The Four Keys to a High-Performing Organization
What a leader needs to do to keep the ship safe and sailing ahead
Welcome to the latest entry in The Workaround. You’re in good company with thousands of fellow entrepreneurs and innovators!
I’m Bob, your host. My mission here is to share personal, behind-the-scenes stories of the ups and downs of my career leading tech startups and corporate innovation.
I write to make you think, smile, and discover a shortcut to success or a trap to avoid.
Here we go…
I didn’t get hit by a bus after writing Part One of How to Build a High-Performance Organization (HPO), so here we are for Part Two.
But an interesting thing did happen last week: I got an email from a friend I haven’t heard from in years. He wrote that his company—a very large brand that many of us know and love—has lost its way recently, with layoffs and pressures that have his peers reeling. My friend found the “Good Ship HPO” model I shared last week to be a good way to think about what’s happening and hopefully pull out of it. He shared it internally, and several new subscribers have come aboard. (👋)
I feel for my friend and the countless people who are struggling in workplaces out there. That’s why I am writing here right now.
Last week, I shared an overall thinking model, but today, I will drill down on the four elements that keep your ship safe through storms and allow the sails to take you to success. These are the jobs leaders must do—whether you’re the CEO of a trillion-dollar company, getting a startup off the ground, or leading an internal product team.
Remember, it starts with understanding how human beings work best and building around the natural magic that can happen when a group of individuals buys into the greater team opportunity. By increasing Engagement through these four elements, you’ll innovate, grow, crush the competition, and hire away their best employees.
1. Ownership
There’s a little exercise I’ve done for years when onboarding new employees—and as CEO, I believe in spending time with every new employee. I grab a blank piece of paper and sketch a typical org chart. You know how it looks: CEO at the top with lines going down to execs, more lines to managers, and many lines to the large number of employees.
I tell them this is how most companies are set up. Key decisions move up the chart, and directions move down. Then I flip the drawing upside down and say, “This is how our company works…”
“You are the most important person at the company. Whether you write the code, talk with the client, or manage the project, you are responsible. You own your piece of the company. Your managers, executives, and I are here to support you. That’s it; that’s how we work.”
It’s usually surprising initially, but then a smile and nod comes in.
They know how their previous employers worked and are excited to start over with a new model.
All kinds of problems happen when people don’t own their work—say, when they follow managers’ orders. We’ve all been there! Oh, well, so-and-so above me made that call. We realize that we don’t really have ownership. We’re just pawns in the Game of Management. So we disengage.
The other issue—a growing one in corporate halls where hybrid leviathans dominate—is when so many people have ownership that no one does. Decisions aren’t made because everyone waits to see who can make them. More disengagement ensues.
Giving people ownership does many good things. First, they take responsibility. They want to do good work because it reflects on them. When we own something, we take pride in and protect it. This is deep, intrinsic motivation that can move mountains.
Second, they make better decisions faster. Since they are closest to the work and the customers, they tend to see problems and can develop solutions in real time. Waiting for managers to get up to speed and make decisions takes an eternity.
Of course, your employees will make mistakes, but that’s part of the learning process. Just as parents give their kids the room to stumble, fail, and pick themselves up, you must give that room to your team. And they will recall and “own” those mistakes more than they would if just told how to respond.
You hired these people to do work. They are smart and learn quickly. Start by trusting them and watch them grow.
But one watch out: Don’t use the word “Delegation.” That’s a top-down mentality that comes with a feeling of disgust. “I need to delegate this crap work.” Give ownership.
2. Transparency
Over recent years, this term has been extensively used (and abused) in company culture discussions. People debate the tactics, for example, whether all salaries should be public or private companies should share profit numbers. But I don’t hear people talking about WHY transparency is key. Let’s hit that:
Change happens in companies when leaders make decisions. Human beings want to know why these changes occur. That’s it!
Again, we’ve all seen this. The CRO announces that commissions will be paid differently this year. Finance asks for expense reports to be done using a new form. The department manager suddenly no longer works there, but there’s no announcement.
We want to know WTF is going on!
When our leaders don’t tell us the reason for the change, we do what humans have always done: Assume the worst!
We think: The CRO is finding a new way to screw us over. Finance doesn’t trust us to be honest in our expense reporting. That manager is just the first of layoffs that are coming. Leaks form in the ship, and we no longer focus on the work.
On the other hand, the more we know, the better decisions every employee makes in real-time. After all, they already own their projects, so they are in a great position to develop creative solutions specific to their piece of the business.
Better yet, instead of just explaining a decision or change after it was made, ask your employees to help at the beginning. You’re crowdsourcing with a lot of smart people. And the more they have a hand in building the solution, the more ownership they have in implementing it.
“Oh, our investors say we need to reach a certain profit margin to raise our next round of funding. Cool. You know, I see a lot of waste in our use of outside software, and I think we can save money by cutting some of those contracts.”
If nothing else, transparency dramatically reduces your stress level as a leader. Openness and honesty mean that you’re not the only one worrying. And it’s much easier than remembering who you lied to…
3. Values
When you hand ownership down to every employee at the company, you need to ensure they share some key traits that will allow them to think in sync with the rest of the company and represent its brand. Shared values are important here, and you should use them as the main guideline in the interview process.
I first saw this at Red Bull, where a friend secured an interview and job and then interviewed other new candidates. He described how the company looked for eight core values in their employees, which also stood for the brand. The purpose was to ensure that everyone could make independent decisions worldwide with little direction and maintain the power of the brand. There’s no need for strategy alignment meetings or words of reminder on the office walls. People just do what they think is right.
