Key Themes to Building a High Performance Environment

Based upon over 20 years of high performance research, two key themes have emerged that differentiate high performance leaders and organizations from their peers. These two themes should be an integral part of any Leadership Development Initiative.

1. Clarity. Leaders in high performance organizations are, in the eyes of their employees, clearer than their peers in everything they do. They erase ambiguity with crystal clear, agreed-to, and well understood strategic direction, performance status, and motivation systems throughout their organizations.
   
   
2. Effectiveness. Many work environments have goals and objectives that, while explicit, do not stimulate greater performance. Similarly many workplaces have reward systems that don’t motivate their people to perform or they have appraisal systems that are viewed as a nonproductive and bureaucratic process. Top quartile leaders ensure effective performance exposure tools and process that are perceived as accurate, fair, and strategically aligned.

Even the smallest lack of clarity or effectiveness can derail leadership attempts to get more discretionary effort and increased performance results on a consistent basis.