Exemplary Performance

Jaime Torchiana Featured in Authority Magazine

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:36:00 GMT

In this interview with authority Magazine, Rachel Kline interviews Exemplary Performance President Jaime Torchiana , where they dive deep into the 5 essential elements for creating a successful employee onboarding experience.

As President of Exemplary Performance, Jaime helps client organizations drive business results by benchmarking their star performers and architecting high-performance systems that replicates their results.

Read the full article here on medium!

Improving Forecasting Accuracy

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:38:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: Auto Manufacturing
Employees: 12,000
Outcome: Improved profit margins

Organizational Challenge:

The rising costs associated with the manufacturing and distribution of automotive component parts, coupled with shrinking profit margins, was threatening our client’s ability to execute on their strategy to be the most reliable, just-in-time, error-free component supplier to North American auto assembly plants.

To remain competitive, they sought to:

Validate the hypothesis that increased forecasting accuracy would reduce the need for overtime
Decrease the variance in sales forecasting accuracy (a gap of 30-50%+)
Reduce the significant overtime exhibited in ten of their twelve plants

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profiles (REPs) for the Plant Manager and Account Manager
Performance Support Resources

Client Impact:

Improved profit margins due to:

Improved forecasting accuracy (within 7% of target)
Optimized workforce planning (reduced overtime by 40%)
Reduced variance in sales quota attainment
Reduced variance in unit costs across multiple plants

Defining Customer Success Excellence

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:04:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: High-tech software/electronic agreement company
Employees: 7,500
Outcome: Increased performance and less variance in how key customer success roles were performed, leading to increased customer satisfaction, retention, and expansion

Organizational Challenge:

To assist with their transition from customer support generalists to product specialists , this #1 cloud agreement and electronic signature company sought to define “what great looks like” in their key customer success roles. Doing so, they felt, would enhance their ability to attract, retain, and grow top talent in a highly competitive and lucrative marketplace. As a company who invests heavily in their people managers, it was important to not only gain their advocacy for a novel approach to performance and coaching, but also accelerate their already strong performance.

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profiles (REPs ) for Technical Customer Success Managers and Technical Support Engineers
Assets to support the new standard of excellence for each role, including: Job Descriptions, Interview Guides, Coaching Guides, and Action Plans
Recommendations for an onboarding curriculum and “repeatable practices” job aids
Manager Workshops – to equip managers to coach and hold the team accountable to the new standards
Individual and Team Diagnostics & Workshops – explored how to unleash higher levels of individual performance and self-awareness, and improve team communication and collaboration
Individual Leadership Coaching Sessions

Client Impact:

Increased dashboard metrics including:
Maintaining/Exceeding Service Level Agreement targets, including:
First response rate to resolution 80%+
All cases managed to resolution
High quality and clear customer communications
Number and quality of detailed information contained in bug reports
Customer-satisfaction metrics (via both formal surveys and unsolicited feedback)
Increased levels of engagement, job satisfaction, teamwork, knowledge-sharing, and intention to stay with the organization

Moving at the Speed of Business – Defining training excellence in support of dynamic business needs

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:58:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: Biopharmaceuticals (rare & rheumatic disease)
Employees: 1900
Outcome: Standardized job roles and defined career progression

Organizational Challenge:

Despite a heavy investment in defining capabilities, re-structuring to reduce span of control ratios, and engaging with various vendors for external benchmarking, this Fortune 100 “fastest growing company” sought to create standards of excellence as a strategy for their Commercial Training & Development team. Defining “what great looks like” across their training job family, and standardizing tools and templates that proved successful, would allow this team to keep pace with the dynamic needs of the various business units and continue to deliver the same level of excellence stakeholders had come to expect.

