Real Performance Cultures
Rethinking the performance culture wars
If you have read Angela Duckworth's Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance, you would be familiar with her research around the idea of the grittiest kids being the most successful. It informed a piece to my idea around Tenacity being one of the three critical factors of a performance mindset, especially for leaders. One of Duckworth's foundational studies was the one her team conducted on Westpoint Military School cadets. A focus of this study was The Beast Barracks - a specifically designed 6.5 week program designed to weed out the weak leaving only the strong, disciplined, intelligent and motivated high performers. The study shows it is those with the ability to 'not give up' in the face of adversity are the ones that last. They are the high performers. Therefore it was grit (Duckworth's Grit Scale) which became the most accurate predictor of future success.
I love this idea and it is a wonderful motto to practice 'not giving up' in our work, leisure activities, and even our conversations is valuable - especially when the S hits the F. It is a worthy message to be teaching our children and role modelling as professionals and leaders.
But, there is a caveat.
David Epstein writes in his book Range, that West Point Graduates gain a scholarship worth around half-million dollar after five years service, at which time approximately half cut and run (quit). Three-quarters are gone by the time they are in their forties. Company-Grade Officer retention rates are continually falling with West Point graduates being the highest rating leavers across their national training program network. It turns out, the grittiest kids quit the most in the larger context. In Epstein's words, "West Point was actually creating quitters".
It is an example of how high performance is more nuanced than it seems. The fastest, strongest, toughest organisational culture can be the most wasteful and leakiest cultures in a given field. The military does what many businesses do - they test their youngsters under pressure to find the diamonds. Then, incentivise them with bonuses and pathways to leadership. Then, expect these diamonds to pay off in the short, medium and long term. Sound familiar...?
But, this is an Industrial Age model. In the world of Millennial Managers and Gen Z workforces, the high performance mentality may need a considered rethink.
[Note: the eldest Gen Alphas are 14 years old at the time of writing this article and about to enter the work force - its about to get even weirder!]
What is a High Performance Culture (HPC)?
In Top Gun Viper famously says, "you are the elite. The best of the best". Every professional sporting team and organisation is created in this mould. And, for good reason. The best player in every school/ district/ league/ state/ county are the ones that rise to the top of any given sport. But, most of them become the benchwarmers and never-gonna-be's. These talent pools are scary good, and amazing athletes are thrown on the scrap heap daily. Just ask Nyck de Vries, the Dutch racing driver. A junior karting champion of multiple world series across three years who went on to win Formula E and Formula 2 titles before becoming a Formula One substitute for Williams Racing where he excelled in his limited opportunities. He got his big break in 2022 as one of the two drivers for the Scuderia Alpha Tauri F1 team. He lasted 10 races before being sacked and will likely never get back to the pinnacle of the sport. This story happens multiple times every day in sporting environments across the planet - the machine chews up our best leaving a trail of pain and unfulfilled dreams.
When we say, High, it really is high. Meaning the pressure is unrelenting, inescapable and even unbearable - think Boiler Room. High Performance Cultures are difficult, painful, often unsafe, and fragile environments. Going back to Formula One, in the same season as de Vries experienced his rise and premature fall it was Ferrari that was the fastest car in the first third of the season. Yet, they were getting thumped by Red Bull Racing in the championship and in the end lost out to Mercedes for second place in the championship. Why and how could this happen?
They Did Not Finish (DNF) 27% of the races.
Think about that for a moment - millions of euros being spent by the biggest brand in motor sport with the biggest budget and staff across multiple nations was not able to get it's cars to cross the finish line a third of the time!
Being super quick, strong, and clever is also unmistakably flimsy. Building and sustaining a HPC is akin to a spacesuit - it can keep you alive on the moon, but rip it with the slightest tear and it is all over.
We see this in all sport. Fast bowlers in cricket have never had more sports science but they are suffering from more and more injuries. Aussie Rules Footballers seem to be made out glass compared to those of the 70's and 80's (and even 90's). The game is being played faster than ever but with soft tissue injuries killing careers more and more every year. In one survey of ex-AFL players, 76% suffered serious injury in their career with 60% required ongoing treatment of injuries suffered while playing. The more professional a sport is the more problems it tends to bring. In the English Premier League referees became full time professionals in 2001. Pay went up, physical capability was enhanced, psychological and emotional support structures were put in place, and technical training evolved - all seemingly good things. In 2019, Video Assisted Referee (VAR) systems were voted in. Honestly, the refereeing has never been more difficult, debatable and inconsistent. Professionalism and technology has made no significant improvements and has in fact caused many unintended problems (a detailed article from William Ralston if you are interested in the subject.)
