The Performance Bias: Why Your Team Is Not Improving

When raising the bar actually lowers it

Everyone loves high performers — hot shots who deliver exceptional work on a regular basis are unique.

However, there’s a problem I frequently observe when facilitating team offsite and workshops. Our obsession with top performers can backfire — managers quest for having perfect employees hinders performance rather than improve how people work. Not only it generates a divide that ostracizes low performers, but blind us — we believe top performers are perfect.

Categorizing people by performance has its benefits. However, the performance bias can create more harm than good.

Managers miss to realize that top performers have problems of their own; they are anything but perfect. Also, the performance of a team can’t depend solely on a bunch of exceptional people — improving the collective performance, not individual ones, is a more effective way to go.

The performance bias can limit your company’s potential. Dividing people into great and bad could be hurting, rather than improving, the overal…