All these experiences taught me a lot about being an employee and convinced me that “meet expectations” was the worst place to be.

You see, in the real world, these two categories of employees mostly don’t exist:

• Great colleagues who work hard and deliver great work
• Shitty colleagues who are lazy and deliver shitty work

I wish things are so black and white. In reality, most employees fall inside the “meet expectation”/”middle of the pack” pile. Most of us are not the best, not the worst, mostly okay, and never perfect. As a result, one of the most numbing management tasks is to decide whom to promote or fire from this massive blob of sameness.

When I had to lay off people, I had to pick from folks that never had a poor rating. The decisions were haphazard and fraught with personal relationships. I was crippled by a deep sense of wrong and suffocating guilt.

As for an employee, being in “middle of the pack/meet expectation” is a crappy position to be in. When I was fired, I never had a poor rating. Yet because I was just another one of the many, my performance and career prospects were decided by methods that were no better than a draw from a hat. I was crippled by a deep sense of injustice and suffocating shame.

I want to propose a few categories to break up the messy middle. These categories are less quantitative but more descriptive and nuanced:

1. Who are your colleagues who are great to work with, energetic, positive, but only do ok/adequate work? These are the employees who always put their hands up in town halls, who you want to hang out with at the bar during offsites, but aren’t your super stars when in comes to results.
2. Who are your colleagues who are role models of hard work but show uneven judgement and need a lot of hand holding? They work really really hard, but don’t want to / know how to evolve, and their stubbornness often lead to unsatisfactory decisions.
3. Who are your colleagues who are exceptionally gifted and high performing but are complainers/pessimists? Folks that your customers love, your employees relate to, and folks you wish you know how to quit them.

From experience, in order to make better people decisions, you can line these employee categories up against the goals, the values, and the culture you are nurturing in your teams.

Do you desperately need results because you need to raise another round of funds?
Are you at a stage where you must deliver a great product?
Or is your team at a size where clear and consistent culture and values is needed to pull everyone together?

Or create movements.

Here are 3 things you can do to herd cats and lead change:

1. Give it a name

Cheesy as this might sound, but giving the initiative a name make it much easier for people to refer to, relate to, to share, etc. “Project Beanbag” is far easy to refer to than “that secret project, you know, that one?”

2. Tell everyone about it, talk about it, over and over

The key here is make sure you rehearse and finesse your pitch. Listen to presidential candidates, or authors on book tours. They are very good at succinctly making their pitches. Even comedians are good examples to learn from. They are particularly good at delivering the same jokes DIFFERENTLY every night.

Reward it, often, out loud, publicly, precisely

This is the most important. You must reward behaviours that support the initiatives in order to maintain the momentum. This is particularly hard because the difficulties lie not within the act of rewarding, but in accurately identifying the right behaviours.

“How a group of people behave?”

“A feeling you use to make hiring decisions?”

I spent almost 15 years at Nike and Apple, two brands where we drank Kool-Aids, instead of beer, on Friday afternoons. The most valuable thing from all the kool-aid drinking? 

Culture needs to be “lead-able,” practical, measurable, for it to be scalable. 

I know. It’s glib. It’s easier said than done. So I want to present a definition of culture that best represents what I have witnessed at Apple and Nike:

“A culture is the unique combination of processes and priorities within an organization.” Clayton M. Christensen.

If you aren’t sure how to understand your culture, or build your company’s culture, think:

– Does my team know what our priorities are?
– Does my team know what are the communication and execution processes to achieve our priorities?

Start here. It will get you somewhere beyond the touchy feely part of culture.

As a Bruce Lee worshiper, I use his teachings to approach my work life.

1st, Bruce Lee on “correct posture:”

Correct posture 1 = To be “mechanically favorable for the next move:”

What does “favourable” mean in the people, systems, and processes of my business?

How agile are they?

Which of those can I afford to lose?

Correct posture 2 = Maintains a “poker body” that reveals no more of its intended movements:

Do my actions distract?

Am I showing more than what’s needed in a sales pitch?

Am I probing too much when I meet someone new?

Am I under-sharing when trying to poach a superstar?

Correct posture 3 = Create tension most favorable to quick reaction and high coordination:

What combo of metrics (e.g. sales per hour + NPS?) empower us to choose quicker AND better?

How long does it take us to argue ferociously and effectively?

Are we uncomfortable enough?

aka,.

What are the 2 frameworks
1. Connecting the j̶a̶r̶g̶o̶n̶s̶ dots:
* 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 sells the 𝗪𝗛𝗬
* 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 is the 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧
* 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 defines the 𝗛𝗢𝗪

⁣　Double-click⁣
⁣　Leadership is convincing the teams that they will be led to realize a meaningful vision. Leadership is helping people translate the company’s vision into their individual purposes. It is articulating “why we ought to do what we do.”⁣
⁣
⁣　Management is turning the vision into goals and tangible definitions of progress. It figures out the who, the processes, and the resources. Management makes it possible for people to spend their energy reaching these goals together. ⁣
⁣
⁣　Culture defines the norms- expected behaviours around how goals should be accomplished. It defines what is allowed, celebrated, and punished. Culture is the standards of quantity, quality, and speed. ⁣

2. Punchy 3-liners
⁣　𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 are 𝗪𝗛𝗬 he does it
⁣　𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 are 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 he uses to do it 
⁣　𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 are 𝗛𝗢𝗪 he does it

Ok. How?
⁣　Try these at home.