Key Ingredients of a High Performance Culture

Welcome to the official YouTube channel launch of Caras Consulting where we talk about the key ingredients of a high performance culture!

In today’s video, I’ll be talking about:

• Details about the channel
• The key ingredients for a high performance culture

AND

• I’ll be dropping little snippets about me and Caras Consulting
• Stick around to the end when I’ll open it up for some Q&A

If you don’t know me, my name is Sadaf Shaikh and I’m the owner of Caras Consulting.

I’ve been working alongside CEOs and senior execs for pretty much my entire 20+ year career, first as their trusted EA and then as their trusted HR business partner.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what the really great leaders do to create a high performance culture and engaged employees.

This channel is ALL about the things I’ve picked up over the years around building and leading high performance teams.

I’ll share my research and personal experience on this subject AND I’ll bring on other leaders on the channel from time to time to hear directly from them on what’s working today.

Key ingredient #1 of a high performance culture – have a shared set of goals

The goals of the organization are clearly articulated and shared with everyone

This will be a recurring theme of this channel. Shared goals are crucial to a high performance culture and company

If you went out there and asked any of your employees, they should be able to articulate exactly what those shared goals are and what their role is in the achieving those goals

Every successful company that boasts a high performance culture has shared goals. One, two or three things that everyone works towards

It doesn’t matter so much WHAT those shared goals are, as long as everyone knows what they are

As we head into 2021, it’s time to start thinking about what your goals are going to be for next year.

I have a free guide that helps you set your top 3 goals in 30 minutes. You can download a copy here.

Key ingredient #2 of a high performance culture – get the right talent in the door

In order to get the right talent, you first have to be clear on WHO you need to invite into your organization

You need people who will not only have the skills and experience to help you achieve your top goals, but also fit in with your culture

So, you need to know what goals you’re working towards, and the skills and competencies you need to achieve those goals

Then you need to define your culture. And culture is all about HOW you do things in your company. Forget about the fluffy descriptive adjectives. All you need to do to define your culture is look at how work gets done in your company. 

Here are a few things to examine

Another way to really understand your culture is to speak with employees on the front line.

Book time with them, either in a group or 1:1, though I prefer 1:1, and just chat with them about how they perceive work gets done at the company

This does 2 things:

• Allows you to really connect with your employees, especially those you wouldn’t normally interact with
• Boosts employee engagement through the roof.

People just want to be heard and when their top leader takes time out of their busy day to speak with them, listen to them, they feel like they’re being heard. 

Try it and then come back here and comment below to let me know how it went and what feedback you got.

Key Ingredient #3 – nurture the talent you already have

You start with having a stellar onboarding program to welcome any new talent. I’ve worked with a lot of companies both as an employee and as a consultant and I can tell you that very few companies get this one right

So, what does a good onboarding program look like?

In a nutshell, it’s where the new employee begins performing at a high level as quickly as possible. 

When employees are equipped with the RIGHT tools and information, performing is the easy part. The key is knowing what the right tools and information is. One way to find out is to ask your existing employees on how their onboarding was and what information and tools would have been useful to get them up to speed faster

The next component of talent nurturing is developing employees. There are many aspects to this, but the easiest way to get started is to create development plans for your employees. 

Now I’ve been in many organizations and I see too many leaders and employees do this as a check mark exercise. If you’re committed to building a high performance culture and company, then approach development plans with a view to getting you there.

It starts with asking the employee where their career aspirations are. Then go back to your business objectives and see where the two intersect. That’s where your development plan comes alive

Finally, it’s about building leadership capabilities and constantly pushing your leaders to be better for themselves and the employees. To constantly strive for better.

I run a program to help leaders take their teams to the next level by maximizing the performance and potential of their people. If you’re ready to do that in 2021, then book a call with me to enroll into our program that helps you do just this.

Those are my key ingredients of a high performance culture. If you like this video, be sure to share it with others who might find it useful.