Inside of every high performing business there’s a high-performing owner.
For you to get the most out of this article I need to tell you something: Ryan and I have been posting about the Fitness Business Alignment System™ and the role it can play in your building a high-performing business.
This post is about the other key ingredient in the formula for a high performing business – a high performing YOU.
The distinction is critical, and you’ll see why by the end of the post.
The 7 Signs of a High Performer
#1: They meet their commitments.
On anything from making good on payments to giving their word, they recognize the importance of a commitment. If life gets in the way, like it does for all of us, a high performer owns failures and works to make them right. One of our Core Values is “We do what we say we’re going to do”. We want to instill in our team that maintaining commitments is non-negotiable. It’s no accident that high performers are known for their dependability.
#2: They are open to criticism.
They usually aren’t the person who has a reason ‘why’ for everything; they’re usually the person who has an example of how they made a mistake and how they’ve learned from it. Learning from mistakes and accepting feedback is one of the biggest factors that separates high performers from the rest.
#3: They are life-long learners.
Down to their core. It never shuts off with them. They may not even realize how much they are absorbing from everything that’s going on around them – but they do recognize the importance of always learning.
#4: They are up to the challenge.
If you put a high performer among peers, they are going to respond by upping their game. They become more focused, more diligent, and more responsive.
#5: They recognize all aspects of their health.
This does NOT mean that they are always at peak levels. I would actually say that the key lies more in them being able to effectively manage themselves at less-than-optimal levels, and minimizing the effects of being less than optimal.
#6: They respect the needs of the business.
They don’t let a weakness of theirs become a neglected area of the business. High performers know that it has to be done, and they make sure that it is.
#7: They make all of their decisions with the long and short term in mind.
It doesn’t mean they are always right – it means they are always working to align the short term with the long term. Another way of saying this is that high performers can see the detail without losing sight (or alignment) with the big picture.
You’ll notice that all of these signs of high performer are behavioral. There’s nothing on this list that one person may be born with that another is not. There’s no mention of IQ, appearance, SAT score, or any type of benchmark or score. They are all things that we can do. If we don’t “do” these things naturally, they are behaviors that we can cultivate through the forming of good habits.
You have control over all of the things that define a high performer.
High performance can mean different things to different people, but the constant for everyone is that it’s driven by how you think and act. (You might also note the contrast in the high-performer and the ‘at-risk’ owner from a recent post.) The most important lesson that I’ve learned from surrounding myself with high performers isn’t a metric, number, checklist or strategy but learning how high performers think and act.
The high-performing YOU is built on the foundation of how you think and act.
A high-performing business has to be built on a foundation of certain functional pieces, and those pieces have to be measured. That’s not the case when we’re talking about the high-performing YOU. The high-performing YOU is built on the foundation of how you think and act.
The tools are there. What we can’t do is make your mind up for you. You have to do that in order to build your high-performing self and your own high-performing business.