OCTOBER 2020
17
Performance by design
Mary Blake, General Manager of Citrus Group shares her experience in building high performing service teams.
Over the course of my career, I’ve built many high performing teams. When I am asked how, I am very clear that it is by design, not luck that this has occurred.
securing Australian talent who were engaged in their Brand, growing and nurturing talent into other areas of the business and increasing their conversion.
Designing high performance and a self-effacing culture is difficult. There is a saying, a fish rots from the head down. Leadership, or lack there of coupled with unclear direction and a lack of complementary skills is the root cause of a team’s demise. I prefer the saying, a fish smiles from the head down – and this is how I have built high performing teams and our team at Citrus Group have assisted our Clients to do the same, by designing the environment, the values alignment and the competencies support and drive a culture of high performance.
This “dream” has been their reality of the last five years. I hear you ask, did they turn this around? It was achieved through a redesign of their process, in short – we made the fish SMILE! Firstly, we helped them uncover the values of the organisation and the key stakeholders. As you then build your recruitment framework, teams are built based on complementary skill sets and values alignment to the Brand and the business. It is important to map the key competencies of behavior that drives a high performing culture and determine how to validate and draw them out in your recruitment process.
Five years ago, we were engaged with a well-known Global Aggregation Brand who had been in the Australian Marketplace for 12 months. Their incumbent recruitment provider had been giving them some good people. Their turnover was at 200%, they churned and burned their leads and were told that this was industry acceptable!
Secondly, we worked with their leadership to incorporate the vision and the purpose of the business into the recruitment journey and onboarding process.
This was not acceptable to us and a conversation ensued of how they dreamed of shifting turnover,
Finally we supported the adoption of a leadership philosophy that included trust, empowerment, and adaptability.
These three intertwined principles supported the success in recruiting people aligned to the values and vision. By bringing a group of people together who have trust, feel empowered to do their job and are adaptable – they can move mountains and change the world. Singularly, it is like a fish swimming upstream, they will never make it. Over the past five years of partnership with our Client, they have seen phenomenal year on year growth. The trajectory of the business surpasses their performance results. They are known for being an Employer of Choice, they have won multiple awards and have some of the highest tenured staff in the industry. We have had the privilege of watching them grow, of continuously deep diving and tweaking the process to watch them shine. It is heartwarming to see staff that were hired as an Agent, grow, learn and develop into a leader who are selecting, training or leading the next generation coming through. Ask yourself, is your team performing at its highest function. Does your business SMILE from the head down? Mary Blake General Manager Citrus Group
