Hell Yeah or Nah…Meh? Transforming into a High Performance Culture.

Welcome to The Behaviour Shift, where I share insights and strategies to elevate leadership and workplace performance. I'm Luke Fenwick, a leadership coach with 25+ years of experience helping organisations unlock their team's full potential. Through this newsletter, you'll discover practical ways to foster a high-performing work environment—insights I also bring to my leadership coaching programs.

Culture of hell yeah or culture of nah…meh!?

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Before I begin…

Research from Gallup says: Organisations with high-performing teams see up to 41% lower absenteeism and 59% lower turnover.

High-performing teams are 17% more productive than their lower-performing counterparts.

Research by McKinsey & Company, organisations with high-performing teams are 1.5 times more likely to report higher innovation and successfully implement new processes or solutions.

The Australian Institute of Management (AIM) reported that high-performing teams lead to 25% higher productivity and can drive 37% higher sales performance

Now I have your attention!

Early spring in Melbourne, the sun is out and the scent of blooming flowers fills the air! I’m hitting the road and heading towards the office of a small to medium organisation in the Health space. 

The purpose of this little road trip?

I’m facilitating a workshop that I’ve created called “Achieving peak performance” 

It’s designed for teams, focusing on enhancing collaboration, engagement, communication, and performance. 

The workshop essentially helps to create a roadmap towards a high-performance culture, a road map for not only leaders but the wider group to execute.

And I love this workshop!

Why? Because it’s an inspiring session of aspirational conversations about what it takes to be the best PLUS achievable actions to execute.

However I offer this little reminder

“High-performance teams” is such a buzz phrase because every CEO or Managing Director wants their teams to be achieving high performance but let’s be real, not every team has a clear path to obtain that status.

The reason every organisation isn’t riding the wave of peak performing all year round? 

Companies struggle because of common pitfalls, like poor communication, lack of alignment on goals, or ineffective leadership. Not to mention talent that just isn’t up to the task and is only after a paycheck with minimal effort.

And this means lower than desired results & eventual loss of top talent.

This is not professional sports!

Often in the corporate world senior people leading the organisation get excited about comparing business to sports, often inspired by a keynote speaker at a lavish conference or because they grew up passionately supporting a chosen sporting club, makes perfect sense but unfortunately I feel this can be a very big mistake and here’s why.

Professional sporting organisations are often full of people that are elite in their field, have spent their entire lives working on their craft and dedicate most of their waking hours preparing to play, actually playing, reviewing the play and resting to play. Often those athletes are paid well for their services.

I know this because I worked in a professional sporting organisation and have seen the difference between tall guys with skills vs elite, high performing, championship winning mindset and killer (on the court) attitude.

Chances are your organisation doesn’t have the same commitment as the above and trying to view your teams the same way can be unhelpful as the motivations and engagements aren’t the same.  

But it is absolutely possible to make massive improvements

During the hiring process, always dig into the big reasons as to why the applicant wants to join the organisation, does this align with what truly matters to your business. Also spend time talking about values, both personal and organisational. Is there a healthy connection? People not aligned with the company vision, mission and values will NEVER be an IDEAL fit.

Five key questions to evaluate whether YOUR organisation is fostering a high-performance culture or slipping into mediocrity.

These questions can be used today to check the current state of play, sit down with a mix of leadership, senior team members and new starters to get wide ranging feedback. This can then be used where to from there, ie: we are doing good and need to stay focused vs we need a plan of action today!

1. How aligned are we with our mission and vision each day?

2. Do we hold ourselves and each other accountable for outcomes without exception?

3. How well do we communicate and collaborate across departments?

4. Are we continuously learning and improving, or are we repeating the same mistakes?

5. Are we comfortable with candid conversations, even when they're difficult?

What is a high-performance culture?

Having absorbed a plethora of articles and listened to countless hours of podcasts on high-performance there are essential elements and themes that keep appearing

Those in a high-performance culture are… 

• Dedicated to the cause of the organisation, its mission, vision and results.
• Hold themselves and each other accountable
• Will adopt and relish the process of testing, learning, applying and adjusting over a long period of time to be better

They put…

• The team first and ego last when it matters
• Communicate clearly and have candid conversations to make progress
• Perform at high levels over a long period of time, their habits are top notch not a flash in time.

