Everything We Get Wrong About High Performers

Everyone wants a team of high performers. Or do they? This week, Jimmy and James dismantle the corporate obsession with “high performers”—a label so vague it could mean anything from “top salesperson” to “office psychopath who throws toys out of the pram when they don’t get their way.

The episode exposes the absurdity of how organisations define, reward, and often suffer from their so-called high performers. Is it the person who hits the numbers? The one who sucks up to the boss? Or the quiet grafter who never makes a fuss? Jimmy and James argue that the real problem isn’t just the subjectivity—it’s the chaos left in their wake. High performers can be super chickens, pecking their colleagues to death while laying golden eggs. And if you fill a team with them? You’ll end up with a department full of egos and a trail of destruction.

But here’s the twist: maybe the goal shouldn’t be a team of high performers at all. Maybe it’s about creating a high-performing team. The hosts tackle the hero culture, the danger of rewarding firefighters over fire preventers, and the self-fulfilling prophecy of labelling people as “low performers.” And, of course, they ask the question no one else will: What if your high performer is just someone who looks like you and agrees with you?

Five Key Points:

• High performers are often as easy to spot as a needle in a haystack—if the needle is on fire and screaming about how great it is.
• The “Frank” dilemma: What do you do when your top performer is also your biggest liability?
• Hero culture and firefighting: Why organisations reward the wrong behaviours.
• The super chicken experiment: Why a team of high performers might just peck each other to death.
• The canoe theory: Focus on the middle, not just the front.

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy, and welcome to A Job Done Well. The podcast that helps you improve your performance and enjoyment at work

James 0:15

Good afternoon. How are you doing?

Jimmy 0:17

I'm doing well, James. How are you?

James 0:18

Thank you very much, Raymundo. What are we talking about today then?

Jimmy 0:23

Well, today, James, we are going to talk about high performers

James 0:27

There's a

Jimmy 0:28

Well, we can't

James 0:28

conversation if ever there was one

Jimmy 0:31

Oh, yes. And we're gonna challenge some of the biggest assumptions we make about high performers. Everyone wants high performers in their team. You want a team full of high performers, don't you?

James 0:42

industry obsessing about high performers

Jimmy 0:47

Yes. Every company wants more of them. Ev- every manager says that they can spot them and develop them But if you ask 10 people what makes a high performer, you'll get 10 different answers

James 1:01

10 people if somebody is a high performer, you'll get 10 different answers as well.

Jimmy 1:06

Quite, quite probably., At the end of the day, is it the person who delivers the best results, the numbers on the board?

James 1:15

Is it the person who sucks up to the boss best?

Jimmy 1:17

Could be. If I'm the boss, it is. Is it the person who gets promoted quickest?

James 1:23

Is it the person who quietly gets on doing things without making a big fuss and song and dance? Not in any of the places I've worked

Jimmy 1:31

But if high performers are so valuable, why, and we'll discuss this, this point, but why do so many of them create chaos wherever they go? So today we're going to be talking about the myths, misunderstandings, and truths about high performers

James 1:49

So let's start off then, right? Here's a question. What is a high performer? What do you mean by a high performer

Jimmy 1:57

For me personally, I know I'm massively oversimplifying this, it is about that combination do they get outstanding outputs? And do they go about doing things the right way? So the how matches the end outcomes. And actually, I think that is, is a relative rarity

James 2:18

Yeah, and I, I have to admit I struggle with this a little bit. So clearly there are people, some people who are more capable than others.

Jimmy 2:26

Yeah

James 2:26

so your chief executive one would hope is more capable than the person who's emptying the bins. we do seem to segment and segment and segment, and if you are a, oh I don't know, class 53 or a band 7 or whatever the hell your organisation calls it, we seem to obsess about segmenting within those bands to find high performance. Whereas really you're looking at a lot of people who are the same. So can you really

Jimmy 2:53

Yeah

James 2:53

it, would be my question?

