You Don’t Want a High-Performance Team

What if I told you you don't want a high-performance team? I mean, that's crazy, right? Everybody wants a high-performance team, but what does that actually even mean? I know when I asked other business owners, I hear things like, well, I want a team that's fast and I want a team that's reliable. I want people that never miss a deadline, you know, people that like actually get stuff done. But here's what almost nobody realizes. If you think to those descriptors, they all speak to task Completion. I mean, what you basically are telling me is that you want a team of people who do a lot of things. You don't want a high-performance team. And if you've ever had a great employee who is insanely productive one day and then flat out worthless the next day, usually right after getting some big promotion, you know exactly what I mean, whether you realize it or not. There is a reason that good employees go bad, and that is why you don't want a high-performance team. What you actually want is a high output team. And if you wanna build a high output team, you're gonna need to understand the 3 types of employees. Number 1, we have task-based employees. Number 2, metrics-based employees. And number 3, strategy-based employees. Now I'm gonna dig into each of these in just a second, but let me make this really, really clear. Somebody can absolutely crush it in a task-based role, but completely suck in a metrics-based role and have absolutely no business whatsoever in a strategy-based role. So how do you know? How do you know if the right person is in the right role? Well, in this video, I'm gonna cover all 3. I'm gonna give you the 3 steps for moving somebody from one role type to the next, and I'm gonna show you how you can tell if your superstar employee has the ability to ascend up this ladder, or if you do it, you're just setting them up for failure. I'm even gonna let you in on a conversation that I had with a client who was about ready to fire somebody who used to be considered one of the best employees in her entire company. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Ryan Deiss. And by the way, if you know who I am, you already know who I am. And if you don't know who I am, you really don't care unless I say something that's useful. So let's just get into it. All right. Moving somebody from task-based to metrics-based is more than just about a new title and a bigger paycheck. There are 3 steps that you need to follow if you really want to do this in the right order. Step 1 is You've gotta diagnose the gap. So a couple weeks ago, I'm on a call with a client and we're barely like 30 seconds into this call and she just blurts out, Ryan, I think I'm gonna have to fire him. Now, what's funny is I knew exactly who she was referring to. The guy that she was talking about, let's just call him Jim. It's obviously not his real name. Jim was her former marketing manager who had recently been promoted to head of marketing. Let me be clear. Jim's awesome. He's fast. He's reliable. Jim never missed a deadline, never called in sick. Jim, like the model employee. Jim was exactly what my client would've described if I'd asked her to define what a high performer looked like, which is why a few months before she decided that Jim deserved to be promoted. Now, I thought this was a terrible idea. Now, again, I love Jim, but this was a bad idea. The reality is Jim wasn't ready. He didn't have the experience and my client didn't have the ability or the time to coach him up to where he needed to be, but she did it anyway. And look, here we are 3 months later, leads are flat, sales are flat, and now the star employee is floundering and my client is ready to fire him. Does this sound familiar? But here's the thing, and I think this is important. Nothing about Jim actually changed in those 3 months. Right? He didn't actually get worse. What changed is the unit that he was being measured on. And the reality is that nobody told him that this had changed. So let me show you the 3 types of employees and I'll show you exactly kind of where Jim fits in so you can see how this works. So first up, we have task-based employees. And as the name suggests, this is all about task completion. Did the work get done? Was it done the right way the first time? You know, was it Done on time. For a task-based employee, the task is the scorecard. Really is as simple as that. It's binary. It got done. It didn't get done. Now, these are usually your non-managerial individual contributors, but don't misunderstand me. I'm not devaluing these people. They're the ones actually doing the work. They're insanely valuable. And some task-based employees make a lot of money, like a lot of money. Salespeople who make a lot of money are task-based employees. Heart surgeons are task-based employees for hospitals. Task-based people build companies because you don't get outputs without the inputs. And this is Jim. Jim is task-based. Jim writes copy. Jim builds landing pages. Jim writes email campaigns. Jim is all about the inputs and they're all awesome. And that's Why my client promoted them. Now, the second employee type are metrics-based employees, and they're all about the numbers. They're all about the outputs. Did the critical metrics move? Did they improve? For them, the scorecard is literally the scorecard. The inputs still matter, but now they're just kind of one lever among many, and the actual job is figuring out which lever needs to be pulled. These are usually your managers and your directors because this is the first seat in your company Where somebody owns a number instead of a task list. And this is where my client plopped poor Jim. Here he is as head of marketing. He owns unique visitors, lead velocity, conversion rates, marketing qualified leads, just to name a few. Now, landing pages and emails, these are all inputs to those outputs. They're clearly related, but they're not the