Have you ever had a career experience where you were working with a very energetic, creative and innovative team? Together you managed to produce great strategies and services for your business and your clients. Your clients enjoyed working with you and saw you as a valuable partner for their business. Each day when you walked into the office, you knew you would be surrounded by a team that would bring out the best in one another. At the end of the day you would feel motivated and ready to come back to the office the next day and perform at 100%.
Or you might have had a career experience where you would walk into the office each day surrounded by people that really didn’t want to be there, and who really were not focused on creativity and innovation in order to produce great results. The politics and the office environment ensured the mediocre talent rose to the top of the organization, and the top talent left the organization for better opportunities. At the end of the day you were left feeling drained and unmotivated to go back to the office the next day.
In the world of high-performance athletics we refer to these situations as our circles of influence. In the area of organizational performance, your circle of influence is often the team you work with and the manager you report into each day. Those in your immediate circle of influence will have a significant impact on your performance, good or bad. And that performance will be reflective of the team and ultimately, the organization.
High-performing organizations recognize the power of influence, both direct and indirect, and go out of their way to ensure people and teams leverage the positive impact of influence.
Here are some high-performance insights to consider when trying to improve the circles of influence within your organization.
Hire for fit
Often job postings are created with a list of responsibilities, skills, and education required for the job – all of which are fine, but somewhere in the modern day hiring processes a lot of organizations have forgotten about the most important quality, and that is fit.
High-performing organizations don’t neglect the obvious requirements for a particular role, but they will put more emphasis on hiring for fit, and if required, will make an investment in the new hire to enhance any skills that may need enhancing. Hiring for fit is king.
Give perspective to the information coming at your team
With excess of emails being sent each day, meaning and perspective is often lost, and email communication is a powerful tool when it comes to influencing a team. As a manager, you have the opportunity to put meaning and perspective around some of the important emails team members receive. Taking a quick, 5-minute meeting with your team to give some perspective and human meaning to important emails ensures messages have been received and clearly understood.
Look outside your organization
Circles of influence are all around us, and sometimes the most powerful circles are those outside your organization. My personal mentor breaks them down into three categories: 1) people you can spend 3 minutes with, 2) people you can spend 3 hours with, and 3) people you can spend 3 days with. Spending time with these influential people outside your business or organization will greatly impact your daily performance, and if you are committed to high-level performance professionally, you may want to examine who is having what type of impact on your work performance and adjust those circles accordingly.
This is just a brief look at circles of influence and the powerful impact they have on workplace performance. Just starting to be aware of them and making small adjustments will help any team and your organization’s performance level. The art and science of creating and maintaining powerful circles of influence has been used for years by elite-level athletes, and it works in any performance realm.
Turn Your Knowledge into Action
1) Determine your three performance circles of influence.
2) Take one action this week to ensure your influencers are helping you, your team and your organization achieve the best performance.
NEXT STEP
If you would like to learn more about how I can assist your organization to elevate their performance levels, please contact me at 416-429-1247 or email at paul@actusperformance.com.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
Image courtesy of Duarte Design Inc.