Spot your top performers

Did you know that a top performer can be 400% more productive than an average performer?

Excuse me while I clean up the mess from my brain exploding with this jaw dropping stat!

What was I saying? Oh yes, a top performer can be someone you can rely on way more to drive performance and close team attainment gaps than your average performers.

The challenge?

Knowing how to recognize top performers.

And also, how to attract and keep them.

Recognizing top performers

Top performers have some common characteristics…they:

• Appreciate clarity over ambiguity 
• Seek to be challenged
• Focus on achieving mastery rather than outcomes
• Are self directed

Clarity over ambiguity

One of the things that separates top performers from the rest is their insatiable hunger for clarity.

They aren’t afraid to ask for help.

They aren’t content to guess when, how or why things should be done and seek out the information they need to proceed confidently.

They’re also the ones who seek out direction on what to prioritize so they’re not getting distracted by low impact tasks.

Seek to be challenged

Top performers are people who are going to look for ways to get better because they grow bored of monotony. 

These are typically the kinds of professionals who drive their own initiatives, deliver excellent work, and look for ways to drive a greater impact for themselves, the team, and you as the manager.

Mastery over outcomes

Top performers are people who are constantly working towards their full potential.

They want to excel in their roles, not just do the bare minimum.

They also look for ways to challenge the status quo in productive ways to drive efficiency and effectiveness improvements.

And, these are folks who compete against themselves. For them, personal records are meant to be broken.

Self directed

The best way to spot self-directing behavior is to look at what people are doing outside of their 1:1s, team meetings and mandatory sales enablement meetings.

Are people seeking out mentors on their own?

Are they performing their own research on how to improve their approaches?

Do they look for opportunities to stretch their abilities?

If yes, then you might have top performer material on your team.

Wrapping up

The first step to getting top performers onboard is to know how to identify them. By looking for the behaviors and attributes listed above, you’ll be able to more aptly discern top performers from average ones.

Are there any attributes you’d add to this list?