists, high trust in a business, then people can, you know, um, you you can challenge them respectfully and they realize it's for the right reasons, but then also you allow them to challenge you in is that the right decision or are we going the right direction or I don't think that's what we should be doing.
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And and as long as you're doing this constructively and people can bring their ideas and their thoughts and their feelings, it does mean that they're empowered to have a greater say in what's happening in the organization.
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Because if you think about it, on the figures I showed at the very beginning, you know, 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategy, and and you know, compare that to the Jura that's nailing 98% of strategic um strategic goals every quarter, or or if you look at like river trades that have gone from 55% to 95% monthly goal achievement, or you've seen, or if it's oral that's increased revenue by 18% in six months, or Cosmo that's increased engagement by 60%, these are all real numbers from real companies that are building what I would call a performance culture, and it really begins by getting this strategic alignment by making sure that we are proactively managing performance and we're building high trust because it doesn't have to be as as dark as the numbers I shared at the beginning.
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If you put these things in place, you will start to see, it'll take a bit of time, but you will start to see a culture in your business around performance and high-performing people, a players, they love being in that environment, and it really starts.
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So, your action from this podcast, I always like to try and give you an action, is to just think about those three areas of like, you know, are you are you do you have strategic alignment?
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Um, are you proactively managing your performance?
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And is there high trust?
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And think of those three main actions, and if there's one that you feel is the weaker, then what is the action you could take this week to improve that and just start that journey of really building a performance culture because we need more businesses in the UK to build that performance culture to help UK PLC and help the teams inside the businesses become more productive, and it's going to help the whole of the country.
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And that's what we're trying to do here with this high performance business culture.
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Thanks very much, it's Pete.
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Take care, and I'll catch you all soon.
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Bye for now.
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Hi, it's Pete Wilkinson and welcome back to the Strategy Gap podcast.
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Today we're going to be taking a deep dive into building a performance culture.
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:13.039
And this is the reason why.
00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:16.000
The UK has a productivity problem.
00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:40.479
You see, when Gartner does some research and shows that 90% of organisations fail to execute their strategy, when the CIPD tells us that only 10 to 12% of all UK employees are highly engaged, and when the Office of National Statistics says that the UK is lagging behind the US in productivity terms by 23%.
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:44.240
Well, way behind Germany and we're also behind France.
00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:55.119
So in this podcast, I want to look at what it means to build a performance culture because it doesn't have to be such dire figures, doesn't have to be as depressing as the numbers I've just shared.
00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:01.759
Because I've seen firsthand companies that are executing 98% of their quarterly strategic goals.
00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:13.920
I've seen companies move from 55% to 95% of monthly goals, and I've seen companies increase their engagement by 60%, doing some very, very simple things.
00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:24.400
So in today's podcast, I want to get into the detail and I want to look at three big areas that I want to share with you so you can think about in your own company.
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The first thing we want to be thinking about when you're trying to get a full performance culture is what I would call strategic alignment and really clear expectations.
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You see, one of the problems that we don't deliver or people don't deliver is because they're not really sure what they should be doing.
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The second area I want to be thinking about is how can you sort of proactively manage your performance.
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If it's not done in a proactive way, if you're not doing the reviews and checking the numbers and having great conversations, then it's it's it's a big problem, okay?
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And the third way we need to be looking at building this performance culture is to really build high trust within the team and get full empowerment throughout the whole business.
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So let's look at each one of those things in a bit more detail.
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So if we circle back to the first one and we think around strategic alignment with clear expectations, there's kind of three steps to achieving that that I want you to think about.
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One is radical transparency.
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This is where we would think about how you can make your goals, your performance, your numbers, everything really clear.
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Now, sometimes you might want to keep information to yourself, but it's not serving you, right?
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What we need to do is get that shared within the whole company and think about ways that you can make some of your goals more transparent.
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For example, do you have a long-term vision?
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Is it transparent?
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Do you have a shorter-term vision?
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Is that transparent?
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You know, do you have regular check-ins, etc.?
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So you're trying to get this transparency around business performance.
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When I talk to a chief exec and I'll ask what the main vision is for the business, and then I'll go and see the team and I'll talk to the team and say, so can you just tell me a little bit about your business?
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There's often a disconnect.
