Before I sit down to write an FOT post I generally take a look at recent news stories, think about random things I’m upset about or take a look at the blogs that I frequent to spark an idea. This week I had to look no further than our own FOT blog and last weeks post Do You Have the Organizational Guts to Cut Average by R.J. Morris. I happen to believe that it take more guts to accept that most people and organizations are in fact average (hence the term average) and that we should re-think how we view top peformance.
1. The notion of a high performance organizaion is largely a myth. Let’s be honest here – most organizations are pretty average but you’re not likley to hear any of them say “we only recruit B players” or “we expect average performance from all of our employees.” They can’t because it wouldn’t be a good recruiting tool and I’m sure it wouldn’t make customers and shareholders feel too good. But it’s statistically impossible for every organization to be above average yet we perpetuate this myth. I think it’s unfair to pin this problem soley on employees which is what we often do. But average peformance is the truth for a variety of reasons – the talent available in a particular geographic location, individual skill and motivation, manager abilities, company culture, the company’s product and politics. Average Joe may really want to be Above Average Joe but if he works for a company with a poor culture and a crappy manager he’s out of luck.
2. Identifying high performance positions does matter. The smart organization figures out that not all positions and roles are created equal and that there are certain positions where high performance truly is a competitive advantage. This is where they make their investments – in recruiting and hiring top players, in training and development opportunities, and compensating accordingly. This is also where cutting average makes the most sense. If sales happens to be a position (or in R.J.’s example a starting quarterback) that generates a competitive advantage for your organization you’d better be ruthless in evaluating your talent. But if you’ve got an average player in a role that doesn’t drive the performance of your company that may be just fine.
The good news is there are guys like Mark Huselid out in the world thinking about this stuff already but as we all know, making the leap from academic theory to organizational practice isn’t easy. The bottom line is this: we as HR Pros are well positioned to lead this transformation but only if we have the guts to recognize that not all positions are created equal which often goes against the standard HR credo.
