Chad Silverstein describes three archetypes of new employees—timid newcomers, know-it-alls, and high performers—and gives concrete advice on how to become a high performer. He emphasizes learning quickly, modeling desired behaviors, solving problems proactively, and acting like a leader even without the title as pathways to promotion and recognition. The piece is prescriptive, anecdotal, and focused on workplace mindset and actions.
Chapters
When new people used to start on my team, I'd have two different types. Well, three different types of new people. One shy, scared, timid, you know, the newbie trying to, like, learn the way and played it safe. And then you have someone who comes in and they think they're the be all, end all. They come in with experience, and they start telling people what to do. They're questioning, you know, why we do what we do. They think that their way is better without really understanding our way. And then you have high performers that just come in and they just put their nose to the ground to learn as much as they can, ask as many questions as possible, and try to just model the way by performing and just kicking butt. Those individuals in my company, they got moved up real quick. Sometimes in the first week, if we saw that magic, we would just thrust them right into a bigger role because, you know, we. We didn't waste any time. And the people who were trying to come in and tell everyone else how to do their job, we would sit down with them and tell them, hey, you know, settle down and slow down. And instead of telling everyone what we should be doing, just show us your expertise. Show us what your knowledge and experience has taught you without telling us that what we're doing is wrong. And you have to kind of know your place when you first come into an environment. But the one thing I would say about being a high performer and being one of the few is that you don't have to earn anything outside of just modeling the way. You don't have to be the leader in order to lead. And a lot of people feel like it's not their place because they're new, because they're not a team lead. And I always say to all my. All my employees, I'd say the way to become a team leader in this office is to act like one when you're not one. And again, a lot of times in most systems, you'll have leaders who are not the head of the system. They're not, you know, the people who are in the roles that would require them to be the leader. And it could be the person who's answering the phones. It could be the person who is doing the data entry. You know, there are leaders come in all different sizes, shapes, and forms and everything in it. And it really is the person's character, and it is the way that they hold themselves and the way they perform. And when you are a high performer, you just get the job done. You have an incredible work ethic. You know what Those bars are. And you're always trying to exceed. You know how much you're getting paid and understand that your value to the business is to do more than you're being paid. And that's, ironically, a way to get more. And you don't want to be doing what everyone else is doing. So if you really, truly want to be a high performer today, look around your environment, see what everyone else is doing, and don't do that. Do it the opposite way, probably, and it'll work. And that always worked well for me. I was a little bit of an outlier, and I didn't like doing what everyone else is doing. And if I could figure out a better way to get the job done, most of the time, as long as you're within the guidelines and you're not breaking rules, you're going to be given some flexibility because you're performing. And if you're not telling people what to do and your numbers are there or the way you're servicing whatever it is that you do with your job, then you're going to make people talk about you in a positive way. And that's really what you want. People in a leadership team talking about you because you're a high performer, because you just get the job done. Solve problems before you're. You're complaining about them, Solve problems even if they're not directly impacted by your work. You know, if you see an issue, step in. If there's an opportunity to help, step in and help. You know, don't not sacrifice your job to do that stuff. But everyone's got the same amount of time and everybody can step up and do more. The question is, you know, are you one of the few people who will actually step into it and do it? And if you like what you do and you're good at what you do and you're a leader, that's what leaders do. And they, they know how to get the job done. They always say, if you want to find, you know, someone to get something done, find the busy person who's always getting everything done, because they'll figure it out. And it's true. It's very true. And it's not easy to be a high performer. It is a mindset, and you have to do what you can do in order to be a little bit different and unique and distinctly different than everyone else and put up the big numbers and figure out your way of doing it so that people don't sit down with you and give you a performance improvement plan because you're not hitting the minimum. So are you a high performer? You know you can answer that for yourself.