To consistently deliver excellence, they sought to:

Define and standardize roles and titles
Align role standards to job descriptions, hiring guides, performance management assets, and action plans to ensure they attract, retain, and invest in the best talent
Equip sales training leaders with the tools to support in-role development and prepare for role advancement
Pivot from tenure-based promotions to career pathing based upon influence, impact, and value
added to the organization

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profiles (REPs) for key Commercial Training & Development roles: Sales Training
Manager, Senior Sales Training Manager, Associate Director, Director, Senior Director, and Executive
Director
Assets to support the new standard of excellence for each role, including: Job Descriptions,
Interview Guides, Coaching Guides, and Action Plans
Career Pathing Roadmap

Client Impact:

Increased levels of engagement, job satisfaction, teamwork, and intention to stay
with the organization
Higher levels of productivity by reducing redundant activities of multiple roles
Increased satisfaction with leadership
A more consistent, repeatable approach to serving multiple business units

LTEN Focus on Training Magazine Feature

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:38:00 GMT

Exemplary Performance’s Jaime Torchiana Featured in LTEN Focus on Training Magazine

In this article , featured in LTEN’s Focus on Training magazine, we challenge five assumptions that are trapping your organization’s hidden potential.

[Webinar] Career Path Design for Optimal Performance

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:21:00 GMT

Just as the Ides of March was a turning point in Roman history, the information presented in this webinar (originally aired March 15, 2023) can be a turning point in your people development approach: one that shifts away from the fad of defining a role’s knowledge, skills, and competencies to one that emphasizes performance-based career design. In this webinar, Improving Performance at Work interviews Jaime Torchiana and showcases two different case studies that reinforce how proper analysis can solve your performance problems, how to employ this methodology when thinking through career paths, and how clients that use performance analysis have benefited from this approach.

[Webinar] The High-Performance Paradox

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 01:53:00 GMT

What do successful executives and elite athletes have in common? They both strive for sustained high performance. Unfortunately, we know that a drive to achieve isn’t enough to ensure consistent high-level performance.

Organizational Psychologists, Business Consultants, and Sports Scientists have long sought to identify what contributes to, or hinders, peak performance. The problem with most theories to date is that they focused on an individual’s motivation, discipline, and technical skills without thinking about environment, systems, preferences, or the importance of feedback.

To take a closer look at this conundrum, Exemplary Performance and Metta Endurance have come together to explore The Performance Paradox: Why sub-optimal performances happen to great performers and how to stack the odds in your favor.

View the webinar slides here: The High-Performance Paradox Slideshow

View the PDF here: The High-Performance Paradox Insight Guide

Director of Technical Customer Success at DocuSign describes first-hand what it’s like to work with Exemplary Performance

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 15:06:00 GMT

To supplement their ongoing business transformation, DocuSign engaged Exemplary Performance to define excellence in two critical roles: the Technical Support Engineer , and the Technical Customer Success Manager .

The partnership aimed to help these roles navigate from e-sign generalists to product specialists, accelerate the performance of all employees through strong Managers, and attract, retain, and grow top talent in a highly competitive industry.

Listen as Joe Mulkern, Director of Technical Customer Success at DocuSign describes first-hand what it’s like to work with Exemplary Performance to solve complex business problems and share a passion for improved performance.

Redesigning Pharmaceutical Sales Training

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 13:43:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: Pharmaceuticals
Employees: 60,000
Outcome: Sales Transformation

Organizational Challenge:

The pharmaceutical industry has faced unprecedented change in recent years, including, but not limited to:

Changes to the payer environment that restrict a physician’s ability to prescribe prescriptions they deem most beneficial
Increased competition from lower-cost, generic alternatives to branded medicines
Increased administrative burden and patient load, making it difficult for physicians to spend time with representatives or attend drug information and education sessions
Increased regulations shaping the nature of prescriber-representative relationships and how information can be promoted and shared
The number of products in the market for a given therapeutic area, making it challenging for representatives to differentiate themselves and their products

These challenges made it increasingly difficult for Sales Representatives to engage in meaningful dialogue with their customers on a regular basis.