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And one of the reasons there's a disconnect is because there isn't radical transparency in the company.
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It's not really clear where we are, where we're going, and how we're performing.
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So when you start thinking about building the performance culture and you're looking at like how do we get strategic alignment, it starts with having radical transparency and really clear vision about how we're performing in real time.
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The second action, the second step in relation to that, would be thinking about an outcome-based goal system.
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And I'm not really concerned which one you go for, well, it's KPIs, EOS, OKRs, our own 135 balance score card, doesn't really matter, but it is important to have an outcome-based goal framework, some type in your company, so that when you've got this transparency, people can then understand the goals that they are supposed to be, you know, delivering, if you like.
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And the third step in relation to this, this first main action, if you like, is role clarity.
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You do need to have a look at the roles in your company and think about do people have a clear role?
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Do they know what their expectations are?
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Do they know how they're going to be managed and measured?
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Do they know what their goals are?
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You know, they go back, circle back to transparency, and you want to make sure that this that they have a really clear idea about what their role is.
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And all you're trying to do there, thinking about is you're trying to get this like strategic alignment piece nailed so everyone's pulling in the right direction.
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That's the kind of first thing I'd like you to think about.
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The second thing I'd like you to think about is proactively managing performance.
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Um, all too often, if I was being brutal, I've seen it where people just are not doing this well enough, they're not close enough to the numbers, they're not doing reviews, they're not having the right conversations, there's no system in place, and we kind of blame people, but we haven't really trained them.
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So this is about proactively getting a handle on your performance so you are managing it proactively as opposed to being reactively.
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And there's three things I want you to think about when it comes to you know getting that proactive performance management.
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The first one is real-time coaching.
00:05:44.639 --> 00:06:03.199
One of the things that works very well in lots of companies that I work with and see, and they're in the sessions I deliver is they they move away from being pure managers into more coaches, they they don't kind of like manage the tasks as such, they kind of coach for the outcomes.
00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:13.199
So, this concept around building real-time coaching into the skill set for your managers is a very, very clever and good step to take.
00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:24.399
Going back years ago, I never really wrote on flip charts when I was doing strategy sessions, I never really wrote uh when I was asking for ideas about people, you know, how could you become more productive and effective as a leader?
00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:27.040
I never used to write coaching and mentoring on the board.
00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:30.480
And now, like thankfully, I'm I'm starting to do that.
00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:50.399
And this whole concept is thinking about your current breed of managers in your company, and are they just managers, or are you deploying, you know, a really good simple coaching technique to get that extra performance out of people to help them to understand where they're going in relation to that?
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So, the first step, if you're gonna try, you know, you're going for this proactive management, if that's the big action, and then you've got your three steps to deliver that.
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The first step is obviously the real-time coaching, the second one is what I would call like data-driven accountability.
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So, like, how can you use data to help your managers make the right decisions?
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Sometimes we manage and lead based on feel, and we think we're doing all right, or we think the team's performing, or we think the team's not performing, and we're doing it on opinion rather than real data.
00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:37.759
So, this data-driven accountability step is about what has to happen for you to build the right sort of um data points that you can measure and and record that information.
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So, if it's if it's KPIs, if it's OKRs, if it's EOS, whatever it is, but you know, where are you capturing that data and then using that to have proper good coaching conversations?
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All too often we do it on feel, and I enjoy feel, get it, but we need to really have that data-driven accountability, and then once once we've starting that, so we've you know, you've you've you've got this, you know, real-time coaching, managers starting to coach all the time, you've got the right data, and you've got the accountability based on that, and then the last step in that in that sort of trio, if you like, is all around like are you giving enough recognition and reward?
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And I don't just mean you know, pay rises and bonus, that that's that's an element, of course, it is, but also like you know, how are you how are you saying thank you to people?
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How are people getting recognized when they go the extra mile, when they deliver the results?
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Because in most companies, recognition's quite poor.
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And if I was to challenge you as a leader, I'd probably say, When did you last give yourself recognition for a good job?
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And if the answer's three, four, five months ago and you haven't done it for a while, then I would be, if I could be brutal with you, I'd say, Well, is that because you've done nothing that deserves recognition, or is it because you've not let it land, you've not noticed it?
00:08:56.879 --> 00:08:58.240
And I bet it's the latter.
