Vanessa Van Edwards explains how performance spreads like contagion. A study of 58,000 working hours found that being within 25 feet of a high-performer boosts output by 15%, while proximity to a low-performer cuts it by 30%. High performers can deliberately spread their excellence across teams and organizations.
Your performance is contagious. If you're a high performer and you want to be— have a positive impact, you can actually make your high performance contagious to everyone in your life: your kids, your team, your colleagues, your clients, your customers. So one study looked at 58,000 working hours across multiple different companies, and they found that when people sit within 25 feet of a high performer, their own performance improves by 15%. And the second part, which is really important, is if you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your performance decreases by 30%. The more you work on your high performance and you're socializing that performance, like your ability to work with others. The more your performance is contagious, the more you're helping others. But also, if you're a manager or a boss or a team leader, you need to identify your high and low performers on your team and be able to increase that performance of your low performers and make your high performers more contagious.
