Management – Knowing which employees belong to the group of confident high performers and to the group of insecure high performers will make it easier for you to guide your employees based on their motivation.
There is no such thing as one group of employees being better than others; all it comes down to is what motivates them. When you have the answer to that question, you can guide them differently and help promote results.
In the interviews and test analyses I’ve carried out globally at Trustpilot, I have experienced that our sales department for instance not only consists of different individuals, but that salespeople can be divided into two groups: the confident and insecure high performers.
In my experience, both groups are driven by an inner restlessness and thirst for results. Once they have attained a result, they immediately move on to the next. The two groups, however, need to be guided and coached differently.
The group of insecure high performers needs to be guided towards the kind of high performance that gives them a feeling of being in a good place while also feeding their thirst for more results. In this situation it is important to guide them to set a goal and work towards it. It’s a balance between setting a goal they know is within their reach, while still maintaining their drive.
The group of confident high performers, on the contrary, needs to be guided and coached towards a level of high performance, which ensures that their thirst for results isn’t satisfied, because then they will become too comfortable. The group of insecure high performers shouldn’t satisfy their thirst either, but it’s more important for them to be in a good place. The confident high performers shouldn’t be guided to be in the same state of mind, as they are already in that place thanks to their innate confidence. Too much confidence can make a person rest on their laurels, so they may end up channeling their energy towards goals outside of sales. I have used salespeople as an example, but knowing which group to place your individual employees in is of great importance to their overall performance.
It’s important to be able to guide them individually, guide them to reach further beyond their goals and not get the opposite effect of what is desired: either losing faith in oneself by putting too much pressure on the group of insecure high performers or losing motivation due to too much comfort in case of too little pressure in regards to the group of confident high performers.
If the group of confident high performers is guided as if they were insecure high performers, you risk your employees becoming too complacent – no longer going the extra mile, which is characteristic of their drive and stamina.
Similarly, if the group of insecure high performers is guided as if they were confident, the risk of for example salespeople losing faith in themselves increases and sales may stagnate as a result.
In between the two groups is of course a grey area with employees that can be coached either way. They demand special attention, so they are in a place, where they thrive and deliver their best performance.
Misguided focus from management – and too much or little challenge or restraint – can thus hinder the desired results and may demotivate employees that were once a driving force.
A strong performance nowadays is the combination of collaboration and common responsibility. The management team needs to learn to guide intelligently and differently using insights, and the employees need to collaborate and provide timely and honest feedback in relation to what drives them, so agreements and expectations are continuously harmonized.
A lot of companies, including Trustpilot, are on a journey that involves scaling and expanding geographically as well as in relation to the number of employees. Management is no longer about measuring all employees by the same yardstick and believing that they are driven by the same force. Differentiated management has thus become more important than ever if you wish to maximize diversity and keep up with globalization.
The competitiveness that differentiated management accelerates organizationally is increased simultaneously to talent development being focused on the individual – and that generates growth.
You can read this article in Danish via this Berlingske Business link: https://www.berlingske.dk/opinion/saadan-leder-du-den-sikre-og-den-usikre-paa-samme-tid
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