How to Enable High-Performance Work Culture at your Organization
An organization’s work culture is molded by you! A great performance culture is dependent on the employees’ values and strengths. It requires the combined efforts of everyone — associates, teams, managers, leaders, and directors to achieve organizational goals. Each associate’s contribution is highly valued and plays a vital role in creating a high-performance culture across the organization. To achieve this, everyone must have a clear understanding of how their roles are aligned with the organization’s high-performance culture. In this blog, we discuss how to understand our role in an organization, from both the standpoint of an associate and a leader, and in turn, enable high-performance work culture at our workplace.
What are my roles as an associate?
The associates are the strength of any organization. Their performance and contributions, whether small or big, are indispensable to the organization.
The following pointers will help you to consistently maintain a high-performance culture:
Understanding your role — As an associate, you need to understand what is expected of you and what you bring to the organization. If you already know that, you are expected to perform at those high standards. You are responsible for all your tasks and should possess a strong sense of ownership and accountability. There will be challenges, but you are expected to be a ‘go-getter’ who stops at nothing! Your manager and team will always be available to support you.
Self-Review — Conduct a weekly self-analysis/review to understand if you’re matching up to the expectations of your role. This will help you understand your performance expectations, metrics and gaps. The gaps show you where there is room for improvement. Take a solution-oriented look at the problem, and if you are unable to find a fix, reach out to your team members and managers. Sometimes all it requires is a collective approach to find elusive solutions.
Ask for feedback — Have you asked your manager or colleagues for feedback?
You have to ensure that you’re performing up to the expectations of the role, and one way to do that is by taking the lead and asking for feedback. Feedback is not solely the manager’s responsibility, it’s also an associate’s right! Request your manager for a meeting and have a constructive conversation focusing on your strengths and delving into your areas for improvement. Note down the suggestions and advice and work on them throughout the week and discuss any growth in your next feedback session.
Be positive about change — As they say, change is the only constant. Any growing organization goes through many iterations and changes. You should be flexible and enjoy the experience that comes with these changes. Be it in your own role or the company’s processes and policies, always have a positive attitude. Change is proof of your organization moving forward. Recognize your team members and motivate each other to maintain a positive vibe within your teams and subsequently in the organization.
What are my roles as a Leader?
It’s every leader’s responsibility to define what high performance means for their team. These defined measures and metrics need to be clearly explained to your respective team members. This communication is crucial as it helps every team member understand what’s expected of them by their manager and the organization. These metrics will help you achieve the high-performance goals defined for the organization.
As a leader, focus on the following points and watch your team consistently achieve high-performance culture.
One on one connects — One on one connections and conversations are very important. Use these as opportunities to discuss your expectations from the role, define measures or metrics, and analyze the deliverables. Ensure that these conversations are constructive — come with a prepared agenda and discuss all the points. Start by appreciating their achievements and work together to find solutions for the gaps and tackle them as opportunities to grow. This will build the trust of the employee — on the leader and the organization. Feedback should be a continuous process, and this should be punctuated by quarterly or bi-annual one on one connects.
Mentoring the team — Understand your team and their individual strengths and weaknesses. The skills of employees vary within a team; some are good at customer interaction, whereas others are good in email communication or have excellent communication skills. A good leader understands these and finds ways to use them optimally. Use peer learning and mentoring as opportunities for knowledge sharing. Mentoring is a long-term, development-driven method that looks beyond the employee’s current role and takes a more holistic approach towards career development.
Coaching the team — Employees are individuals, and all individuals vary in personality and levels of performance. There are no organizations that function only with 100% high performers. The managers should coach and develop associates who are ready to learn, are diligent, and have a good and positive attitude towards learning. This approach will always increase the morale of the organization. Coaching helps teams to reach their goals while creating a sustainable environment that cultivates long-term excellence and success. The team coaching process helps teams align around a common purpose, establish inspiring spirit and vision, define clear roles, commit to team accountability, make powerful choices, and take affirmative action. Coaching is more performance-driven, designed to improve the professional’s on-the-job performance. For this, you can empower your leaders within your team and support them while making decisions.
Recognition and Reward — Good words and appreciation will definitely motivate or encourage your team members. Appreciation for a job well done with a high level of transparency and no favoritism will motivate them and accelerate their performance engines. Do not miss any opportunity to appreciate your team members and sit back and watch that motivation bring amazing changes within the team.
In today’s world, Continuous Learning builds our personal brand as the more knowledge one possesses, the more credible one becomes. We have to stay updated with new and innovative industry best practices. Block at least an hour every week to read or learn new things that will add value to your role as a leader or associate. Once you understand your responsibilities and level up accordingly, you will be able to add value to your workplace. As we mentioned earlier, the organization’s performance culture is directly proportional to your thoughts and beliefs. Thus, when you upgrade your skill set and ideologies, the organization’s work culture is upgraded accordingly.
By,
Anila K Jose, Manager HR — Talent Development, RapidValue
