3 Steps to Creating a High Performance Culture

2018 is right around the corner. Have you put your ideas and plans into action to ensure that your team is performing and exceeding the board expectations at your school or college? What shift would you like to see? I have 3 steps that can help you decide. Initially, you need to spend time thinking about what you specifically do not like about your culture? Are the behaviors and habits costing you performance issues? If they are, you need to think about how you might change them.

Second, you need to decide what one thing you want to achieve that will produce the most impact and who will become your first follower in the new initiative. You could be well on your way to achieving higher performance, better customer service, improved morale, increased net revenue with just a few slight changes. Performance issues and culture need to come from the top, from the senior leadership team. If you aren't modeling the behaviors that you want to see in the whole team then you might not ever see them in your culture. Getting results has to come at the right pace, and at the right time, while strengthening relationships and building trust and credibility. That is why the beginning of the new year is perfect for change.

This might be one person or one team at a time. Can you think of a team that works for you that is under performing? Do you know why? Or a team that works for you that is over performing? Do you know why? What characteristics of the over performing team might transfer to the under performers? What are the total gains to the change? How is this affecting your reputation with your families, and what is the culture really costing you? What would a shift mean in enrollment? Ten more students, or twenty, or maybe even thirty. I have seen some schools increase their enrollment by fifty. What would this do to your bottomline; especially if you factor in retention? Or fundraising, how might a change in culture affect your fundraising strategic initiatives? Happy employees are productive employees, and productive employees increase YOUR bottomline. Now, is the time to develop a plan.

And last, you need to communicate to the group the need for change and consider bringing in a facilitator to manage the transition. It will be best if this doesn't look like your idea, alone. Managing a team through a culture change can be tricky. You will need to avoid political land mines and still move the day to day work through the pipeline without losing uninterested employees with talent. There will always be uninterested employees but it is your job to ensure that they are gainfully motivated to land with their ego intact in the new paradigm; especially if they have talent. You can develop a framework to engage the team with a team engagement assessment or by developing an executive team dashboard which delienates your expectations and designs the new path for success. Which one might work with your team? Go to www.AdmissionNetwork.org to schedule your team assessment. Can you afford to continue without a high performing team?