Jimmy 2:55

Personally, I think so because I'm back to the are they going about it the right way and are they getting results? Now the problem is, I think there's so much subjectivity in both those statements because, often outputs can be quite tangible, but the how is quite subjective. And I, I remember when we worked together in, an insu-insurer, and we were having this meeting, and it was quite a contentious subject. I was sitting in on another team's meeting. Contentious subject, right? And one of the supposed high performers in this team, we'll we'll call them Frank to protect the innocent. Frank didn't like what was happening in the meeting, didn't like the decisions that were being made. So threw his toys out of the drawer, properly had a hissy fit, was quite abusive to other people in the team. Anyhow, so after the meeting, I went up to the, the guy who was the team leader and said, "Like, that Frank, unbelievable. I d- what are you gonna do about that?" And he said, "Well, you know, Frank, he's he's really, you know, he's a real high performer. I mean, he wins us so much business, and the brokers love him. So, you have to take the rough with the smooth with him and just, you know, let him-- accept his some of his fits." I was like, "Really? That's a high performer?" And it was. This guy was the top performer in the team year after year after year, but as soon as he didn't get his way, toys went out of the drawer. That wasn't a high performer for me

James 4:27

for for me, I mean, the question is how do you define or how are you measuring high performance? So let me give you an analogy, right? So if you are looking at, oh, the fastest 100-meter sprinter, right?

Jimmy 4:41

Yeah

James 4:42

Then you can have a stab at saying who the highest performance is because,

Jimmy 4:48

Yeah

James 4:48

it's the person who got over that line the quickest by themselves. Yeah. Even then it's a bit difficult 'cause was it him or was it the person who tied up his shoes, or was it his nutrition coach, or, or was it a whole host of-

Jimmy 5:02

Or was it the, the performance-enhancing drugs he took?

James 5:06

Was it his doctor? Yeah, it could be a whole host of things, right? But even

Jimmy 5:09

Yeah

James 5:10

as simple as that, it's not quite that straightforward. The problem with most of our businesses is we look for high performance, and it's a bit like driving a lorry. This is good, you're gonna like this one. It's a bit like driving a

Jimmy 5:23

Yeah

James 5:23

over a rutted field and having a bunch of people inside juggling themselves, yeah? And their challenge is to keep the ball up, but then once every six months, you open the door and you look in and see who's dropped the ball. And so how are you measuring high performance really, I think, is so subjective and we tie ourselves in knots about it

Jimmy 5:44

I think, I, I think another point about a high performance, which touched on at the start was, some people who will be perceived as high performers leave a trail of what a destruction behind them.

James 5:57

Yeah, because they're

Jimmy 5:58

You know,

James 5:58

good at

Jimmy 5:59

I...

James 5:59

message and manage well. We

Jimmy 6:01

Yeah

James 6:01

Well, I can certainly think of one person who was like that. Yeah, did phenomenally

Jimmy 6:05

Yeah

James 6:05

just left a trail of destruction behind him

Jimmy 6:09

So I think overall, I guess the point around is, a very subjective judgment, isn't it?

James 6:16

And I think it's driven in part because we have a well, we have this thing, sort of hero culture, don't we? We like the story

Jimmy 6:22

Yeah

James 6:22

strong man. We like the hero.

Jimmy 6:24

We do

James 6:26

a bit of psychology for you. Fundamental attribution error. See if I can remember what this is. fundamental

Jimmy 6:32

I was never heard

James 6:33

when things go well,

Jimmy 6:34

of that

James 6:35

we think it was because we, yeah, I, James Alder, did a super job. Whereas when

Jimmy 6:40

Yeah

James 6:40

went badly, it was the system and everything that went on around us. we all think we can spot

Jimmy 6:46

Mm, yeah

James 6:46

well, yeah? But when it goes badly, well, it wasn't him, was it?

Jimmy 6:51

And I think there's a few other things that organisations get wrong, around high performers. Obviously, yes, like you say, the hero culture, but I think we also can reward, reward firefighting as well. Reactivity. So when there's a big problem, fixing the big problem rather than the person who prevents the big problem in the first place

James 7:12

So it is very very dangerous game,

Jimmy 7:15

just to dwell on it a second. Some of the other things. High performers often are thought to be the people that are most visible.

James 7:23

Oh yeah, okay.

