How can you find out what outcomes your top performers focus on? The first, and perhaps most obvious, approach is to ask them. Interviewing is a key technique and is usually the starting point for our discovery process.
Top performer interviews differ from other common interviews we usually conduct. For most of us, our interviewing experience is mostly based on interviewing candidates for a position to select the best candidate. In that case, we are attempting to determine whether someone is qualified and, if so, which of the candidates is most qualified.
When interviewing top performers, we are trying to learn what they already know. That requires developing a great deal of rapport and trust during the interview so the performers will open up and frankly discuss how they think about their work.
The most common technique we use is called a framing session. We call it that because we are trying to frame up in our minds the broad outlines of the job through the eyes of the top performer. We commonly ask this person to walk us through a day (or shift or week or month or whatever other time frame makes sense) in his or her life.
As top performers discuss their perspectives on that day, we probe for answers to the following questions:
- What did they do (tasks)?
- What did they produce as a result of those tasks (outcomes)?
- Why did they do a particular task (stimulus)?
- How did they know when they were done with a thing (success criteria)?
- What either helps or hinders them (facilitators or barriers)?
- Who did they collaborate with (team)?
At this early stage, we aren’t focused on getting every detail of every outcome. We just want to get a rough outline of the work so we can identify places to drill into later.
Questions to ponder:
- How would you describe your job in terms of the bullet points above? Could you?