What is a HPC? It is a headache with the potential to become a migraine. Is it really what we should be aspiring to create? And, is it good business?
Ushering in the age of Real Performance Cultures (RPC)
I think what many of us are really talking about when we want to create a performance culture is an environment where we want to see tangible results being achieved. Things like:
Deadlines being hit
Targets being achieved
Retention percentages being achieved
Recruitment targets being hit (within budgets)
Profitability being achieved
etc etc...
When we can build a team operating system that achieves our 1-5 agreed markers of success (and keep it up), I believe we have the base for a strong performance culture we can be proud of. I see this as different to HPCs. The focus is more about hitting a set of focused and achievable targets, not about being obsessed with being the best - a flimsy idea where failure is likely (if not guaranteed.)
Lets say a business has a mid-long term goal they want to achieve. They may create a range of strategic activities to fuel their journey towards this goal. And, beneath this sits an array of allocated tasks people within the business physically do with agreed deadlines in place. When all the people in the business understand their role and the wider context they operate within, we see this as a basic scenario where everyone can crack on and get the job done. Simple.
Yet, it is not simple, nor is it easy to execute. There are unforeseen challenges, personality clashes, competitive disruptions, natural disasters, geopolitical instability hurting supply chains... the list goes on (and on and on).
Being able to get a group of five, ten, or 1500 people to work together to achieve an easy-to-understand target is harder than we acknowledge. Hence, the need for real leadership. So, to lead a Real Performance Culture (RPC) is very much at our door step. It is on our desktop. It is our plight. Our journey. Our pursuit. The fanciful ideals of HPC's can take a back seat, because it is a distraction, especially when organisations of are aspiring to create a HPC while working through the struggles of getting the basic right like agreeing target, using current systems well, and co-ordinating across divisions. The dream or vision of a HPC is sexy, but often results in a Nyck de Vries scenario. Instead, can we look to organisations like Nike to build a RPC?
Phil Knight was an avid (and average) runner with a theory in the early 1960's - Japanese tech in the camera industry had disrupted the European dominated market. Could the same be true for running shoes? He lied, hustled, and shimmied his way into selling Tiger shoes. Knight found a few other misfits along the way to help him sell these shoes at larger and larger quantities, investing all his profits straight into the company's next order from the Japanese. Then, when his relationship with the supplier of Tiger became strained, he took a chance on creating his own shoe brand - Nike.
For years they would continue to duck and dive, meet challenges and creatively solve all sorts of logistical, personnel, financial, manufacturing, and legal problems (many potentially terminal to the business). But, he survived. He had a lot of grit, that's for sure. But not once does Knight use the words High Performance Culture in his biography Shoe Dog. I like to think he would find the concept laughable. If you know the story, the Nike executive team referred to themselves as The Buttfaces. This is my way of saying, a bunch of driven and interested people came together to collaborate, support, and move through challenges by thinking strategically and understanding tactical operations to achieve goals. They actively engaged in the job at hand, and in a metaphorical blink, Knight had gone from selling shoes out of the back of his car at track meets to being the CEO of a publicly listed company. A great example of the power of a RPC.
By the way, Nike is now the largest sporting shoe company on the planet (by a very long way):
I am convinced of the power of RPCs. I feel this is the most relevant and beneficial performance model we can focus on as leaders. It is attainable, enduring and sensible. It is not the moon shot. It is not the elite. It is not exclusive. Nor is it fragile, excruciating, or unrelenting. Here is a contrast you may find helpful:
Image Source: Paul Farina
I love elite sport and have been involved in HPCs personally and professionally. They are exciting, yet they are equally destructive. Would I want my business to operate like International Sporting Organisations? Or, self labelled HPC corporations? No thank you. Most are turgid toxic places everyone hates working at with poor governance and unethical behaviour littered throughout. Try to name one well run professional sporting organisation - its not as easy as it sounds! In reality, I believe many of these HPC's practice methods undermine their own efforts and investments resulting in poor results.
Even in high-stakes environments I think we can take a note from the RPC model and build upon this to create environments people want to join, do good work, and stay in. When we achieve this, people tend to perform much better too. The US Military cadet system is evolving from these learnings, and all of us can do the same.