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profile (REP) for Primary Care Sales Representative
Learning and Performance Framework
Shift in training delivery model (from 70% onsite/30% virtual to 30% onsite/70% virtual)
Electronic Field Coaching Form for Managers
Core, Advanced, and Specialist Sales Training Curricula

Client Impact:

4-6 months reduction in time to proficiency for new sales representatives
68% increase in time spent on job-relevant skills and topics during onboarding
New Advanced and Specialist Sales Training Curricula were created to upskill tenured representatives
Managers were equipped to coach to the new standard of excellence
$750,000 of annual cost savings were realized by reducing the logistical investments associated with in-person training
New training modalities resulted in enhanced work-life rhythm for new hires as they repurposed travel time for learning

Improving Refinery Production through Performance Support

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 13:32:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: Auto Manufacturing
Employees: 12,000
Outcome: Improved profit margins

Organizational Challenge:

Control Room Operators perform a variety of tasks from the control room of an oil refinery, including:

Monitoring processes through electronic representations shown on monitors, dials, and lighted displays
Making adjustments to variables in response to the data, balancing production and safety expectations
Communicating with other departments to ensure protocols are followed, and
Taking appropriate actions in case of irregularities or emergencies

This particular client noted that their top performer far outproduced his peers, while staying within the expected safety ranges. They sought to:

Narrow the variance in performance by raising production rates across all shifts, more in line with those of their top performer
Increase production, revenue, and profit, and
Achieve these goals without compromising safety standards

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profile (REP) for Control Room Operator
Performance Support (Job Aids detailing processes, leading gauge indicators, and data-driven adjustments)

Client Impact:

In fewer than 2 weeks performing the job with performance support, this refinery exceed their goals and increased production by $250,000 per day.

Improving Forecasting Accuracy in Automotive Manufacturing

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 12:08:00 GMT

Project Summary:

Industry: Auto Manufacturing

Employees: 12,000
Outcome: Improved profit margins

Organizational Challenge:

To remain competitive, they sought to:

Validate the hypothesis that increased forecasting accuracy would reduce the need for overtime
Decrease the variance in sales forecasting accuracy (a gap of 30-50%+)
Reduce the significant overtime exhibited in ten of their twelve plants

Performance-Based Solution Components:

Role Excellence Profiles (REPs) for the Plant Manager and Account Manager
Performance Support Resources

Client Impact:

Improved profit margins due to:

Improved forecasting accuracy (within 7% of target)
Optimized workforce planning (reduced overtime by 40%)
Reduced variance in sales quota attainment
Reduced variance in unit costs across multiple plants

Hiring and on-boarding

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:47:00 GMT

High performing managers see hiring AND successfully on-boarding new hires as one of the most critical things they do to add value to the organization. We did extensive case-based analysis of high performing leaders in a large, high tech company and identified six key accomplishments that were critical to their success.

“Qualified new employees, with shortened time-to-competence” was the third key accomplishment we identified that clearly drove greater business results for our client. ( Click here to read the first two.) We found total alignment of all components of the Exemplary Performance System (EPS) were extremely necessary to produce this accomplishment. Let’s look at our model:

Capacity and Job Fit: Clearly new hires need to have the capability to succeed in role. The talent acquisition process needs to clearly determine that a candidate has the requisite talent.
Motivation and Preferences: The talent acquisition process also needs to ascertain that a candidate has an inclination or motivation to perform the type of work required by the role.
Skills and Knowledge: A structured system needs to be in place to measure the new hire’s current skill level and provide role-specific training to close any gaps.
Expectations and Feedback: Role expectations need to be accomplishment-based; not simply behaviorally based. New hires need to know what they must produce, not simply what tasks they need to perform.
Rewards, Recognition and Consequences: These sub-systems need to align with results, not just activity.
Environments, Systems and Resources: The culture, work processes and so forth need to provide direct support to the new hire, enabling that individual to succeed without struggling to identify and obtain the right resources and tools.
The Exemplary Performance System

How can you tell if a manager is a ‘star’ in this facet of the manager role? Here are three excellence indicators that can help you judge the manager’s ability in this arena:

Managers solicit positive anecdotal feedback from the new direct report’s peers.
E-mail escalations on issues involving the new direct report do not occur.
Managers do not make hiring concessions simply to meet headcount commitments.

