Positive Performance Pressure

“An ounce of prac­tice is worth more than a ton of preach­ing.” — Mahat­ma Gandhi

We often talk about how peo­ple are our great­est asset — how invest­ing in them and help­ing them to grow is impor­tant. But I rarely hear peo­ple talk about how we need to put peo­ple into sit­u­a­tions where they need to per­form; where they can use their capa­bil­i­ties and lever­age their prac­tice to cre­ate incred­i­ble results.

I think of this often when I look at teams that don’t per­form as well as they could because they have leader who lets them off the hook, or who doesn’t cre­ate enough pos­i­tive per­for­mance pres­sure.

I call this the pow­er of hav­ing to perform.

We know this from the world of sport.

You start with great peo­ple and an incred­i­ble amount of prac­tice. Then there’s a game with an objec­tive, and every­one brings an incred­i­ble amount of their best ener­gy and focus to cre­ate their best per­for­mance pos­si­ble. The team ral­lies to work togeth­er for a short peri­od when they are very pro­duc­tive, test­ed and chal­lenged, and don’t waste a second.

This is not how we nor­mal­ly oper­ate in business.

We start with good peo­ple and spend some time train­ing, but we don’t have a pos­i­tive pres­sure per­for­mance time – a time when we real­ly need to dri­ve hard to per­form and shine. Some­times a sales team does, or finance team at month end, but I think there an oppor­tu­ni­ty to do more – espe­cial­ly in com­pa­nies that are founder- or family-owned.

One Sto­ry

This dif­fer­ence was best described by an exec­u­tive in a fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness, dur­ing a break at a retreat:

“What I love about this fam­i­ly busi­ness is that when things don’t go well, or when we have a bad month, it’s not a big deal. We’re dis­ap­point­ed but no one leaves stressed out or in tears. We just try to do bet­ter, next time.

“In the com­pa­ny I came from, if we were off our prof­it, there would be incred­i­ble inten­si­ty and prepa­ra­tion before the board meet­ing to make sure we knew exact­ly what hap­pened, and to get it back in a mat­ter of days.

“But you know what? There’s a part of me that loved being in that envi­ron­ment. It forced us to per­form and find ways to win. We got very cre­ative and yes, we had some late meet­ings and sleep­less nights but, at the end of the day, we always found a way to make it hap­pen because we had to. There was no way we were going to show up at that board meet­ing with­out under­stand­ing and answers.

“it just wouldn’t be tolerated.”

I asked this exec­u­tive if she had more ten­sion to per­form, now, could her com­pa­ny per­form better?

“Heck ya! We could per­form way bet­ter because we’d just have to.”

The Oppor­tu­ni­ty to Be Better

At the end of the day, you can take a group of human beings and if some have to per­form bet­ter, and some don’t, the have-tos will rise to the occa­sion almost every time, because that’s how we’re wired.

Lead­ers who think they are being nice and over­ly under­stand­ing are real­ly set­ting up their peo­ple and their envi­ron­ment to be mediocre. But it’s impor­tant to nev­er for­get that, when test­ed, the human spir­it shows incred­i­ble sur­vival instincts and creativity.

That pro­vides great poten­tial for fam­i­ly- and founder-run busi­ness­es to find the mid­dle ground – to cre­ate ten­sion through pos­i­tive pres­sure and oppor­tu­ni­ties to per­form that bring out the best of their peo­ple and keep their real heart and soul.

The Chal­lenge

Think about your busi­ness and team:

• Are you more about let­ting peo­ple off the hook, and into com­fort and medi­oc­rity? Or
• Are you hold­ing the bar high, cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment and the sup­port to chal­lenge them? To find ways to make things hap­pen, with bud­get and time con­straints, so that cre­ativ­i­ty can kick in?
• How can you cre­ate more Pos­i­tive Per­for­mance Pres­sure so can your team find ways to win because they have to?