Summary: Thrive: The Leader’s Guide to Building a High-Performance Culture by Andrew Freedman and Paul Elliott

• Thrive is a timely, science-backed leadership playbook for building workplace cultures where both employees and businesses thrive.
• Pick up this book if you’re a leader aiming to attract top talent, spur innovation and maintain competitive edge by fostering a high-engagement culture.

Recommendation

Consultant Andrew Freedman’s bestseller offers a useful overview of organizational leadership, change and innovation. Writing with fellow consultant Paul Elliott, Freedman explains how to help your company increase engagement, motivation and productivity. The book’s “Exemplary Performance System” delves into six corporate areas or “subsystems”: Improving the culture in your workplace, providing useful feedback, offering equitable rewards, making sure each person is a good fit for his or her job, upgrading skills and motivating your employees. The authors also cover managing change – which may well be necessary to accomplish these sweeping goals.

Take-Aways

• Work through six crucial areas to enhance motivation and engagement: culture, feedback, rewards, job fit, upgraded skills and motivation.
• 1. Improving the culture – “Environments, systems and resources” must work together to drive successful change.
• 2. Providing feedback – Give “Constructive, Reinforcing, Essential and Developmental” (CRED) feedback.
• 3. Offering rewards – Your reward program should be equitable.
• 4. Making sure people are a good fit for their jobs – Thriving organizations enable their people to thrive.
• 5. Upgrading skills – Learn what top employees do to succeed and then teach others.
• 6. Motivating employees – Create an atmosphere of trust, community and stability.
• Explain changes thoroughly and involve your people in the process.

Summary

Work through six crucial areas to enhance motivation and engagement: culture, feedback, rewards, job fit, upgraded skills and motivation.

People want to thrive and engage with their work, but companies often create barriers to employees’ fulfillment and sense of purpose. Among the 70% of US employees identified as disengaged, more than half are “sleepwalkers” who don’t commit to their organization’s goals, while 15% are “saboteurs” who actively work against their company’s mission. In contrast, engaged employees put their energy into their jobs and their companies.

“True engagement begins with a focus on the critical elements and influences of high performance…a clear definition of success is one of those elements.”

Many leaders lack the skill to construct an engaging, high-performance culture. They may believe they know what to do, but they haven’t done the research to make sure their ideas will work. Managers often follow their “gut” rather than science. Instead, you can use the “Exemplary Performance System” (EPS) to help you take specific, tested steps to boost your employees’ engagement and performance. This system works through six “subsystems.” This is how they work:

1. Improving the culture – “Environments, systems and resources” must work together to drive successful change.

As you set goals, develop the right metrics to assess your results. To define what every person in every role should do to meet these targets, visualize the process they should take to satisfy each objective and define the outcome you hope to achieve. Set understandable goals, reward exceptional work, and provide objective and measurable performance feedback.

Unfocused leadership creates pressure and angst. To avoid having that effect on people, work in reverse by first determining your firm’s goals and then addressing each employee’s role in achieving them.

“Imagine a world where your employees can’t wait to get to work every day. They are inspired, fired up by the mission and vision of the company, challenged and energized by their role, and supported by an aligned leadership team….This world doesn’t need to exist only in your imagination; we know it can be your reality.”

If a change is underway, explain it to your staff members, so they can engage in the process and understand their roles. Writing a mission statement doesn’t magically make change happen. Executing constructive change requires improving people’s work environment, upgrading their technology, and giving them proper access to tools and information. Set clear expectations so everyone and every team share the same goals. To avoid redundancies, focus each project’s activities on how your end user will benefit.

2. Providing feedback – Give “Constructive, Reinforcing, Essential and Developmental” (CRED) feedback.

When giving feedback, follow the “CRED system”: offer information that is “Constructive, Reinforcing, Essential and Developmental.” Constructive feedback helps you avoid backlash from employees who feel uninformed, and it reinforces what the company expects from each person. Feedback keeps people on the right course and sets goals and expectations. “Developmental feedback” calls for asking employees what they need from you to help them meet the company’s goals.

