The Lessons of the F500

I'm such a fortunate guy.

My job has me spending time with the sales leadership across various different large and VERY large companies. I get to gain insight into a veritable who's who in the business world. As impressive as any of these campuses are, and as intimidating as the reputations that these firms have, I see they are all dominated by people.

I've found in my travels and experiences, that people are people pretty much everywhere you go. And they're more or less the same. While there is no doubt that some incredibly bright and innovative individuals populate great companies, the other end of the spectrum is also true. There's averagely talented people in these places as well. This means opportunity the way I look at it.

Stay with me here for a moment...if I want to move my organization's average talent towards greatness (and thereby move my company along with it) , should I be focused on those individuals that are already fantastic, those that can get a mind-blowing job anywhere, or whose primary task is dusting their Nobel prizes ..? Or should we focus instead on those that have less to offer. Perhaps these folks could benefit from some attention, some remedial talent development, and some skills assessment and focus. And perhaps if we did that - moved the average folks towards greatness, then the overall performance of the team would improve in a more significant manner than if we just brought in another ringer. That, I put forward to you dear critic, is the answer - focus on those with the most upside.

To do this, move the averagely talented person along the performance scale towards excellence, should I be using the same tools and methods that the phenomenal performer uses ? No, I think not. You see if we had a wolf in sheep's clothing, we wouldn't actually need to teach them to be a wolf. I recommend a different approach, a different tool-set, one geared for them specifically. Let's give them a defined path for success, and let's knock away the barriers to follow it.

I'll go on record as being a fan of tried and true, tested methods to accomplish a specific task. Few things succeed better than that which has succeeded numerous times before. While we always have to be cognizant of change, that has more to do with delivery media I would put forth, than core concept changes. If I need to fell a tree, I need to sever it at the trunk. Whether I use a saw, my teeth, a chainsaw or a light-sabre, I'm approaching the problem in the same way fundamentally. After cutting through the base, I need to be aware of how it will fall, and the potential for problems if it falls "wrong". What we need to teach people to stretch this analogy is to fell trees smarter and faster.

Then we'll have higher performance. Across the forest, and the organization.