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And the problem with that is that if you don't recognize recognition in your own performance, you probably not recognize it enough in your people's performance.
00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:09.360
So we need to really get that kind of thought through.
00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:19.759
The final main action, I said there was three, the main the final main action is this whole concept around building high trust and empowerment through the whole team.
00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:37.919
Um, if you can build high trust and you have a team that feels empowered, then you are really motoring towards this performance culture, and that's what you know the companies that you know are seeing 98% achievement of strategic goals or seeing a 60% increase in engagement.
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Um, these companies are doing that very, very well.
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The company that moved from 55% to 95%, it's because they really have high trust and they've started to empower their team.
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And one of the first act, one of the first steps in that action that they took was what I would call decentralized decision making.
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So it's like taking the decisions that you know need to be made, and where can you push those down through the organization to the people on the front line that are actually executing and delivering the performance?
00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:21.600
Sometimes, as a leader, you keep hold of things too long, and what that does is it makes people feel you don't trust them, that you haven't got confidence in them.
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So, one of the big actions that you could take here is decentralizing decision making, really pushing it down and thinking about what decisions are you making that could be made by someone in your team.
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And and if you've got that high trust and you're building high trust, then they know that you know they um they they are able to make those decisions and it's not the end of the world, and they'll learn, you see.
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So you may be making too many decisions.
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That's the first step.
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The second step is what I would call failing forward, and you've got to make the organization um a safe place where people can stretch, they can you know take on more responsibility, try new things, knowing that if they make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:09.279
And often, you know, in most businesses, if we make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
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But the culture that you may have or the trust levels you may have is that people are resistant to that, they don't want to make that big decision because they go, Well, if I make that and I get you know do it wrong, and they're gonna do someone's gonna shout at me, or they're gonna get you know told off, it's gonna be not a great place.
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And so what they do is they they'd rather not make the decision than make the wrong decision.
00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:35.519
But this is all this this last kind of action is all around high trust and empowerment.
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So it starts with you making the decentralized decision making, is the first step.
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The second step is you're gonna be failing forward and you're gonna let people realize that if they make a mistake, it's just data points.
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We're gonna just learn.
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Hey, we tried that, it didn't work, so I'm going to, you know, look at how we could do that differently.
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Think about the lesson learned.
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What will we do differently next time next time?
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And make that kind of part of what you do in that failing forward idea.
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The third and final step, if we're trying to build high trust, is about this open challenge culture.
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And what I mean by that is that when this trust exists, high trust in a business, then people can, you know, um, you you can challenge them respectfully and they realize it's for the right reasons, but then also you allow them to challenge you in is that the right decision or are we going the right direction or I don't think that's what we should be doing.
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And and as long as you're doing this constructively and people can bring their ideas and their thoughts and their feelings, it does mean that they're empowered to have a greater say in what's happening in the organization.
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Because if you think about it, on the figures I showed at the very beginning, you know, 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategy, and and you know, compare that to the Jura that's nailing 98% of strategic um strategic goals every quarter, or or if you look at like river trades that have gone from 55% to 95% monthly goal achievement, or you've seen, or if it's oral that's increased revenue by 18% in six months, or Cosmo that's increased engagement by 60%, these are all real numbers from real companies that are building what I would call a performance culture, and it really begins by getting this strategic alignment by making sure that we are proactively managing performance and we're building high trust because it doesn't have to be as as dark as the numbers I shared at the beginning.
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If you put these things in place, you will start to see, it'll take a bit of time, but you will start to see a culture in your business around performance and high-performing people, a players, they love being in that environment, and it really starts.
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So, your action from this podcast, I always like to try and give you an action, is to just think about those three areas of like, you know, are you are you do you have strategic alignment?
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Um, are you proactively managing your performance?
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And is there high trust?
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And think of those three main actions, and if there's one that you feel is the weaker, then what is the action you could take this week to improve that and just start that journey of really building a performance culture because we need more businesses in the UK to build that performance culture to help UK PLC and help the teams inside the businesses become more productive, and it's going to help the whole of the country.
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And that's what we're trying to do here with this high performance business culture.
00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:38.159
Thanks very much, it's Pete.
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Take care, and I'll catch you all soon.
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Bye for now.