same job. And therein lies the problem. Jim is a task-based employee sitting in a metrics-based seat. Everything that went wrong over those 3 months is the gap between those 2 things, and neither of them knew that it was even there. Both of them thought, like Jim thought that he's doing a good job, and my client thought that she had explained it. So I'm gonna get into how we fix it, but first I need to cover the 3rd type. So the 3rd type of employee is the strategy-based leader. And they're not looking at tasks or metrics. They're really asking which metrics. In other words, which of the numbers should this company be chasing? Which metrics should we be optimizing? Where are we going? Now, these are usually your VPs, your C-level folks, but it can be anybody reporting directly to the CEO with a voice in deciding where the company is going. Now, this is not Jim's problem today. He's got a level to climb before this one even matters, but If you're the owner, it's likely you are the only strategy-based thinker in your entire company, which is probably why you can't understand why anybody else on your team thinks the way that you do, and frankly, why it probably feels a little bit lonely. Now, one really, really, really important thing: titles. Titles speak to role. They don't necessarily speak to capability. You can give someone the CFO title, but if they like don't know math, that doesn't mean they're gonna be a good CFO. And that right there. That's the trap. Jim's title said head of marketing, which is very much a metrics-based role. Unfortunately, Jim was still operating as a task-based employee. And here's how I know that Jim was task-based. And here's how you can tell if any of your own team members are task-based themselves, even if they're sitting in what should be a metrics-based role. So I asked my client one question. When the leads went flat, When things went bad, when things kind of went sideways, what did Jim do? Her response, he just kind of started testing more. He started testing more landing pages. He started building more campaigns and sending more emails. In other words, he just did more of what he already knew how to do. And that's the sign. Anytime you see somebody trying to fix something that isn't working by doing more of what they've always done, That's when you know you probably have a task-based thinker. And we do this too, by the way. When things aren't working, when you get frustrated, where do you go? Probably straight back to your comfort zone, straight back to all the tasks that you're good at, tasks that you can just kind of check off. Nobody's immune to it. Now, most people look at Jim and say, the problem is that great doers just don't make great managers, but that's not it at all. The reality is, Managing people is teachable. Most of us are actually reasonably decent at working with other human beings. Yeah, sure, some people are better at it than others, but it's not like there's some, you know, mysterious gene out there that just allows some people to be good managers and other people, you know, not to be. That's not it at all. It's not that they don't know how, it's that nobody told 'em that they should. So what breaks people isn't the management of humans, it's Managing to a number and specifically knowing that you should be. So now my client knows exactly what she's looking at. Jim is task-based. The seat is metrics-based. We are one level apart. The good news, this gap is not fatal. Some people, many people can make the climb as long as both parties know that there's a climb to be made and there's a conversation that tells you if your superstar is capable of making that leap or not. And that's what step 2 is all about. By the way, we're obviously about to get into how you build and lead metrics-based employees, but to do that, you've gotta be, wait for it, tracking metrics. And to do that, well, you need this pesky thing called a scorecard. So if you don't have one right now, let's fix that. I linked the exact one that we use down in the description. It's totally free. It's the same one that my clients use. It's the same CEO dashboard that all of my companies run on. So I just grab it before you have to have any of these conversations. Okay, back at it. Step 2, have the conversation. All right, so now that my client has a diagnosis, it's time to have the conversation with Jim because it's really not fair to just leave the guy hanging, and it's definitely not fair to just fire him without giving him a fair shot. Because again, my client put him in this position. So here's what you don't do. Don't run some version of a passive-aggressive performance review complete with, you know, a disappointed expression. Hmm, really not happy about this. And Negative numbers. Oh, look, this doesn't look really good, does it? If you're gonna do that, you might as well just fire 'em. They're gonna get defensive, you're gonna get upset. It's not gonna be motivating. It's gonna be the opposite of motivating, and it's just gonna drag on for a few more months. It's not gonna be good for anybody. Instead, I want you to think about it like this. If you sent somebody to the wrong airport, you wouldn't get to be mad if they missed the flight, right? Think about it, right? They did everything right. They left early, they found parking, they stood in the security line with their shoes off like a good little obedient citizen. They executed beautifully. They did everything that they thought they were supposed to do. If that was the case, you wouldn't be allowed to be mad that they missed the flight. That's this conversation. She wasn't going in there to tell Jim that he was doing badly because as far as Jim knew, he was crushing it. Sure, leads and sales were flat, but look at all the work that he had done by his old standards. He was doing a great job. So she couldn't just go in there and tell him that He was sucking it up. Instead, she had to go in there and