Chad Silverstein ran a bracket-style competition called March Madness with metrics like money collected and compliments given. He used public recognition and good-natured shaming to push top performers, arguing leaders should challenge their best people instead of only fixing the weak.
Chapters
So in my company, we had a very competitive atmosphere. Every year, I would have a tradition. I did March Madness. So I put all the collectors up, and I said, this is the one month that we can all compete. So we put brackets up on the walls. I paired everybody up, and then I had certain legs throughout the month. So for the first leg was three days. The second leg was five days, and you'd be up against another person in the office, and whoever collected the most money moves on. And the. Sometimes I changed it up. Whoever got the most compliments from people on the phone, and whoever had the largest payment, and I would run contests, and I'd give away a lot of bonus money during that month, during March Madness, because it also happened to be one of the most successful months of the year for us, because people were getting their tax returns filed and getting their checks. So we saw surges in our income. And I remember Chet always picking on the high performers. It may have been Josh, it may have been Keisha, and there was Jessica. We used to call them out. And I love that. I love that Chet never really treated them any different. He was actually harder on the higher performers, but he would pick on them, and he would always challenge them, and then he would always challenge the other person who was maybe second on the list to pass and overcome the person who is the number one. And it's amazing what that can do. It's amazing when you put people on the spot, when you call them out, they're not expecting it, especially if they're a high performer or if they've been the high performer. And I think there's something to be said about challenging your high performer and not wasting your time so much on the people who are not even hitting the bar, which is your problem if you're a leader and you have people not hitting the bar. But go after your high performers and lean into them and get your ratios right and watch how they can increase their performance because they're capable and what that does for everyone around them to lift the entire team. That is incredible. If you can do that as a leader, that's a worthy aim. And I can tell you firsthand, it's awesome when you see it.
