two cheap ways to keep your top performers
Top performers often leave to join top-performing orgs because they’re bored of feeling like LeBron on the JV team. They join your high-performing org and are initially thrilled by the drink-from-the-fire-hydrant feeling of constant explosive growth surrounded by a team of other A Team’ers. But then, as they continue to become a top performer within your organization, too, they notice the feeling of the slowing rate of their own growth. How do you keep them? Here are two relatively cheap moves that can keep your best people with you and enrich your relationship with them for however much time they will be with you.
Let people know that you think of them as a uniquely high-performer on the team. “I recognize that, and I set you apart.” This alone can have a significant effect on their commitment. Everyone wants to feel seen and, perhaps even more, to feel seen for the thing that is special or distinctive about them.
Have a dream career conversation, at least once a year, maybe as often as once a quarter.
It’s good to do this in an unusually nice, intimate space that’s not a typical meeting room at the office. You want the location to signal that it’s a different kind of conversation for a special, different kind of person. This meeting is distinct from what we normally do.
In the conversation, ask your all-star to describe their future with as much excitement and detail as they can. “Tell me your resume from pre-school to now, focusing on big decisions. When you get to present day, imagine yourself 10 years from now. You come home and had an amazing day. What did that day contain? What are you looking for between now and then?” Note heuristics for them that feel revelatory to them. Tell them you’re invested in what they’ve said and in helping bring it to life.
Key messages on this theme:
In my eyes, you have set yourself apart with your hard work.
I’m uniquely invested in what you might want to do — not just to keep you here, but because I value high-performers getting to do more, bigger things that they’re passionate about.
I’m invested in helping you get wherever you want to go.
Once we’re clear on what that is, my first question will be “Can I create that for you here on our team?” And if the answer is “no” I’ll be just as invested in helping you do that somewhere else.
Therefore, if ever you’re considering this work inopportune for you, I want to be one of the first people you tell that to.
If you’re looking other places, I want you to feel you can do that through me, not around.
And I hope, given what I’ve said, you feel comfortable saying that to me.
-Ben