Jimmy 7:24

The people who grab the spotlight or want the spotlight. And one of the classic things that I've seen in high performers is where high performers clear up their own mess and then cl-claim the glory for clearing up their own mess. I had, an example of this in recently in a company that I was working with, and again, I'll protect the innocent, but this person had been managing this one business unit, and it was underperforming. But they were very good at managing upwards. They were very good at managing their story. They got promoted, right? And they took over the whole of this area, and they fixed the, the, the team that they had messed up, and then claimed a massive success for fixing what they had messed up in the first place. And that takes some skill, you know, to convince people that

James 8:15

he was o- or he or she was obviously a high performer in one way. But then we sort of see it as a strategy, don't we? What is our strategy for having the best business? Our strategy for having the best pe- business is we are going to and hire the best people, and we'll hold onto them. Right? See, I

Jimmy 8:33

Yeah

James 8:33

we've both worked in organizations where they talk about, we used to talk about bench strength. We need to create

Jimmy 8:39

Yeah

James 8:39

right? But actually, is that a, is that a strategy that is good for a business, right? So if your business relies totally on the quality of the people you've got, well, of all, are you gonna make sure they they don't leave? 'Cause you're into one hell of a wage bill if that's the only lever you've got to make sure that you're maintaining that capability. And secondly, if they do go, does that mean everything else falls apart around them? So as a strategy, I actually think it's quite lazy thinking if you think you've just, it's all about the best people, then you, you are kidding yourselves

Jimmy 9:13

If we go back to particularly our early days together there was definitely the organisation was doing that. It, you know, it went out and hired the brightest and the best, and the, the brilliance of the people there could overcome the inadequacies of the ways of doing things. So you were reliant on the individuals, not the system and the process and how things worked around there. And actually worse than that, in one of the teams I was in, all of the first-line managers were all graduates, all who wanted to be promoted. Well, there was like thirty-odd of them, and there was only like three or four positions above them. You had a low dissatisfaction 'cause they all thought they were the ones that should be getting on 'cause they were all high performers

James 9:58

So there's a strategy. It's just a bad strategy. I also worked for a while with a firm of a, a Magic Circle firm of lawyers in London, they had exactly the same attitude. You know, you weren't good enough to become a secretary in this organisation unless you'd got a degree from Oxford or Cambridge. But

Jimmy 10:15

Yes

James 10:15

just wasting a whole load of talent and frustrating a load of people doing jobs that they don't want to do. So as a strategy, I

Jimmy 10:23

Yeah

James 10:24

It's nuts

Jimmy 10:25

Also, there's a real entitlement if you've hired me and I'm the best and I'm the brightest, you know, people believe their own press, don't they?

James 10:32

so it just creates

Jimmy 10:33

You know?

James 10:33

load of dissatisfaction when they're not getting what they think that they should be getting

Jimmy 10:37

So

James 10:37

so there's another problem here as well, right? So if you go and you recruit all your shift managers, whatever the hell it is, from Oxford,

Jimmy 10:46

Yeah

James 10:47

then What you've got is a bunch of shift managers from Oxford. But of course, you've got no diversity there. They all see the world the same

Jimmy 10:54

No

James 10:55

So actually bringing people in from different backgrounds is hugely important. The whole diversity thing, you know, is massively important because people see things in different ways

Jimmy 11:07

Absolutely. So James. High performers, are, are people born that way or are they made? Can you develop them? What's your thinking on that?

James 11:17

So I, you know, some people are lucky, right? Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. So they, y- they

Jimmy 11:24

Yeah

James 11:25

More gifts from birth, and they're brought up in places where they're educated well, there sort of a birth lottery. However, I think the trick is not so much are they born, but once you've got people, do you get the

Jimmy 11:37

Yeah

James 11:37

out of people? So it's not so much are they high performers, but how do you improve their performance? I think that's a much more interesting conversation

Jimmy 11:47

The danger with high performance is that when you get there, you think that's it, that's your entitlement, your work here is done. And so, people believe their own, own press. Whereas actually I think there are massive impacts, not just on, were you born lucky, but also how do you use your experience? So, you and I were both lucky. We worked in a number of organisations, and we learnt a load of stuff. But what set us apart from other people was that fact that we then learnt and applied our learnings and kept on im- trying to improve. Where other people, as soon as they got that label of high performer, you know, that was it. They didn't have to learn anything, did they? There is value, there is value in experience. There is importance of the system and how the system works, 'cause that can impact per- high performance, low performance. I mean, we were discussing in the preparation of this episode, one of our former colleagues who would remain nameless, but they had an outstanding year one year because they had an opportunity and they took it with both hands. For a year, they were-- they got stellar results.

