Hiring High Performance People

Jonathan runs a retail sporting goods store in a good sized mall near Atlanta, Ga. The rent is a full 35% of his budget, but it’s worth the price for the location, location, location. He offers shoes, balls, rackets, and the usual assortment of camping gear and the like.

His company is growing but he’s had some real problems with employee turnover. Jonathan has tried to use employment agencies, background checks, and solid interviewing but they really haven’t seemed to work all that well. He’s started believing that “people these days just don’t have the work ethic needed.” And there’s plenty of evidence he’s right.

This is all somewhat depressing because Jonathan can remember the hope and belief he had in leading a team of motivated, well-trained people that would help make his store a real legend…something totally different than the big box retailers…somewhere people would love to come…a place that would earn trust and build loyalty.

But now that all seemed like a phrase he’d read in someone else’s brochure. He could hardly admit that it really was his dream.

But that all changed when a good friend told him that the key to getting good people, motivating them, and seeing regular high performance was not subject to “society” or other ominous outside factors.

Jon’s friend said that whenever people act like a herd of dog-chased felines, there is only one foundational reason: lack of vision. Jon laughed and said, “What does vision have to do with answering phones or simply showing up to work on time? I don’t need philosophers. I need workers.”

I Need Solid Workers!

Jon’s friend sat quietly and thought about his response before giving it. He asked, “Jon do you remember when we played on that pee-wee football team all those years ago?” Jon said of course he did. “How could you forget that team. We won the city championship.”

“So why do you suppose we were so successful? We weren’t really all that talented. In fact, most of the best athletes were on teams from the other side of town. We only had one coach and our equipment was pretty beaten up.” Jon just looked into the distance listening with some strange relaxing mix of peace and puzzlement. As if someone tapped on his shoulder, Jon blurted out, “So why were we so good?”

Jon’s friend simply said, “Vision.”

“We wanted to be Roger Staubach dropping back ready to hand off to Tony Dorsett in the Super Bowl - finally defeating our arch enemies the Pittsburg Steelers.” “We wanted that more than anything. We had the jerseys, the ball caps, the trading cards, the banners and posters on the walls of our blue and gray bedrooms.”

Jon listened as the recollection continued with a hint of a smile and gleam growing in his eyes for hope lost in his youth.

Something Significant Changed

Jon headed back to the office after the long lunch with his good friend had concluded. With great energy he announced to his assistant that for the next few hours he was not to be disturbed unless the building was on fire or someone was dying! And this time he meant it.

He sat there in his office and typed “vision” into his computer’s search engine. He scrolled through the results and found of all things a passage from the Bible: “When there’s no vision, the people cast off restraint.”¹ Like a ton of bricks crashing down on a crystal goblet, something dark and draining was forever shattered in Jon’s mind. A cynical belief about people and the future had just taken a major blow. It was a paradigm shift.

Action Opportunity:

Jon said to himself, “If I want to attract great people I have to give them a compelling vision. We were city champs because the vision of being a Dallas Cowboy just like Roger Staubach was so compelling, so powerful and so exciting that nothing could stop us. I actually believed that on that make-shift football field (that doubled as a soccer field and baseball field depending on the time of year) that I could see those fans. I could see the lights. I could see the grit and determination of the greatest athletes in the world on prime time. And I was one of them.”

More Than Just a Story

While this story is just fiction, still it illustrates something I believe is crucial to your success as a business owner or organizational leader: You must continually nurture your vision. Your main responsibility isn’t profit, it’s vision. You must take your vision, recapture it if necessary, and make it come back to life.

Television, posters, trading cards, were all profitable ventures regarding professional sports in the early 1970’s. But the reason they were profitable is because they dealt in the tender of vision. We bought them because we desperately needed and believed in the compelling vision they helped to create - of courage, heroism, and victory.

If you want to hire people who will do what it takes to perform consistently, you must invest in making your vision come alive. If not, it will die in you and you’ll find that cynicism growing again leading you to a diminishing rate of return.

If you want to bring your vision to life and find the key to building a high performance team, look for the audio module “Strategic Vision” at our online store. This is an actual module from our consulting program for executives. You won’t be disappointed.

In the next Playbook, we’ll discuss the specific steps to take once your vision is “written down and made plain.”

Here’s to your Success!

Eric J. Beck

PS. Playbook subscribers get a 15% discount on all audio modules, just type the word “playbook” into the voucher field when you check out. To revive your vision NOW, click here: http://www.totalintegrationnow.com/shoppingcart2.htm

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You Can Do It!

Next Play (October 2006): "Hiring High Performance People, Pt 2"

by Eric Beck

It's Your Business...Take Control Now! www.TotalIntegrationNow.com

¹ Proverbs 29:18

The Business Owner's Playbook is a monthly strategic resource that concisely equips today's business owner with instantly usable tools that produce lasting solutions for common challenges. Based on the principles in the Total Integration Program, this tool is provided for the betterment of you, your people, and your customers.