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August 2007 Replicating Internal Experts This newsletter will provide you with a light read, on easy to use initiatives designed to immediately increase your teams' performance & culture. This Edition: Replication, by driving internal expertise in your business Knowledge sharing what it means to you What is a high performance culture, how to create one Next Edition: Knowledge sharing continued High performance cultures continued Retaining your best "How?" In our last edition we talked about identifying who your best people are, giving practical tips for retaining them in your business. We talked about what motivates these people to perform. This edition will talk more about identifying specific high performance behaviours these people carry out that differ from other team members.  High Performing Teams Should you want to have the highest performing team in the country in your industry then researching into the areas we describe in this newsletter would be a great place to start. Recognise Road-map Replicate If you don't have interactive on-line knowledge sharing, start to think about what it would take to create this. Replicating by Driving Internal Expertise Identifying exactly what a person does, that has them be the best, is crucial. This is the case if you want to teach team members how to perform at the same level, or to hire new staff that either have the same qualities or are able to learn them quickly. Often we think of people that are exceptional at what they do as being 'gifted', or the right 'personality' for the job. You know these people are doing something different to the rest of the troops, but when you get into the specifics of what they do on a regular basis that makes them the best, you need to break their behaviour down into smaller replicable activities that are not just attributed to that type of personality.  These smaller replicable activities are what make them the best, most organisations have no idea what they are, and its these that are the crucial triggers for your success. For example in a Financial Services environment lenders who are at the top have specific questions they ask to get a product signed off in the first meeting, they seldom have to wait for a client. Once you know the specific behaviours that enable your people to be the best, you can then share this knowledge across the rest of your team, enabling them to replicate the same behaviours, thus bringing all your staff up to the same high standard and creating a high performing team. All this can be done by identifying and replicating the unique internal expertise that already exists within your business (more on how to extract these behaviours and activities below). One of the essential factors here is that the expertise you are identifying and replicating is unique to your business and unique to your team. Your internal experts know the sales, production, compliance or customer service process better than anyone else. What most organisations have done in the past is overlook this. One of our large financial services clients spent over a million dollars on a generic program that set out a process of 'how' to sell. The problem with the program was that the selling process was based on another country and had nothing to do with what their best people were doing in their own unique business, to sell more of their own unique products. When we helped them identify what their own top performers were doing, it was vastly different but much more effective than the failed, expensive sales process they'd bought few people had used. So identifying this uniqueness in your top performers is the key to being able to replicate what they're doing and what they do that is so different to everyone else, resulting in them consistently out performing others in the same role. To recap driving your internal expertise throughout your business: 1. Select who the top performers are using a formal, evidence based unbiased process 2.Identify what they're doing so well that is different to everyone else, you will need help to understand  how to do this 3. Educate the rest of the team in these key behaviours via a culture and performance change program Having a formal process for recognising who the top performers are and then mapping what's important about what they are doing cognitively and behaviourally is the most effective, consistent and reliable way to replicate expertise. Using this process for mapping expertise, HPS found that the best 'Lenders' position, present, speak and ask questions in a way other Lenders do not. Plus we found that the style of questioning used is crucial in establishing the right type of client relationship guaranteeing the sale. We use our process with extraordinary success in many different vertical industries where there are gaps between high performers and developers. Having a human performance process enables your organisation to get the specific and crucial information unique to your internal roles, making it easier to share knowledge with other team members in the areas that count. Imagine having your whole team performing at the same level as your top performer? Knowledge Sharing Once the specific process and behaviours of the experts have been mapped, an official model of this role can be created, detailing areas, that enable the role to be performed at the highest level. This knowledge is then shared across the business and used to educate other, new and existing team members and with recruitment so new team members possess the same skills. In many cases in our current market, with a shortage of labour supply, new candidates may not be a 100% fit, so a formal development plan based on the human performance work can be laid out for the new team member from day one. We will cover Knowledge Sharing in more detail in our next edition.... There will be more detail on High Performance Cultures in our next edition but here are a few points HPS have found to be consistent in High Performance Cultures: They have effective ways of sharing and transferring knowledge There is much more autonomy within teams Communication flows freely in all directions The team members themselves are instrumental in developing and implementing projects of what is working and what isn't working within the organisation The heads of business know each individual's strengths and weaknesses In the world of business and results the faster you can identify what your top performers do different, and share this knowledge with your other team members, the higher performance and profit you will make. Note - You are on our communication list because we value your organisation and the work you do. You will know others who might benefit from this information, feel free to forward this on where you see benefit. If you are not currently a client we look forward to working with you. Contact us at www.BehaviourChange.com.au |  |
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