James 12:57

But

Jimmy 12:58

But then the following year, they didn't have that opportunity in front of them, and, and, for a number of years after that, they never recaptured that. So, the learning and the experience is important in developing high performers. How the system works is important in developing high performers as well

James 13:15

So let's just summarise that a little bit. And so the positives of having high performers,

Jimmy 13:21

Well, i-in theory, you're gonna get some decent results You're gonna get people promoted potentially. It's gonna show to others what potentially you are capable of doing. So, you know, it sets a b- a bar for everyone else to aspire to

James 13:36

And the negatives? So I think for me, the negatives are if you obsess about recruiting high performers, then you probably end up with a load of disenfranchised people, because frankly, you don't need

Jimmy 13:48

Yeah

James 13:48

high performers. Yeah. You waste a lot of talent and you waste a lot of enthusiasm. The next thing I think, which is a negative, is actually, well, says they're a high performer? 'Cause if you're only trialing people who are high performers who actually they're a high performer 'cause they look remarkably like you and they agree with you and they don't, they're made in your image, well, that doesn't necessarily make them a high performer. I-

Jimmy 14:10

Or you get the situation where they hit every target and get great numbers like Frank, but they absolutely cause chaos and leave a trail of destruction., That subjective view of what a high performer is, that person's still gonna get called a high performer, but they're not gonna add any value overall to your organisation

James 14:30

donna syndrome. Yeah? So do you really want a team full of high performers then?

Jimmy 14:37

Well, I think, I think you get caught in this theory of, every time you get a vacancy, right? You go out and you think that you want a high performer for that vacancy, don't you? You can't, you can't help yourself, So I think there's theoretically team managers, organisations, execs, whoever, they think they want a, a team full of high performers. I think the reality is, there are some real downsides to that. So I think that if you end up with a team full of high performers, you can end up with a bunch of egos and prima donnas. There is that risk

James 15:15

Chicken?

Jimmy 15:16

No corn?

James 15:17

chickens. So it was a breeding experiment. So it's very easy with chickens. You can tell who the high-performing chickens are because they're the ones

Jimmy 15:26

Right

James 15:26

the most eggs, right? So if you want high

Jimmy 15:30

Yeah

James 15:30

what you do is you breed the chickens, well, obviously the female chickens with the males, but who lay the most eggs, you run

Jimmy 15:38

Yeah

James 15:38

four or five generations, you get a, A breed of high-performing chickens. There's a lovely TED Talk that talks about this, but they actually did that, right? They they bred them away, and they got the flock of high-performing chickens. Now, like all good scientists, they they had a control going, so they got two sheds going, yeah? And after

Jimmy 15:57

Yeah

James 15:57

four or five generations, they went into the control shed, and they went in there, and there were a bunch of chickens bumbling about as chickens do, and they were laying eggs and happy. Went into the other shed, and then what they found was half the chickens were dead, and the others looked emaciated, and the problem was they just pecked each other to death because actually, you know, the whole thing about being high-performing as a chicken is you suck up all the resources, and bollocks to everybody else. So, you know, when you go for your

Jimmy 16:29

Yeah

James 16:29

team, yeah, are you just really recruiting a bunch of super chickens? And let's be honest

Jimmy 16:34

Why?

James 16:35

all worked for a super chicken or two in our career

Jimmy 16:38

Yeah. And that's the thing is I think high performers, talking about as an individual, if you end up with people who want the spotlight, they feel that they're entitled to that. I mean, have you ever gone from being a supposed high performer to a lower performer at any point in your career?