In the session I use all of these words to engage with key stakeholders to create an organisation specific definition for “high-performance”

Such as this “Our team is dedicated to the cause…the organisation’s mission, vision & values via the process of testing, learning, applying, and adjusting over a long period of time. They put team results above personal glory”.

Question for you: How would you describe a “high performance culture” that is suitable for your organisation to work towards? What will resonate with who your team is?

Key questions for the team to help define the right ways to behave in a high performance culture.

How do we get anywhere in life?

We map out the steps...actions…habits to get there.

How do we get the right steps, actions and habits?

We ask the right questions!

How does a team become a high-performance culture?

It’s exactly the same.  

These questions can be asked to help get clarity as to what success will look like. The questions enable the team to start to articulate with each other “this is how we will do things around here” 

How will this high-performance team....

• Support, collaborate and work with each other?
• Decide what’s critical vs nice to have?
• Decide and set goals?
• Manage different views & ideas?
• Challenge our comfort levels and drive ongoing improvement?

The bonus question is

• What does the team need from leadership going forward to thrive? 

What can you do to turn words into action

Towards the end of the workshop there are usually sticky notes, sheets of butcher's paper and whiteboards full of information. The conversations have an edge of excitement and enthusiasm as to what has been shared and is being created. Some of the team will already have started to create their own personal plans to bring the session to life in the workplace.

I like to end the session forming a powerful and personal 3 point plan, as it’s important to bind the catchy one liners and zingers together with achievable actions.

So I ask this

“What are you willing to do to create a high-performance team”?

“Why does this matter to you”?

Then I ask the group to answer this…

For you to help foster a high-performance culture, what will you personally...

• Stop doing this week
• Start doing tomorrow

• And share your number 1 priority to achieve in the next 4 months

Everyone writes their thoughts down on a brightly colored sticky note and we go around the room and share them…

One by one, we hear the personal plans that will drive the business forward.

Words become actions.

What does the high-performance workshop look like?

The session can be run in around 3 to 5 hours and is suitable for teams of 20 people to 100 people.

The flow looks like this

• Energy check-in of the group 
• Company value discussion- Current state of play
• Defining high-performance
• What are high-performance behaviours
• Roadblocks to success
• Breakout groups to create achievable actions for the organisation to work towards becoming a high-performance culture
• Personal plan, goals and habits

What impact will the workshop make?

The workshops will absolutely have a number of outcomes for the team..

• Build collaboration and communication
• Gain clarity on important topics sitting below the surface
• Define a roadmap forward towards a higher level of performance
• Uncover challenges or misalignment in the team, that create roadblocks
• Allow leadership to articulate the vision for success and engage with the team on how they can help get the group there.
• Gain buy-in from the group on the plan

Conclusion?

Think about your current team. Are they a ‘Hell yeah’ or a ‘Nah…meh’ group of people when it comes to performance? 

High-performance cultures aren’t built overnight, but with the right roadmap & leadership, your team can move closer to their peak capabilities. It starts with asking the right questions, developing the right habits, and creating a culture that fosters accountability and excellence. 

Right now the year is coming to an end, you either are frantically trying to close the year strong, preparing to charge forward in 2025 or trying to get the teams back on track after a period of spot fires halting progress.

Don’t let mediocrity take hold or linger any longer.

Never forget 

• Organisations with high-performing teams see up to 41% lower absenteeism and 59% lower turnover

• High-performing teams are 17% more productive than their lower-performing counterparts.

• High-performing teams are 1.5 times more likely to report higher innovation and successfully implement new processes or solutions.

If you’re ready to lead that change, let’s talk about how my high-performance workshop can help make it happen.

About the author

I’m a life & leadership coach and behaviour strategist with over 25 years of real-world experience across industries like retail, luxury brands, and professional sports. I specialise in supporting organisations and people leaders to pursue their potential, with a focus on the next generation of leadership.

If you're interested in learning more about leadership development, or if you’d like me to work with your teams on topics like peak performance mindset or agility and discipline, DM me or reach out for a free exploratory call.

Discover more about my corporate and leadership coaching programs here.