reframe what success looked like for Jim in his new role. And yes, this should have happened from the get-go. It didn't, but it's never too late to make it right. So here's what I told her to say. And just so you know, there are 4 moves in this conversation. All 4 matter. So take notes and pay attention. Move number 1, probably the most important one of all. You gotta own the miss first. You gotta own it. So I told her to open up with something like this. Jim, I think I owe you an apology. I didn't make this clear at the beginning when I gave you the promotion, and that's on me. That's the opening line. Hey, I owe you an apology. Now, when you say that, that is the opposite of defensiveness like that. That's not gonna create any defensiveness. They're like, wait, what? What's going on here? Now they're open to learning. You know, they're, they're, they're leaning in. And here's the principle, by the way, underneath that, it's not just better for the relationship and, and, and better in terms of, of actually getting the result that you want. It's also true. The reality is the only failures in business are failures in leadership, period. That's it. Either you picked the wrong person, which is a failure in leadership, or you didn't set 'em up to succeed, which again, failure in leadership. Now I'm gonna walk in assuming that I just didn't set 'em up to succeed because First, that's usually the problem. That is usually exactly what happened. And 2, it costs absolutely nothing to be generous here. The person's already there. I'm already paying for 'em. So let's go in, let's be humble, let's be apologetic. Move number 2, let's name the change. So I'm gonna say something like, hey, again, sorry I didn't make this clear, but before you were responsible for completing these things, that's what you did and you were excellent at it. You were awesome at it. You were the best. It's why I gave you this job. It's why you got this promotion, but now. You're responsible for moving these numbers on our scorecard, and those tasks are a part of it, but the job is moving these metrics. At the end of the day, that's the only thing that matters. It's not just getting these tasks done, it's these metrics. I know that sounds simple, and I know it seems like this should be obvious, but if you never said it, you can't assume that they know it. It really is as simple as that. Move number 3, ask one question. Stop talking. And that one question is, what do you think needs to happen to move this number? That's it. Now that we've reset, now that we've told them, hey, it's not just about doing the task. You're great at that. Got it. Check. High five. It's about the metrics. They're currently behind. What do you think needs to happen to improve them? And then sit back. This is really important. Don't answer it for them. Don't rescue the silence. The silence is the test and it is their job to fill it. And one warning here, don't turn that question into a quiz that you already know the answer to. If you've already decided what projects should be, you're not diagnosing anymore. You're just kind of auditioning for agreement. That's kind of uncool. But if you generally don't know, then this is when we want to try to find out. We just want to evaluate how they think. We're going to talk about this. It may not even be the right answer. But we just want to see how do they think and are they willing to think beyond their task. But if you're ever interviewing somebody for a metrics-based role, this is how the interview should go as well. You're not asking them, you know, what do you know how to do? You know, do you know how to do all these different things? Again, if you're hiring for a metrics-based role, you should be asking them how would they improve the specific metrics that you would like to improve at your business, period. How would you do it? Whether you know how to do it or not. How should it be done? Move 4, read the answer. Now, this is kind of your 10-second verdict time. If the person comes back with ideas that live outside of the tasks that they used to own, even if they're rough ideas, even if they're half-baked, even if they're frankly kind of stupid ideas, I'm, I'm, believe it or not, I'm actually okay with that, right? I'm okay with that because even if they're kind of half-baked crappy ideas, what it tells me is I probably have somebody Who can make the leap because they're willing to think beyond the task. They're willing to think, what are all the different resources that I could pull together to improve this number? That's enough. Now, what do they need? They need resources. They need coaching. They need accountability. They need additional support. Maybe I need to get them some mentorship if I can't do it. The point is I've got somebody that I can work with. But if what you hear is only more of what they've already been doing, That's a red flag, and it's a red flag because you've created the space for them to say something new, and they chose not to step into it. That is not a person who needs more support. That is a person who just doesn't understand the scope of the job. And that's your cue to probably start thinking about who else could sit in that seat. And that's not necessarily, you know, a fun conversation to have, and you could have it now, you could have it a week, a month, but That's a conversation that's probably going to need to be had at some point. That's like, maybe you can move 'em back into their old role. Maybe they're gone. The point is, if they stay in that role, it's gonna be bad for all involved. Either way, at this point, what you're gonna have is clarity. Clarity on if you have the right person, if you have somebody you can work with or not. And it's 4 moves. It's about a 10-minute conversation. I mean, this is not a massive lift, but the hardest move is the first one, cuz that's when you have to walk in and admit. That the biggest mistake, the first mistake was