The business dictionary defines performance as “accomplishment of a given task measured against preset standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed”.

 

The opposite of high is low. In between we have ordinary. In order to measure high performance, we need to calibrate where we are and where we aspire to get to. If we commit to our aspiration, we need to chart a course to that end with landmarks along the way…

 

At the Cape Leadership Centre, we specialise in the calibration, the inspiration and the destination; in short, we enable high performance.

 

Recently we were approached by the only African Business School in the Financial Times Global Top 100 to enable high performance syndicate teams using a process of our design, during their pre programme induction. The UCT GSB has signalled their commitment to excellence by climbing from 89th in 2010 to 60th in 2011 and they are continually looking to improve the MBA student experience.

 

We embarked on an initial dialogue with the GSB MBA programme managers to fully understand what the recent issues have been and more importantly what high performance would look and feel like. Armed with this information we discussed a timeframe within which to facilitate the process and then set about designing a series of sessions for the Full and Part Timers such that after 2 weeks their team’s performance could no longer be described as ordinary…

 

In essence, the process began with a classic team building weekend where all 24 teams from both MBA programmes were cooperating, competing and integrating throughout. There was a practical, experiential theme with an emphasis on constant reflection in order to calibrate and learn for improvement. The next session was back at the GSB where a compressed version of the weekend was installed at the Waterfront and teams were encouraged to apply their lessons learned to this adrenaline adventure in order to taste high performance as a team.

 

From there, we split the classes for the next sessions with the Part Timers being invited to design and produce a magazine in an afternoon and the Full Timers to create a video per team in the same sort of time frame several days later. The ‘finale’ was a sports event attended by the Full Time Class only; 6 stations pitted the teams against one another in the shadow of the amazing Cape Town Stadium!

 

Inspiration was everywhere to be seen at every session; personal victories and team breakthroughs have been recorded in the magazine, the videos and in other interviews. The teams experienced accelerated integration through common goals and shared adversity. The landmarks included the establishment of agreed team values, the completion of team projects and the creation of a team vision for 2011/12. Destination “High Performance” had been reached and the MBA syndicate teams are now well prepared for the challenges ahead.

 

High performance is enabled through experiential inspiration. If someone asks you what high performance looks and feels like, refer them to any current MBA student at the UCT GSB – they’ll tell you ?