James 16:55

Oh, well, and as hard though this might be to believe, I went from being Mr. Golden Balls to being Mr. Nobody Wants Him On Their Team within the space of

Jimmy 17:04

Yeah And how did that feel?

James 17:07

A, it felt dreadful, you know, talk about demotivational, but actually the thing is I hadn't changed at all. boss had changed. So it wasn't that my performance had changed in any way, shape, or form, it was just that the goalpost had moved. So, yeah, all that did was piss me off. I ended up leaving the organisation. Now, maybe the organisation was happy that I'd left. There's another story. But it does nothing for motivation at all

Jimmy 17:32

Well, another good example on that motivation thing, James, and again, we'll, we'll mention no names, but there have been times when we worked together where we found out who the supposed high performers were in the view of the organisation, and that didn't chime with our experience of them at all. We found that, A, unfair, and B, a, a number of us ended up leaving on the back of that discovery. And that's the, the challenge is not just what the high performers do themselves, it's what the impact they can have on other people The more you talk about it, James, I think it isn't that you don't want high performers on your team, but I think you can come to the conclusion is

James 18:15

a

Jimmy 18:15

a team of high performers would be absolute nightmare. So I think that's the, the thing is, you know, one or two, I mean, it's like your Amazon canoe story

James 18:27

Yeah, yeah. So I had a a boss and he put it very nicely once. He said, "It's managing a team, it's a bit like a a canoe," know, one of these log dug-out canoes going down the Amazon. And he said, "You know,

Jimmy 18:39

Yeah

James 18:39

any canoe like that, you've got two or three people sitting at the front paddling away like billy-o. Those are your high performers." And he said, "You'll have two or three people sitting at the back who really can't be arsed with their hands trailing in the water. But in the middle, you'll have 12 people who are sort of paddling and, you know, putting their back into it, but they're

Jimmy 18:58

Yeah

James 18:58

quite as motivated as they could be." And his point was, well, yeah, okay, so the people who k- aren't paddling at all, you should just get shot of those. But your real challenge is not the people at the front who are paddling, your real challenge is the people in the middle who could be paddling, but for some reason or not aren't. And so it's not so much about the high-performing individuals in your team, it's about how do you create a high-performing team as a total. That was the real challenge

Jimmy 19:27

Say you had 10 people in your team, whatever the team was doing, if you had 10 people and all were supposedly high performers, and I had a high-performing team, I think my team would outperform yours

James 19:40

you're right. And there's another side to this, which I think we ought to talk about, which is if you've got high performers or if you are singling out people as high performers, then di- then by

Jimmy 19:51

Yeah

James 19:52

you are also singling out some people as low performers, 'cause you can't have the high performers without the low performers. Right? You just can't. And then the

Jimmy 20:00

Yeah

James 20:01

then becomes, are you having a conversation with these people which is telling them they're a low performers? So you get the whole Pygmalion effect coming in, which is if you tell somebody they're not very good, they get disengaged and they become not very good, and it's, yeah, a real chicken-and-egg thing, self-fulfilling prophecy. But telling people they're low performers is really a very bad thing to do for their morale and their motivation and their performance. So, in that regard, the challenge for me is how do you get everybody to be working rather than singling out your high performers?

Jimmy 20:30

I think it's true, but there are a couple of things that I found were quite useful when managing high performers. Avoiding that entitlement is one of them. So, having the right conversations with people about their performance, 'cause otherwise they just turn up every year and expect to get the same high ratings and same plaudits. I think just making sure that, that actually you focus the development differently on different people. So high performers often need more stretching opportunities. You need to find other things for them to do to keep them occupied, keep them performing well at their core role, but don't just take them out of their core role. 'Cause what we often do is we assume that somebody who's technically a high performer is ready for promotion to being the team leader. We've talked about that many times about the, the danger there. But the risk that you have is you still want them to do their core role. So you get that balance But I think your point is as good a one. Yes, there are things you can do to manage high performers. Retain them, reward them, stroke their egos, you know, give them challenge, all that sort of stuff. But actually, you wanna try and turn that middle group in the canoe into those high performers. So, in terms of doing that, James, what are some of the best things that you found to get that middle group paddling faster?

