What is it to be a High-Performer?: High-Performance Defined

So the purpose of this blog is to define high performance. The focus is to define high performance and what it is to an individual .

The individual is the high performing element,  and the collection of high performing individuals then turns into a high performing organization.

And you hear so much buzz around the concept, the references to being high performance. Whether it be athletics and sports,  you hear it also in academics and in the corporate world where executives, c-suites, entrepreneurship are constantly being measured and analyzed as the height of their performance in consistency and outcome.

What is it to be a high-performer? 

I feel it's significantly important to have a definition of it as a concrete set of skills or a concrete set of actions, cascading into a defined set of individual characteristics. The definition by which actually allows us to set goals and nurture skill acquisitions intently directed towards becoming as high performing as we are able.

So let's take a quick step backwards before we take a giant leap forward.

As a young man at the age of 12, I was first subject to a selective environments within sport. I played a selective based team sport, and eventfully I did this professionally. From the age of 12 and around development programs and selective programs and selective academic programs supporting my sport all the way through to my early twenties. At that point, I then moved into coaching becoming a coach of a skill-based sport as I developed my own skills as a strength & Conditioning coach. 

Fast forward 25 years, and I've had a tremendous career, one transitioning from a  high performance strength coach of high performance athletes, through to high-performing executive and now performance coach.

Interesting enough, during that entire time, I never really thought too much about what high performance was. It sounded fantastic, It looked amazing on a business card or company profile. But really it wasn't until I started transitioning more and more into my corporate life within the last 10 years that I've really begun to correlate what it's like to be a high performer - whether that be athlete or sports person into being a high performance business leader, entrepreneur, executive.

To me,  they are really one and the same because it comes down to your actions and it comes down to your personal characteristics.

As I started to look at high-performance through a definitive lense, working through different coaching models, and being exposed to different environments, I started to define exactly what are those actions of a high performer? And indeed, what are the most common characteristics of a high performing person? 

These are the actions I've seen it on the sports field, and again off the sports field. I've seen it in preparation for events. I've seen it In the weight room, I've seen it in the boardroom, I've seen it in one-on-one interactions in high stress environments. And hope to see these mirrored in my own interacts each and every day.

And the six actions of high performance for me personally are as follows, insert and discuss each one from there in association to those six actions of a high performer.

The six actions of a high performer, I think embody not just individuals, but also organizations. I coach on this with my clients moving through a career change, or stepping into entrepreneurship for the first time. When looking into joining or creating a culture of behavior's, these six points are key identifiers to be aware of.  Actions because actions speak louder than words. They speak volumes about intentions and focus which frame the outcomes of the objectives moving forward in the future.

It's very important to look at the six actions, when accessing yourself and your ambitions. although potential is not static, to truly reach your highest potential  I do then feel you have to look and analyze the individual characteristics of the High-Performer.

These are the ten  most common individual traits of High-Performing I've observed personally from various coaching and selective environments. These are particularly the traits I coach and implement through my three pillar high performance model. These 10 characteristics most closely align to the six actions of high performance.

As I coach the skill acquisitions of each individual that I work with to embody and exude the six actions of a high performer - the break down of the individual trait forms a focused micro goal which has direct progressions to the executable and associated actions.

Through the skill acquisitions of the 10 personalized characteristics of a high performer, success and goal acquisition has been acquired. More than that, the continued success and consistency of success has endured in a correlation to my clients self-esteem and self-confidence. 

Now we a have definition to work from the next question is - what High-Performing Actions and Characteristics do you have now, and which ones do you NEED?

Lets look at your actions first

 Your in Performance

Rich Daly