Employees don’t want feedback only when they mess up; they want to know what they’re doing right, how it matters and how you value them.

“Greatness results from knowing what you want to accomplish, setting incremental goals for improvement, looking for opportunities to practice, getting feedback and making progress.”

Don’t wait for yearly reviews to have one-on-one talks with your employees, and make your one-on-one meetings constructive. Prepare before you talk to each employee and be sure to follow up. Going through the motions of a performance review is a waste of time, so try to create authentic conversations instead by holding frequent one-on-one talks with your team members. A quick weekly meeting benefits everyone. Share information that aligns with your company’s plans and values. Avoid spreading mixed messages.

Actively listen to your employees and go into detail about what they’ve been working on since your last meeting. Explain how they can take advantage of internal resources, training and programs to improve their performance and prospects. With each individual, share information about any appropriate internal opportunities.

3. Offering rewards – Your reward program should be equitable.

Some companies may reward only employees who bring in new clients without recognizing those who maintain existing, positive client relationships. To encourage a happy workforce, keep your reward programs fair and balanced.

“Recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, coaching, performance management, and career mobility can have a significant impact on your organization’s top and bottom-line business results.”

Remember that monetary compensation is not the only reward you can offer a high-performing employee. Never feel you have to reward someone, even a top performer, who is toxic to the work environment. And, to preserve a collaborative team environment, never make employees compete against one another for rewards.

4. Making sure people are a good fit for their jobs – Thriving organizations enable their people to thrive.

Human resource (HR) departments have become corporate centers for finding, training and keeping the best employees. Experts in HR know that even new hires with great potential won’t necessarily thrive in every culture. From your first interaction with a job candidate, prioritize cultural fit. An unclear job description wastes time and money, so keep the open position’s specific functions and critical goals in mind. Determine the skills and attitudes required for each position and consider each candidate’s ability to fulfill those needs. Remain aware that the person you hire must be able to work in alignment with the organization’s needs.

“When individual contributors, line managers, and directors…see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, the magic of high performance is enabled.”

To make sure their resumes survive any initial electronic screening and draw the right kind of HR attention, potential employees are likely to add particular buzzwords to their resumes to garner more views or responses. However, hiring officers must thoroughly research top candidates. To understand whether a candidate is suitable for a job, ask specific, open-ended questions that relate to that position’s functions. You’re looking for a potential employee — or an internal candidate for promotion – who has a vision for the job that aligns with the company’s strategic needs.

Hire talented and well-qualified people and keep them on track with training, support and resources. When you interview potential new employees, share your concerns and make sure their passion fits your company’s mission. Extend this openness to current employees when you train and prepare them for leadership roles. Pair them with mentors who can guide them, especially when they assume new duties.

Create a culture that welcomes new employees. Shelter them from stress, as much as possible, and provide solid backing and incentives. As you try to promote from within, be aware that not every good performer is cut out for management. When you elevate people into roles that don’t suit their skills or approach, their performance will wane, and their teams will struggle.

5. Upgrading skills – Learn what top employees do to succeed and then teach others.

Even companies that consciously work to retain top people seldom teach their employees how to succeed. Often, the best people get stretched thin because everyone calls on their expertise. Interview your top employees, determine what value they produce, what makes work fruitful for them, how they handle their responsibilities and what influences shape them. Determine how to translate that knowledge so that you can teach it to others.

“For an organization and its employees to thrive, there must be alignment of the three individual influences: capacity and job fit, skills and knowledge, and motivation and preferences.”

When you’re hiring for an elevated position, prioritize internal candidates. If you select an outsider, tell your internal candidates how they might develop their skills for a better shot at the next opening. To develop and improve, employees need specific “structured, on-the-job learning” (SOJL). They also need mentors who can provide feedback and steer them to growth opportunities.

