Lisa Woods penned a really great article on managing the people who are the atypical and hard to manage high-performing and uncommon individuals.

She starts her article with:

“The High Maintenance/High Value Employee.  They earn that name because they require a full fledged management program to reach their peak performance, coupled with an extensive maintenance program to keep them functioning there.  It sounds like a lot of work and it is, but when it comes down to results, if you want your business to stand out above the rest, these are the people that will help get you there, make your business more competitive and create a notable reputation in your industry.”

For me, this gets at a lot of issues and opportunities and, as someone who has found it hard to work in most workplaces, I resonated with a lot of what she has to say. I’ve now been running my business since 1984 and I am glad that I am not working at the Post Office or in some bureaucratic / administrative job somewhere…

Here are the 8 traits that identify these High Maintenance / High Value people:

1. They are NOT great team players. They would prefer to do their own thing and make their own rules.
2. They don’t care much for company policy. They know their own value and can’t be bothered by structure.
3. They don’t like a lot of attention and public praise, for others or themselves.
4. They are there to work, bring value and move on.  Office cheers and high fives appear very superficial to them.
5. They are very willing to help others if asked, but do not follow up and maintain a working dialog with the individuals they’ve helped.  It is more of a on-off relationship.
6. They typically create outstanding relationships with their customers, clients, suppliers etc.
7. They have a reputation for getting away with things, going rogue, without recourse, because people are afraid of their emotional, sometimes angry, reaction.
8. They show signs of greatness & creativity, but it is inconsistent, mostly occurring when a problem is brought to them, or when they went on one of their rogue adventures.
9. They probably have notations in their performance reviews that indicate large swings of ‘outstanding’ to ‘needs improvement’.  At some point they may have been considered for termination because of it.

Yep. I can sure identify with that list. And I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with some of those people over the years. You can probably guess, after reading Lisa’s article that she can also identify with that framework in some way.

Lisa also shares ideas as to how to support these people to optimize their continued engagement and high performance. Innovation and improvement will come from the edges of organizations and these people are often on the edge.

You can read her whole blog here – Caring For The High Maintenance/High Value Employee

Written by Lisa Woods, President ManagingAmericans.com

Lisa is a successful entrepreneur, world-class marketing strategist, and dynamic business leader with more than 20 years experience leading, managing and driving growth. Throughout her career, Lisa has been influential in integration techniques, organizational and cultural overhauls, financial turnarounds and developing employees into exceptional leaders, results driven managers and passionate team contributors.

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Hope that you found the article of interest,

For the FUN (and benefit) of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant. 
Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

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