High Achievement Companies Focus on the Invisible

Having worked with approximately 100 leadership teams over a 30-year period, one of the most significant items I have concluded is that High Achievement Leadership Teams and cultures do not follow the tide or trends that are often spoken about or are present in so many companies. While most companies focus on what can be seen physically, High Achievement Companies focus on building what cannot be seen. It sounds strange but the real power that drives high achievement is what is invisible but so clearly felt. So, what are these invisible factors that drive high achievement? To date I have identified five factors.

While most companies focus on what can be seen physically, High Achievement Companies focus on building what cannot be seen.

Invisible Factor 1: Personal Traits of High Achievement Leaders

The first invisible factor common to all High Achievement Companies are the personal traits of the leadership team members. High Achievement Companies tend to have leadership team members that:

Have a strong sense of self and do NOT react hastily to negative comments or posts. They tend to be very grounded and operate from a higher plateau.
Tend to give away all credit when things are going well and take the blame when things do not work out. They tend NOT to seek public recognition for accomplishments.
Possess a conversation style that is inquiring. They pay attention to other people rather than talk about themselves, their accomplishments, or their world.
Treat everyone with dignity. I mean everyone; Servers at restaurants, clients, cashiers, team members and CEOs are all treated with an equivalent amount of respect and dignity. Although they operate from a position of dignity, they are not pushovers or shy about communicating messages that are difficult to hear or to correct someone’s behavior when a standard that has not been met.
Are ever evolving in the sense that they are continuously improving.
Choose to give each activity and conversation their best. They do not take short cuts or rush from one activity to another activity. They focus on what they are engaged in at that moment.
Have a tendency to be disciplined both at work and in their personal lives. Their personal lives reflect their invisible leadership with strong families, a strong spiritual element, good physical health and fitness.
Live beyond themselves by recognizing they need to be a good role model. They know that their actions and lives speak volumes and that they are on stage at all times. They know that actions, NOT words, set the operating standard so they live by all the rules, guidelines, core values, and guiding principles to the highest level.
Invest in and develop others inside of work and often times outside of work too.
Think about, monitor and invest in the company’s culture.

What strikes me about these individuals is how counter-cultural they are. How many of these characteristics do you see in your team? Consider how you can build them into your leaders.

High Achievement Companies tend to have leadership team members that know that actions, NOT words, set the operating standard, so they live by all the rules, guidelines, core values, and guiding principles to the highest level seen.

Invisible Factor 2: Strong Company Spirit

The second invisible factor common to all High Achievement Companies is a strong company spirit that is clearly felt. This spirit resonates throughout the organization with everyone reinforcing it. On the occasion when this invisible code is violated, team members take it upon themselves to speak with their peers in a “big brother/sister” like manner to guide and mentor their colleague. This strong company spirit is grounded in the company’s Core Values.

Core Values are principles of conduct that are organization specific. They set the bar for what is right in that particular organization and are the foundation for making the hard decisions. High Achievement Companies consistently live to and apply Core Values to all decisions including who is hired, performance reviews, policies, compensation plans, etc. By purposefully living Core Values, High Achievement Companies reduce, and in some cases eliminate:

Internal Company Conflict
Inconsistency in Leadership
Unclear or Inconsistent Company Reputation
Second Guessing Decisions

What spirit is being projected by your company? Do your team members know and live to a set of Core Values?

Invisible Factor 3: Frequent and Organized Communication

The third invisible factor common to all High Achievement Companies is how organized and frequent they communicate. These companies have a well-designed Communication Communication Tempo© that organizes the day-to-day chaos of running the business into a series of purposefully designed meetings with specific agendas. This Communication Communication Tempo© is what drives alignment, achievement and significantly reduces time wasted on rumors.

Ultimately a Communication Communication Tempo© is more than just creating fluid communication, it is about driving results. A well designed and executed Communication Communication Tempo© can increase employee engagement by as much as 72%. According to Kenexa, an employee survey company owned by IBM, and their Worktrends Report:

Employee engagement increases by 49% when leadership communicates in a consistent and timely manner. A well designed and executed Communication Communication Tempo© is a means to achieve consistent and timely communication.
Employee recognition is a key driver to increasing employee engagement by as much as 72%. A well designed and executed Communication Communication Tempo© includes employee recognition and development topics.