Observing how your top performers operate may reveal flaws in your overall system. Top employees don’t follow quotas; they try to meet or surpass them. To help staff members improve their performance, make sure they understand your firm’s priorities and how to execute them.

6. Motivating employees – Create an atmosphere of trust, community and stability.

Creating a culture of trust is one of the best motivators, and a lack of trust creates demotivation. Build trust by meeting regularly with staff members, sending specific thank-you messages, offering regular updates and having zero tolerance for employees who thwart the company’s mission. Teach employees how the company operates so that they can see beyond their particular area.

“When an organization operates in complete synchronicity, it can be compared to the most masterful ballet production.”

To create a motivating sense of community and stability, focus on your company’s “Ritual, Routine and Rhythm.” For rituals, hold internal ceremonial events to promote corporate values. To create a routine, list specific tasks by priority. Your rhythm is the “operating cadence” you establish with regular weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings.

If someone decides to leave, your other employees will watch to see how you and the company react. If you treat a departing employee with respect, your current workers may be more willing to work out their differences with your firm.

Explain changes thoroughly and involve your people in the process.

When your company is going through a significant change, explain to your employees what is underway and involve them. Share the vision behind the change and the process of bringing it to fruition. Include managers in the process of making decisions.

Make sure everyone understands what the change is, what isn’t changing and why, and how the change will affect his or her role. Hold regular meetings to discuss executing such changes as different compensation packages or work practices. Rearrange work systems as necessary to assist the people the change affects and support anyone who needs help during the transition.

“When leaders say they agree with the strategy but still spend time, energy, effort, and probably money…working on other things that don’t directly connect to the main strategies, they work against a system and culture of high engagement and performance.”

As a leader, represent the change you wish to see because you will be accountable for the results. If you want things to be different – if you are ready to commit to elevating performance and business results in a sustainable way – you must take ownership of the change you hope to achieve.

Many workers are hesitant to deal with change, so making corporate change and harvesting the results takes time. Collaborate with your employees and make them a part of the process. Consider the new technological needs that change might provoke and whether you need to reallocate resources or staff.

To check in with your employees, use the “15five” method: Have employees spend 15 minutes with a manager reflecting on how things are going. Then, have the manager take five minutes to respond.

Talk with your employees to make sure everyone is on the same page. Help them understand why a change is happening, so they can develop the right mindset to accept it. Employees may resist a change because they fear losing jobs they like or facing an increased workload, so reassure them about the impact. To keep workers’ resistance from undermining your results, be clear and honest when explaining what changes are underway.

To help your team become more resilient and able to pivot when changes occur, embrace the “25 Reasons Why” method. Have people write their objectives for the coming year and then list 25 reasons why they will achieve those goals.

About the Authors

Andrew Freedman is the managing partner of SHIFT Consulting and an affiliate faculty member at the University of Baltimore. Paul Elliott, PhD is president and chief performance architect of Exemplary Performance, LLC. See www.thrive.shifttheworld.com for more information.

Genres

Business, Leadership, Management, Organizational culture, Organizational behavior, Human resources, Psychology

Review

Thrive offers a practical roadmap for business leaders seeking to foster a thriving workplace culture centered around psychological safety, inclusion, and employee empowerment. Drawing from organizational research and real-world case studies, authors Andrew Freedman and Paul Elliott make the compelling case that a positive workplace culture seeds business success.

The authors first establish the foundational pillars of thriving company cultures, emphasizing purpose and values alignment, distributed decision making, and policies that promote work-life balance. Freedman and Elliott then outline evidence-backed strategies to reinforce these pillars by establishing psychologically safe environments, promoting candid two-way feedback loops, and driving a shared inspirational vision that empowers employees at all levels to contribute, collaborate and innovate.

While acknowledging the challenges of transforming entrenched company conventions, Thrive makes the win-win benefits for employees, leaders and bottom lines exceedingly clear. The book concludes with tactical resources to assess current workplace culture and track progress towards a thriving, high-performance paradigm.