Build and grow your high-performing team

Build and grow your high-performing team: 4 steps so you recruit the right people

High-performing teams naturally rely on their recruitment and retention of talented people.

During a number of conversations recently with team, business leaders, and CEOs, they have consistently mentioned the challenges around recruiting the right people.

In this article, we identify the 4 steps to do that, so you can build and grow a high-performing team.

Step 1: Take a step back

Firstly you need to assess your current situation. 

Based on our experience, you need to answer the following questions:

• How would you rate the performance of your existing team on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is very poor and 10 is high-performing?
• What is the story and the narrative that’s going out into the marketplace, and the wider economy, to generate inbound interest from potential candidates?
• What is your current recruitment process like? How many steps are there in the interview process?
• What is your current retention rate?
• Are you addressing the fears that potential employees will have? The fears they will have about joining your company will massively outweigh the benefits.

Once you have answered the above, where are the gaps in each of those areas? 

What can be improved on, and how can you start plugging those gaps?

The answers to those final questions might involve identifying and investing in external resources or support mechanisms, such as an executive coach or facilitator.

Step 2: Focus on who you want

You might be looking to fill a particular role, but first you need to identify the right characteristics for those roles- and the characters that will help your team performance too.

Asking yourself the following questions will help here:

• What sort of person do you want? 
• What will their roles and responsibilities be?
• What kind of characters do you already have in the team, and what characters do you need?

In a previous article we referenced our conversations with a headhunter, who is looking to incorporate our profiling tool into his service.

His user case comes under step 2 of this formula, because using our tool he will be able to help his clients identify the gaps that exist and the characters that are missing from their teams.

Step 3: Create an attractor

During your recruitment process you need to build trust with candidates, and eliminate the fears they will have about joining your company. They may already be in a high-performing team, for example, so they could see joining your company as a risk.

We were speaking to one of our contacts recently, who shared that when he built his business, the brand and the ethos behind it helped to attract the right talent towards him.

If we also think of big corporates, they usually don’t need to advertise because they get inundated with applications.

Step 4: Check in on attitude

Once the candidates have come to you, you need to check in on their attitude.

Have they got an attitude and ethos that matches the values of the company?

It’s also important to look at their character, rather than assess them on their personality. 

Looking at their character will involve identifying whether they are introverted, extroverted, or an ambivert, and also their primary ways of processing information. Do they lead with gut instinct, focus on relationships and purpose, or delve into the details?

But fundamentally, are they selling you or are you selling them? 

If you are pushing the role on them, you are unlikely to get them. If they are selling themselves to you, you have got a better chance. Think about bees being attracted to honey.

In a previous article, we referenced a metaphorical bus, and that it’s important you have the right people on yours. Understanding someone’s attitude to life and their character, as opposed to their personality, will help you identify if they are right to join your metaphorical bus. 

You can also carry out this exercise with existing team members too.

The results you can achieve by focusing on these 4 areas:

The headline result for your team will be a huge increase in team performance and ultimately profitability.

In one of our articles, we highlighted how one of our clients achieved a 33,300% return on investment. The reason for that number was because our approach helped to re-engage a team leader, which increased the performance of the leader and his team.

While direct financial results may be a huge driver to invest in your team, there are also other benefits to be achieved, which we highlight here- namely, increased speed to proficiency, and reducing the likelihood of interpersonal conflicts.

How would you rate the performance of your team on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is very poor and 10 is high-performing?

And based on that number, what is your strategy to improve it over the coming months?

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Combined, my team and I have over forty years of experience in executive development.

🚀 Over that time we have worked with more than 6,760 business owners and leaders. We have developed a 7-step formula for doubling team performance and increasing our clients’ profits.

🔗 To find out our formula, so that you can double your team's performance and increase your profits, book your free ticket for our next executive seminar by clicking here.