Here are some key activities/tasks that great managers did to ensure quality hires:

Task 1: Selected and worked with the interviewing team to establish the interview protocol and questions.
Task 2: Arranged for new employee set-up.
Task 3: Assigned a peer mentor to new direct report and monitor progress.
Task 4: Conducted introductory meetings with new direct report.
Task 5: Worked with new direct report to develop an initial set of commitments.
Task 6: Created a custom on-boarding program based on assessment of new hire’s skills and knowledge.

Ultimately the goal for the overall hiring and on-boarding process should be to enable new hires to be as successful as they intended to be the day they were hired . In a perfectly architected high performance management system, all of the subsystems would be perfectly aligned, allowing every new hire to support organizational success while succeeding in their new role. Reach out to us at: info@exemplaryperformance.com . We can help as you architect a high performance management approach for your team, department or enterprise in 2017. We’ve been doing this for decades.

Architecting a Management System

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:45:00 GMT

Recently Exemplary Performance (EP) studied high performers from a pool of over 12,000 managers in a major high technology company. We helped this company identify the managers whose teams consistently produced exemplary results. EP then interviewed these managers to capture how they were able to generate and sustain high performance. Based on these interviews, we produced a Profile of Management Excellence (PoME) which included the key accomplishments, excellence indicators, critical tasks and other data*.

The PoME data served as the design specifications, allowing us to architect a management performance system that had measurable impact on key metrics such as revenue, cost of sales, employee retention, employee engagement and customer satisfaction.

The managers that we interviewed crossed all functional areas of the company – sales, product development, procurement, legal, and so forth. EP was able to identify six major accomplishments that these high performing managers produced to drive greater business results. These accomplishments were:

Accurate and appropriate measurement and tracking of individual and team performance.
A team performance system where direct reports are supported in doing their best work.
Qualified new employees with shortened time-to-competence.
Consistent progress of direct reports toward career aspirations and development plans.
Well-developed and highly competent direct reports and team.
Group and team operational direction, excellence, and continuity.

Let’s look at the first accomplishment. The high performing managers in this company demonstrated that it was critical to accurately and appropriately measure and track individual and team performance. They used the following Excellence Indicators to judge how well they were doing:

Over time, the manager’s internal employee satisfaction results improved or remained at high levels.
Direct reports demonstrated consistent growth in compensation and were given appropriate promotions.
Reviews resulted in a fair and objective assessments for each direct report.
Yearly goals for each direct report aligned to organization and corporate priorities and included stretch goals.

Here are some of the Key Tasks that the high performing managers used to produce that first accomplishment:

Review and analyze employee survey results, management feedback, and ad hoc survey/scores to develop an appropriate team action plan.
Guide direct reports through discussions to define annual commitments.
Manage underperforming direct reports to ensure business results are not compromised.
Discuss group performance and health in regular team meetings.

Given the data captured in the profile, EP then worked with the client to systematically architect several components of the overall management performance system such as hiring (job descriptions and hiring guides), skills and knowledge (on-boarding, performance support and continuous up-skilling), recognition and rewards (compensation, circle of management excellence, etc.) and leadership (precision coaching tools). All system components were architected and aligned to mutually support the results defined in the Profile of Management Excellence.

This is an example of one major accomplishment that high performing managers in this company had in common. EP will focus on the other five accomplishments in the upcoming months.

Meanwhile, as you look at your management practices, make sure your leaders have established and are implementing a system for tracking their team’s performance. Reach out to EP to help as you architect a high performance management approach for your team, department or enterprise. info@exemplaryperformance.com.

The War for talent

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:43:00 GMT

Bet you thought ‘talent’ equals ‘high performance’. Whoops! That’s a flawed assumption…but you’re not alone in such thinking.

