Greetings, fellow hiring managers! If you've ever found yourself in a talent strategy meeting, you're likely familiar with the whirlwind of buzzwords that get tossed around. But have you ever heard of "The Bannister Effect"? If not, strap in, because this concept is about to revolutionise your approach to team building.
Our story begins with Roger Bannister, the first athlete to break the 4-minute mile, a feat previously considered impossible. He achieved this in 1954, running 1,600 metres in 3:59.4. The fascinating part? Once Bannister broke the record, it was only weeks before another athlete, John Landy, beat Bannister's record by more than a second. Since then, countless athletes have run a sub-4-minute mile.
The "Bannister Effect" refers to the mental shift that occurs when a significant barrier is broken, demonstrating to others that what was once thought to be unachievable is, in fact, possible. It's all about changing the way we think about challenges. Now, you might be wondering, "How does this help me build a high-performing team?" Well, let's dive into that.
Applying the Bannister Effect to your hiring strategy can help you improve productivity in your team. The process involves understanding your team's current performance, identifying the performance standards you need, and then hiring only those with the skill set that are above and beyond the benchmarks you need. Clear metrics or benchmarks are the secret to success here. Over time, this approach will improve the overall team productivity. Essentially your aim is to make every new hire a Robert Bannister, and this in turn encourages some of your team to become John Landys and lift their performance once what was originally thought to be difficult to achieve is proven to be possible.
Identify your top performers: Start by identifying your best people. What do they do differently? What hard and soft skills do they exhibit? What tangible measures to they achieve. These top performers will give you an idea of the performance standards and metrics you're looking for.
Let's look at an example where we helped a client with a large accounts payable team to improve their productivity by changing their hiring approach. Our client required more productivity per person in the accounts payable team. We were able to map this to a key metric of correctly processed invoices per person per day. We noticed that only 17% of the team were meeting that productivity metric. We considered the group in the 17% as our base line for performance.
We benchmarked things like their data entry speeds and accuracy, their process design, and their interruption rate. Once we understood the baseline of a productive team member in this team, we put together a hiring programme. Every time the client needed to make a new hire, we made sure we provided them with talent who were able to perform above these important benchmarks and metrics.
Over a period of two years, as natural attrition occurred and staff in the low or average performer categories moved on to other roles, we purposely replaced them with new hires who were better performers. Three things occurred by the end of the two-year period.
The organisation experienced improved output for less headcount. But it's important to note that this isn't a perfect process. About 3% of the existing team resented the higher performance of the new staff. Interestingly, they belonged to the group with the lower levels of productivity and over time they left the business, leaving us with the opportunity to hire a replacement who would deliver more output for the same salary.
By applying the Bannister Effect to your hiring strategy, you can not only improve the productivity of your team but also create an environment that fosters growth, innovation, and excellence. So, why not give it a try? After all, most of the barriers that exist are the ones we create for ourselves.
Can our talent strategy team help you improve productivity and performance? Get in contact today.
Connect with our team on 07 3211 7719 or email talent@kingtstonumancapital.com.au