One value was “Mystery.” Red Bull has an element of mystery, which attracts people to the brand. So, in the interview process, the team asks questions to try and tease out whether the candidate has some element of mystery. No offer would be given if any of the four interviewers said the candidate was missing any of the eight values.
I stole this idea years later at our influencer marketing company. A few years in, we started getting off the ground and worked well together as a small team of about 30. During an offsite, we brainstormed what we had in common that led us to do work that kept clients coming back.
We teased out words like “Creativity” and “Curiosity,” which we had in common and were differentiators in the market. We put these values down as key to our interview process—even posting them on our careers page for the world to see.
These values were our common interests and way of looking at the world. By sharing them, we attracted talent who found them appealing and turned away people who weren’t interested. By consistently screening for them, we hired killer talent that integrated quickly with our culture.
Note that values must be specific and linked to company strategy. Many companies use words like “Integrity” in their company statements. Such words are basic human behavior and should be expected in any workplace. But “Creativity” is powerful in an influencer marketing company, and “Curiosity” is a value that unlocks meaningful innovation. Greater creativity and curiosity helped us improve our work and widen our lead over competitors.
Sometimes, companies worry that shared values contradict the idea of diversity and inclusion. Well, yes and no. First, there should never be discrimination in hiring—you know, things like race, religion, or sexual orientation. But groups of any kind operate best when there are some shared beliefs and interests. And something like “Creativity” can come to life in many different ways among diverse individuals.
4. Vision
At this point, your employees are rocking and rolling. They own and deliver their piece of the business, are not thrown off by unexplained changes, and their common values help them coordinate effectively when you’re not around. But this is when they wonder…
Where are we headed?
The amount of meaning people look for in their work varies, but most humans want something more than a paycheck or to hit a quarterly goal. Ironically, the more successful your company is financially, and the longer employees have worked at a company, the more they want something higher level.
This is why your job as a leader is to provide the vision for the company. It’s another way that everyone on the team makes smarter, faster decisions and stays motivated through tough times.
Why does your company exist—besides just delivering for shareholders?
What’s a big, world-changing goal to pursue—one that might take 20 years instead of by the end of the fiscal year?
What’s something that gets us all out of bed on a Monday morning—and start cranking through endless emails and meetings?
Every company has a unique path here. I love how Ring (doorbell) wrote that their purpose was to reduce crime. That gets you out of bed in the morning and is measurable.
At our influencer company, we penned the following vision years ago:
“To create a multi-billion dollar ecosystem where content creators, brands, and end users all win. Creators are successful entrepreneurs. Brands are more meaningful. End users are delighted by the content we help them discover.”
This encapsulated what we saw as a huge market opportunity to make a world of more meaningful marketing and allow creators to follow their passions. And I know that we helped create what is today a multi-billion dollar ecosystem.
(5. Party in Cancun)
This mysterious bonus step happens when you do all of the above…
In Summer 2018, our influencer company was acquired. A big part of the purchase was an earn-out that would last almost two years. There were cash bonus incentives for all employees at the time, but we wanted to do something more meaningful that would also be enjoyed by new hires who joined during the earn-out period.
So we set another goal: If we max it out, we’re all going on a trip…
It was a fun, shared purpose that everyone looked forward to. We ended up crushing our goal a few months early and looked forward to our trip to Cancun, Mexico, slated for March 2020.
You read that right, March 2020.
This long weekend trip was on the brink of COVID lockdowns and ended up being the last vacation anyone would take for years. Some people dropped out at the last minute due to fears (and to this day, they hate hearing about our trip).
On our last night together, we had a party on the beach with flowing drinks, tiki torches, and dance music. It was the end of an amazing run, and we knew that things would change under our new ownership. Some of us had already made plans to leave.
After dinner, I was handed a microphone and asked to give a speech. I looked around at the tables filled with teammates and barely held it together enough to say something like this:
“Look around at your friends here…We created special bonds together through work, which is incredibly rare. Never forget how special this night was—not because of our success, but because of our work together each day. Our success is just the culmination of our incredible culture. Never settle for less! Bring this to wherever you work in the years ahead. The world needs you to spread the magic.”
That goes for you, too, dear reader. Get here and stay there:
How we might work together…
My team and I lead Hearty, a boutique recruiting service that helps tech-forward companies hire proven talent. Our senior team of operators sources and screens, saving you time and money. When you need help, let’s chat.
Need help with a software project? Perhaps a product MVP, a project that requires outside help, or a fractional CTO for key strategic decisions? Our team at Shipwright Studio has worked together to build multiple successful startups, and we love helping leaders turn their dreams into reality. We're the team our clients trust for software built to last.
Looking for Influencer Marketing and Content Creation? The team from our previous company is back by popular demand with A2 Influence. We’re ramping up now and would love to share more.
Feel free to schedule time together during my Open Hours for questions, feedback, networking, or any other topic!
BONUS: Cool Content of the Week
A little something I found meaningful. You might agree…
Get your stuff out there
If you’ve ever considered putting your creative work out into the world, you might find yourself stuck on the medium more than the message. Questions like: LinkedIn or Substack? Self-Publish or Book Deal? YouTube or Podcast?
In his post, “Why I Write on Substack,” Carlos Greaves describes this angst and encourages us to stop overthinking which system we use and get it down in a form that works. He finishes with a reminder—We’re all going to die, so stop waiting.
It’s a friendly reminder that the Grim Reaper awaits us all. And in the words of Carlos, this is meant not to bum us out but rather “Bum us In”—to get off our butts and launch. You never know who might be waiting for you to change their world with your message.