James 21:54

the first thing, right, is don't be blind to your own opinion. Just because you think somebody's a high performer doesn't necessarily mean they're a high performer, right? One man's meat is

Jimmy 22:04

Yeah

James 22:04

poison. So I think really be

Jimmy 22:06

Yes

James 22:07

clear that, yeah, your own judgment is probably flawed on this. So I'd just start with that. I think the next question is really, well, how do you get people to play to their strengths? Yeah, and we've talked about this,

Jimmy 22:19

Yeah

James 22:19

But if somebody's really good at something, give them the opportunity to do that and develop at that because then they will do better and better and better, right?

Jimmy 22:27

And obviously we've got to have a quick plug for the episode that we did on playing to your strengths with Patricia some time ago, but go back and have a listen to that

James 22:35

There's also this thing about providing opportunities. Well, yeah, you should provide opportunities for your high performers, but you should also provide opportunities for everybody. Yeah. Because everybody can stretch, everybody can do things. So really it's about how do you develop your entire team rather than just focus on your high performers. And then the other thing, you know, just say thank you and recognize people's performance because that in its own right will get more out of people. And then the final thing which I will bang on about forever is just if somebody's not a high performer, find out what's stopping them and create the environment where they can be. So for example, for me, I would never be a great salesman. I'm not good at blowing my own trumpet, right?

Jimmy 23:17

No

James 23:18

Don't put me in a bloody sales role. It's very straightforward. Yeah. So it's about finding out what the blockers are and creating that environment where people can do their best work

Jimmy 23:29

Well, I think on that last point, James, I, I strongly believe that everyone has the potential in them to be,, a high performer at something. It is just

James 23:40

the something

Jimmy 23:41

whether they find the something, and does the system allow them to do that? And so as a, as a manager, I think you've got to be getting to know your team, try and find their something, and if you find their something, is the system enabling them to achieve that? 'Cause we-- 'cause we've all got potential, just, it's just we haven't all had the opportunities to realise that potential. When we talk about s- high performers, yeah, everyone says they want high performers, but as we keep coming back to, it's very subjective

James 24:15

Not everybody can have the high performance by definition So go on then, summarise that for me. Where does that take us, right?

Jimmy 24:23

Everyone says they want high performers and they want a team of high performers and an organization worth of high performers. But A, would they know a high performer if they saw them? B, it's really subjective. What is a high performer? We'll all have a different view of high performers. And in-- I think

James 24:42

let me

Jimmy 24:42

in talk--

James 24:43

And C,

Jimmy 24:44

Yeah, go on

James 24:45

if you are reliant on high performers for your per- business to perform, you've got a very unstable business

Jimmy 24:53

You have. And I think in discussing it, we came to the conclusion is that you don't want a team of high performers, you want a high-performing team, which is a completely different thing. And we did a fantastic couple of episodes with Alana Freedman. So we will put the links to those episodes in the show notes. Check those out.

James 25:14

Another point is the minute you start talking about your high performers, also dooming people to be low performers, which by definition they will be because it's a self-fulfilling So is that really helping you?

Jimmy 25:27

Yeah, and you wanna avoid the entitlement that high performers sometimes build up and then disenfranchising your theoretically lower performers, 'cause that's never gonna get you the best overall outcomes

James 25:41

So do you know where this takes us?

Jimmy 25:44

Where's it take us, James?

James 25:45

system, mate, not the people. on that note, I think I'm gonna declare victory and go

Jimmy 25:51

If that's what-- You wanna play the game, James? If that makes you feel like you're a high performer today, you do that. All right. Thanks everyone

Speaker 2 26:01

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast,

Speaker 3 26:03

from purpose to corporate jargon,

Speaker 2 26:06

but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well.

Speaker 3 26:09

Easier said than done. So if you've got unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck,

Speaker 2 26:19

if your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiraling, and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver,

Speaker 3 26:28

we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organisation's, get in touch at jimmy@ajobdonewell.com or james@ajobdonewell.com.