When we encounter true talent – the musical prodigy, the athletic wunderkind, the business genius – we are awed. How do they do it? We think to ourselves, “If only I had been born with those gifts, I would be a star too.”

We all labor under the assumption that there is a defined and limited supply of talent (innate ability) and that only a few individuals have what it takes to become true stars in their professions. While this assumption may hold some validity for Olympic-level athletes and top tier entertainers, the flaws of applying such a broad assumption to the workplace are easy to identify.

For example, most of us still buy into the assumption that our success (the organization’s and our own) is wholly dependent on how many high performing stars we are able to hire and retain. We search frantically for these extraordinary individuals (we even call this search the ‘war for talent’) and then rely on this limited number of star performers to drive the success of the entire team.

How about stepping back from this assumption long enough to test EP’s researched alternative. Let’s test the assumption that an organization’s talent curve does not predetermine its performance curve. In other words, our experience across multiple clients in disparate industries shows that it is possible to replicate the results of your stars without replicating their innate talent and ability.

Geoff Colvin, in his book entitled Talent is Overrated (Geoff Colvin, New York: Portfolio, 2008)) makes the following points based on his synthesis of years of research:

Talent [innate ability] does NOT account for the variance in performance seen in music, athletics, or business
Intelligence and memory do NOT account for it either
The single largest contributor to exemplary performance is deliberate practice.

Perhaps you’re saying, “Timeout! Are you telling me that I can succeed in my business with people who are not talented?” Not at all. What I’m saying is this: the exceptional results that are consistently produced by your exemplary performers are not dependent on talent alone! Talent explains some of the results by these high performing individuals, but it is not the whole story. Let’s fill in the significant gaps in the old talent-centric narrative and create a new narrative that leads to a much higher portion of the workforce producing exceptional results.

What happens when your team is short-staffed?

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 15:42:00 GMT

Managers, what happens when your team is short-staffed?

Recently Exemplary Performance (EP) studied high performers from a pool of over 12,000 managers in a major high technology company. We helped this company identify the managers whose teams consistently produced exemplary results. EP then interviewed these managers to capture how they were able to generate and sustain high performance. Based on these interviews, we produced a Profile of Management Excellence (PoME) which included key accomplishments, excellence indicators, critical tasks and other data*.

This article focuses on the final Major Accomplishment that enabled this company to architect a management performance system.

Major Accomplishment 6: Group and team operational direction, excellence, and continuity.

Success Criteria:

All planning and commitment setting aligns with the organization’s vision.
Managers effectively balance short-term requirements for the group with long-term strategies.
Team meets its fiscal year commitments each year.
Team performance continues uninterrupted when the team is short-staffed.
Managers meet or exceed planned commitments (such as budget, business, and succession) as set by leadership.

The list of Success Criteria not only makes sense to you as a manager, but documenting this as part of their management performance system is quite another challenge. Let’s look specifically at the third Success Criteria: Team performance continues uninterrupted when the team is short-staffed. This was possible because of the following Tasks in their management architecture.

Tasks:
1. Communicate the vision/mission to the team as it relates to the team’s organizational purpose and expected results.
2. Build and maintain a management talent pipeline.
3. Advocate for and secure open headcount to satisfy resource requirements.
4. Create an execution/operations document that translates strategy into actions.
5. Prioritize and assign work to direct reports that support the execution/operations document.
6. Develop team preparedness to assume responsibilities of other team members in the event of an absence.
7. Negotiate for and allocate resources in support of business and organizational objectives.

Reach out to us at: info@exemplaryperformance.com . We can help as you architect a high performance management approach for your team, whether your team is as large as the one we recently worked with or much smaller. The principles and process are the same. EP has been successfully supporting high performing teams throughout our history!

*To read more about this process, get a copy of Exemplary Performance – Driving Business Results by Benchmarking Your Star Performers by Dr. Paul H. Elliott and Dr. Al Folsom.