yours. This conversation is the first step to actually setting them up to win, whether that is getting them the support that they need in the role that they have. Maybe it's moving them back into the role that they used to have, or perhaps it's putting them on a path to finding a better position in a different company. So as for my client, she had the conversation and by all accounts, it went, it went great. It went fine. He nodded. He got it. Everybody seemed to feel good. And that's where most of these will die. Like if people get to this point, that's when they're like, okay, so everybody understands great. And they go back to work. But the reality is a conversation does not equal a system. Whatever clarity was just created, and a lot was created, that, that clarity is gonna last about as long as like leftover salad. So if you want this to hold, you have to change what happens and we have to institutionalize it. And ideally, we have to change what happens every Monday, and that is where step 3 comes in. Step 3, change the report. So this one's actually pretty simple. In fact, you may already be doing some version of this. I know for us, every Monday, and again, for you it could be any day, we just happen to do ours on Monday, you and your leadership team need to have a standing meeting where you review all the scorecard metrics, get all in the same room, and you review them together. We call this the weekly Pulse meeting, and it is the most valuable meeting that we do as a team every single week, because this is where accountability truly takes hold. Because reality is you can't hide behind all the tasks you completed if the metrics on your scorecard are still red. You don't get to brag and be like, ooh, look at all these things that I did. I was so productive. I was so high performance when your metrics are still red. It is the one place every week where you get to find out who's living in task land and who's actually living in metrics land where they're supposed to live. Now, as for my client, I had to tell her to tell Jim to stop talking about all the different projects and tasks that he was working on at the weekly pulse meeting. Basically, when it was his turn, instead of talking about the metrics, he would open up with, hey, let me tell you all the cool stuff I'm working on. That's not what the meeting is about. Don't do that. Don't let anybody talk about any projects at that point. Instead, you just need to report on the status Of the metrics. That's it. Then it was my client's job. It's the CEO's job to ask the most important question that any business leader can ask who's practicing what we call scorecard-based leadership. And that question is, what projects must we execute to turn these red metrics green? That's it. That's the question. And this is the opportunity to speak up. This is when Jim can talk about the things they're working on. Or that he could work on. And maybe the answer is something that he's already great at. Maybe it's something he's already doing. Maybe it's something completely different. If he doesn't know, maybe he needs to go find out. And if he can't find out, if none of the stuff that he's working on is working, and if he doesn't know what will work, maybe he doesn't belong in that seat. Because here's the deal. Being good at a task does not in and of itself qualify you for a metrics-based role? It doesn't. It qualifies you for perhaps a raise, but it doesn't necessarily qualify you for a promotion into a metrics-based role. I am not advocating that you just leave your people hanging, okay? Don't leave 'em out there floundering. If they don't know what to do, but you do, offer 'em some help, get 'em the support. That's what we as leaders should be doing. But at the end of the day, it is not your job as the CEO as the business owner to have all the answers. It's not. I absolve you of that. It is your job to ask the questions, and it is your job to assemble a team of metrics and task-based employees who have the answers and who can execute the solutions. That's the job. How does our little story with Jim end? I don't know yet. Jim is still in that seat. He might make it. Frankly, he might not. Jim, if you're watching this and you happen to have figured out that you are the person that I am talking about, just know that I'm rooting for you, buddy. I mean that sincerely. I am here for you, but here's what has changed. And this is why I'm hopeful. This is why I'm optimistic. 3 months ago, my client had a person that she was frustrated with and had no idea what to do. And just to be clear, when she was like, I think I need to fire him, she wasn't really going to fire him. So again, Jim, if you're watching this, she wasn't really going to fire. That was all talk. She was frustrated. Business owners talk about firing people all the time, including themselves. So don't worry about it. But she was, she was like, I don't know what to do about that. Now she has a number. She's had a conversation on the record, right? And so if it doesn't get fixed, she can reference back to that and start— that can start a process. And there's a meeting that enforces it. And so whichever way it goes, and hopefully it goes a good way, nobody's gonna be blindsided. Nobody's gonna be humiliated. And That's what building a high output team actually looks like. It's not about going on a hiring spree. It's not about creating a culture deck or having like Nerf gun battles and stuff like that. It's one person at a time moving from producing inputs to owning an output, because that's the only way a team has ever changed, grown, and matured. Now, if you want to dive more into team building, who to hire and when, I'm going to pop up a link to another video that I made. On the hiring ladder. It's all about the right and the wrong hires to make at every stage of your business, as well as the traps that break even really good teams. Check it out. I really think you're gonna like it.