Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue - 26

NEW MAXIMSHealthy High Performance
FOR
by Karen Nelson
& Zac Ryland
" The best teams have the best performers
most trust and safety. "
Whether we realize it or not,
maxims-those pithy statements
we learn along our leadership
journey-can shape our
behaviors. As organizations grow
and evolve, it can be tempting
to buy into commonly held
beliefs about how a business
should operate. In every
growth journey, an organization
outpaces the underlying systems,
processes, and structures that
supported past performance.
Yet in responding to the need
to fill this organizational gap,
leaders may rely on old beliefs,
patterns, and stories-at
times to the detriment of the
organization's growth potential.
We can dispel these traditionalyet-limiting
maxims by
advocating for research-informed,
people-centered approaches
to cultivating healthy, highperforming
organizations. Let's
explore five reframes to common
myths that can inhibit the
evolution of your organization.
You work to answer many key questions for your business. How can you build teams with
more rock stars? What is the talent you'll need for the strategies of tomorrow? How can
you consider diverse viewpoints?
At its core, you're asking, " What does it take to build the best, most effective teams? "
Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, " The secret of my success is that we have gone to
exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. " Many believe that to have the
best teams, you need the best people.
To see if this maxim holds true, Google conducted hundreds of interviews, explored
hundreds of skills, and reviewed hundreds of active teams1
. Yet they concluded it's not
that the " best " people make the best teams-it's that the best teams are the ones with
the most trust and safety.
* There was little to no correlation with common factors like location, decision making,
extroversion, individual performance, workload, seniority, size, or tenure.
* The team makeup matters less than how the team members interact.
* Psychological safety was the most important of the five dynamics that Google surfaced.
Rather than building teams with more rockstars, consider how you might model and set a
climate of curiosity and safety. (To learn more about team effectiveness and psychological
safety, go to page 21.)
" Create formal programs accessible, informal
opportunities for reward and recognition. "
Contrary to many long-held beliefs, you can meaningfully recognize someone with informal,
simple, in-the-moment praise-without a formal recognition program.
Shawn Achor, author of Big Potential and world-renowned expert on positive psychology, says,
" Praise is a renewable resource and primes the brain for higher performance. The more you
can authentically shine praise on everyone in your ecosystem, the more your potential, both
individually and collectively, rises. "

Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue