Performance = Potential – Interference.

Sometimes. for example in sportspeople, which is where this formula comes from, the interference is internal.

In business, it’s usually external, because a company is stuck in one of these behaviours:

• Impulsive – as it sounds, there’s no plan, only opportunism and firefighting. Nobody brings their potential to play.
• Dependent – there’s a hierarchy. Why bother bringing your potential when the boss knows everything anyway (or thinks he does)?
• Independent – showing and being rewarded for your potential becimes a competition. The business does better, but only some people shine.

The winning formula for a business is to be

• Interdependent – people come together behind a shared vision, values and believe they are truly successful together. The winning formula.

So far, so good. The question is how to become interdependent?

First you need to re-design your reward mechanisms. Why bring my full potential when I’m not rewarded for that? When I might be out on my ear at any moment?

Individual bonuses are what leads to the Independence trap and internal competition. Much better to find a way to pay everyone by results, perhaps as a team, rather than as individuals, maybe even the whole business. With an equitable share in the rewards, people will bring their potential to the whole process of transformation and beyond.

Then start by defining, with your whole team, the shared vision and values – what you are here to do for the people you serve, and how you go about doing it. What I call your unique, long-term Promise of Value.

Next, define the Roles that people in your organisation will play, around what they do to deliver on that Promise for a customer.

Next, you design and describe the context within which those Roles operate. What happens when, with hints as to style, leaving plenty of room for interpretation and enhancement. Plenty of room to exercise potential. If your company was an orchestra of interdependent musicians, this would be your Score.

You get people to practise the Score, individually and together, until they know it by heart, can play each other’s Roles and can riff on it when necessary, in response to the unexpected, or to a particular audience.

Then you let them play.

Performance = Potential – Interference.

And Discipline makes Daring possible.

Ask me how.

Thanks to BBC Sounds for the inspiration and information.