Forbes Coaches Council
Originally published on Forbes.com
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Six Critical Steps That Practically Guarantee High Performance
Kimberly Svoboda, Aspiration Catalyst, Forbes Councils Member
Princeton, a beautiful red Thoroughbred horse, completed the third-round jump-off in the equestrian jumper competition. He easily sailed over the complex sequence of rails, flying in perfect sync with his rider. Completing the jumping course at high speed looked effortless, and they handily won the competition.
How did this beautiful horse and his rider achieve such high performance? Training, reinforcement, time and lots of patience.
Princeton is an off-the-track Thoroughbred (OTTB) and began his life as a racehorse. After a relatively unimpressive track career, he entered his subsequent career as a hunter/jumper show horse. Princeton knew how to run fast and safely without injury but had zero training in jumping. Before we talk about training, you should know that adult horses weigh an average of 1,000 pounds and are prey animals, so flight is their primary method of survival. They are highly perceptive and sensitive. Remember the saying You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink? The same is valid for training them.
The trainer started from the very beginning with Princeton to teach him his new craft. She utilized concrete, incremental goals; rewards; and lots of practice and praise. He was connected to a long lunge rope and quickly learned simple commands like walk, trot and canter. Eventually, he walked over ground poles and jumped smaller fences. He quickly understood and received positive reinforcement each time he did the right thing.
Next, the rider climbed in the saddle to teach the horse to pay attention to leg signals versus voice commands. Over time, with a lot of positive reinforcement and patience, the rider and the horse jumped beautifully together and could focus on improving technique and speed, leading to winning performances on the equestrian circuit.
This approach is practically the opposite of what leaders do when expecting high performance from their employees and teams. If we applied typical training techniques employed by a corporate leader, the horse would be expected to jump without much training and without the incremental goals to teach, breed confidence and build success. This approach is a recipe for frustration and failure.
What should leaders do to move their employees and teams to high performance?
1. Be clear. Set clear expectations on what good looks like. Invite your team member to share their views on the expectations—do they understand, and are you on the same page? What questions or concerns do they have? What support will they need from you? Come to a shared agreement on what success looks like, and discuss the next steps.
2. Meet people where they are. Princeton wouldn't have had any idea what was expected if they had put his rider on him and set him loose on the jumper course. It would have been dangerous for the horse and rider, and both could have been injured or worse. Instead of setting an impossibly lofty goal and leaving it up to our team members to figure it out, we need to create incremental steps for them and reward them along the way. Explaining the wholesale desired behavior change once and getting frustrated because it doesn't happen is demotivating. Do they have any idea how to get to the new behavior? Get clear on their current level of performance and partner with them to set the right incremental goals to move them gradually toward achieving their highest level of performance.
3. Leverage the strengths of individuals to build high performance. Each person has a unique set of talents that adds value to the team's performance. Leveraging them increases your employee's commitment and enables high performance. (Pro tip: Utilize a strengths assessment to quickly discover the top talents of each team member and help them put their strengths to work. I'm a Certified Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach, and it's one of my favorite tools to use when working with my clients.)
4. Break it down. Recognize and acknowledge the right behaviors. The trainer created a plan with incremental steps and rewarded the small changes in behavior that would ultimately lead to the desired result of making a speedy jumping round. Behavioral change is best accomplished incrementally with humans, too. Take your desired outcome and challenge yourself to break it into ten steps. Start with step one and see how quickly your employees pick up on these incremental steps and make significant progress toward the ultimate goal.
5. Work hard to catch people doing things right. Reward often and celebrate small incremental gains. Small successes will lead to significant achievements. Reinforcing the small wins and steps in the right direction keeps team members motivated and encouraged to keep going.
6. Synchronize your team by having a common goal. Teams that understand they need each other to achieve success collaborate more effectively and achieve more. Each person shares their unique talents with the team and everyone benefits. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Taking the time to set expectations and help your team members take the steps needed will enable effective behavior change. Small steps add up to big ones. These incremental gains and celebrating success along the way will build confidence. When your entire team exhibits the right behaviors to achieve their "winning round," it will lead to long-term team high performance and success.