We recommend the following Communication Communication Tempo© to create alignment and drive results:

Strategic - Working ON the Business:

Annual Strategic
Quarterly Strategic

Tactical - Working IN the Business:

Monthly “No Surprises, Show and Tell”
Weekly Pulse
Semi-Monthly One to Ones

Invisible Factor 4: Clarity

The fourth invisible factor common to all High Achievement Companies is clarity. High Achievement companies are very clear on what is success. In a world where there is so much feedback and data, High Achievement Companies create clarity by defining what is success for the company or in other words “What is Winning and Losing.” High Achievement Companies are very good at not confusing activity with results. They define winning and losing at 2 levels; The company level but also at an individual role level.

High Achievement Companies are very good at not confusing activity with results.

At the Company level the leadership team identifies winning by establishing company success metrics. Company success metrics are the 6-ish metrics that cover about 90% of the business and define winning and losing from the perspective of key stakeholders such as investors/owners, employees, customers and industry. These metrics are intentionally defined and measured. The leadership team members are collectively responsible and accountable to achieve all of these metrics, not just the metrics relating to their functional area. The Leadership Team’s variable compensation is tied to the achievement of the company’s success metrics so they win or lose as a team.

Success metrics are tied very closely to the company’s strategy. As a result, companies in the same industry often have very different success metrics. Here are examples of success metrics from two different companies in the health care industry.

Although the metrics are different neither is right or wrong. Both companies are focused on growth but the metrics of success differ. One company defined winning as the number of states where they operate in and the number of advantageous operating contracts. The second company focused on growth from a revenue and number of patients being served perspective. Neither is wrong. Each company has clearly defined winning based on their current strategy.

In High Achievement Companies this same concept is used to define winning at a role level. As a result, the employee and the manager clearly know the expectation for each role. This simple, but powerful, formula provides great insight into the factors that drive results.

Clear Expectations = Success Metrics
Results = Clear Expectations + Work Ethic – Interference

If we are not getting the desired results it can only be a factor of 3 items: (1) A lack of clear expectations, (2) A lack of work ethic or will do or (3) Outside interference is prohibiting the result.

Achieving the desired results or success becomes much easier when we clearly define winning.

Is your leadership team clear on what “winning” is for your company? Do you have a well- defined set of accountabilities and success metrics that establish an expectations baseline for each role?

High Achievement Companies personify transparency in all they do and in all their interactions.

Invisible Factor 5: Transparency

The fifth invisible factor common to all High Achievement Companies is Transparency. Transparency has become such an overused term but in the case of High Achievement Companies the word “Transparency” truly describes how they operate and communicate. It should be no surprise that the leadership teams of High Achievement Companies personify transparency in all they do and in all their interactions. Based on my observations, transparency in High Achievement Companies is seen in 2 very visible manners through:

Peer Reviews
Openly sharing missed targets or problems; no hiding of bad news

However, in order to have transparency there must be “trust.” Trust seems like such a simple concept but it represents a series of complexities and behaviors that must be understood before it can be truly built. Trust only exists if all three of the principles are true:

Definition of Trust

Competence: My colleague is competent to do what needs to be done
Integrity: My colleague will do what he/she said they will do when they said they will do it
Fairness: I trust my colleague has my/the company’s best interest in mind and balances it with theirs

Trust must exist for a leadership team to be high achievement, for a company to be high achievement and for transparency to exist.

Trust must exist for a leadership team to be high achievement, for a company to be high achievement and for transparency to exist.

Transparency follows trust, it NEVER precedes it.

When transparency and trust coexist, it is safe to perform peer reviews and communicate bad news. Everyone knows that the information given and received is grounded in growth, improvement and driving results.

Because trust exists among colleagues, an employee’s Performance Review is conducted as a peer review, with an employee’s direct reports, colleagues and manager evaluating performance. In the case of the CEO or President, his/her performance is evaluated by the members of the Leadership Team. In addition to trust, a well-defined set of expectations and success metrics must exist to establish the baseline for each role.

High Achievement Companies and Leadership Teams embrace the concept that no one is perfect. They know that mistakes are a sign of stretching and doing things that have never been done before. Issues, problems, and mistakes are signs of growth and therefore it is safe to share them openly.

Does your leadership team trust each other enough to be transparent? Do team members hide bad news or share it?

If you do not have all five of these invisible factors in your company, there is no need to worry. The good news is High Achievement Companies can be created. The question is, are you willing to do it? Few are, but for those few it is worth everything.