by Rene Street | Mar 8, 2025 | Blog, Business, Uncategorized
In today’s business landscape, competition is relentless. Disruptions emerge overnight. Customer expectations evolve rapidly. Talent is harder to retain than ever. Yet, some companies consistently outperform their peers, growing faster, attracting top talent, and building unshakable customer loyalty.
What sets these companies apart? An in-depth study was conducted of companies to identify the characteristics of top performers. The findings revealed a critical truth: high-performing companies aren’t just lucky. They operate with a set of core traits that drive sustained success. These organizations don’t merely aim to be “best in class”—they execute a repeatable, scalable, and measurable strategy that fuels their growth.
What are these nine traits, and how can your company embed them into its DNA? Let’s explore them in detail.
A Foundation Built on Purpose and Values
High-performing companies don’t drift. They operate with a clear purpose that drives their strategy, decisions, and culture. Their guiding principles—vision, mission, and core values—aren’t just corporate jargon. They’re actively demonstrated at every level of the organization. What makes them different? Leaders continuously reinforce these principles in communication, hiring, and decision-making. Employees understand how their roles contribute to the company’s broader mission. This alignment creates a culture of accountability, engagement, and trust—three factors that significantly impact performance.
The Employee Experience Advantage
Talent is the fuel that drives a business forward, and high-performing companies treat their employees like their most valuable asset. They don’t just offer jobs; they create environments where employees thrive. These companies invest in professional development, employee well-being, and company culture. They prioritize engagement, conduct regular satisfaction surveys, and actively act on feedback. As a result, their employees become brand ambassadors, delivering superior service, innovating, and staying loyal to the company.
Customer-Centricity as a Growth Engine
For high-performing companies, customer satisfaction isn’t enough—they aim to create customer advocates. They analyze customer journeys, remove friction points, and proactively seek feedback. More importantly, they take action on that feedback, refining their offerings and personalizing experiences to create deep relationships. Data from a global management consulting company shows that fluctuations in a company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) can explain 20-60% of its organic growth. This statistic alone highlights why top companies prioritize customer experience—it directly impacts revenue.
Quality as a Cultural Cornerstone
High performers don’t just meet quality standards—they set them. They integrate quality into every process, ensuring it’s not just a final checkpoint but a guiding principle from the start. This commitment to excellence builds trust and differentiates them from competitors. Apple, for instance, isn’t just known for technology but for meticulous attention to detail. High-performing companies operate with the same mindset—whether it’s in their service delivery, internal processes, or employee training.
The Adaptability Imperative
Disruption is inevitable. The question is: will your company adapt fast enough to stay ahead? High-performing companies don’t resist change; they embrace it. They anticipate market shifts, monitor industry trends, and pivot when necessary. Research has shown that many companies failed during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic—not because they lacked resources, but because they failed to adapt. Meanwhile, organizations that were agile in their strategy and execution thrived.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Top companies leverage data to make strategic decisions and track real-time key performance indicators (KPIs) through dashboard systems that are visually engaging. Through the utilization of AI and other software programs they aggregate information across the enterprise for a holistic view and understanding of how all elements fit together. This ensures leaders have access to clear information and actionable insights. More importantly, they align their data collection with business objectives, avoiding “data for data’s sake.
Ecosystem Intelligence and Collaboration
The best companies don’t just monitor their competitors—they understand the full ecosystem in which they operate. They recognize that value creation often requires collaboration. Whether through strategic partnerships, industry alliances, or supplier relationships, they position themselves at the center of innovation and market shifts.
Operational Excellence Through Simplification
Complexity slows companies down. High performers know this and focus on making operations lean and efficient. Steve Jobs famously said, “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”Top companies take this to heart. They continuously refine workflows, eliminate unnecessary steps, and automate where possible. The result? A more agile, cost-effective, and scalable operation.
The Learning Organization Mindset
Perhaps the most defining trait of high-performing companies is their relentless pursuit of improvement. They don’t assume they have all the answers—they continuously learn, evolve, and refine their strategies. They invest in leadership development, create knowledge-sharing platforms, and encourage experimentation. These organizations view failure as a stepping stone to progress, not a setback. This mindset allows them to stay ahead of industry changes and maintain a competitive edge.
Becoming a High-Performing Organization
If you want to build a company that stands out, start by assessing where you currently stand on these nine traits. Ask yourself:
- Are our purpose and values deeply embedded in everything we do?
- Do we treat employees as our greatest asset?
- Are we truly customer-centric, or do we just say we are?
- Is quality a guiding principle in all areas of our business?
- How adaptable are we to change?
- Do we make decisions based on data or gut instinct?
- Do we understand our industry ecosystem and leverage partnerships?
- Have we eliminated unnecessary complexity in our operations?
- Do we foster a culture of learning and continuous improvement?
Achieving high performance isn’t about making one major change—it’s about consistently refining these areas over time. The question isn’t whether these traits matter. The real question is: How quickly can your organization begin embedding them into its DNA?
About the Author:
Susan Quinn has worked for 30+ years with Fortune 500 to middle market firms across the country developing strategies that spur growth. As CEO of circle S studio, she supports companies in their quest to ‘better their best’ and brings a keen understanding of how to create a winning strategy. Quinn is the author of Does Your Business Show Up or Stand Out?, a leader’s playbook for implementing the nine traits. For more information, please visit www.circlesstudio.com/business-playbook
by Rene Street | Jan 12, 2025 | Blog, Business, Uncategorized
Being present in today’s world is more difficult than it has ever been before. Everyone is constantly bombarded by emails, text messages, social media, news, advertisements, and all the other distractions of the modern world.
A lack of presence, especially in leadership, can often lead to poor communication, a lack of rapport with those around you, and volatility, uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity in the workplace. One of the easiest ways to solve this problem is to understand and change the way you listen to those around you.
Most people don’t focus on or participate in listening in a way that actually makes a difference. Learning to truly listen and engage with whomever you are talking to enables connection, builds trust, and elevates flow across the board. When you strengthen your ability to listen, you become a better communicator. When you level up your ability to hear, you show up as somebody who is more open to feedback and who appreciates the contribution of what others are thinking and feeling.
Upleveling your listening begins first and foremost with understanding what, how, and when you aren’t really listening.
Listening from Obligation
When this happens, there is little to no effort from the listener, either due to various distractions or a lack of caring about what the speaker has to say. Common behaviors when you’re listening at this level are multitasking, such as playing on your phone or scrolling through emails when someone is talking to you, tuning out/daydreaming, and anticipating what you think they are going to say and interjecting words for them. This kind of listening makes it impossible to develop rapport.
This level of listening also includes pretend listening, where you are not paying attention to the speaker, however you still act as though you are listening. The listener’s brain is paying attention to other things, but they are maintaining involvement in the conversation. Think of sitting next to someone very talkative on the plane or talking on the phone with a chatty family member. You aren’t absorbing or understanding the information the speaker is sharing.
Listening from the Inside
This is selective listening or downloading. In this level, you are only listening for what someone else is saying to confirm facts you already believe to be true. You are listening inside of your existing context. You parcel out information that you perceive to be uninteresting, lacking in value, or that doesn’t conform to your biases and preconceived notions. This level of listening is problematic because you only hear what you want to hear. When you listen this way, it’s all too often to brush feedback aside and/or filter it out altogether.
You know you’ve been listening like this when you come out of a conversation and everything you expected to happen happened. This type of listening is all about you. Your purpose in listening is to validate yourself and invalidate another if they disagree with you. There is no freedom and nothing new will be created in this kind of listening.
Listening for New Information
This level of listening is about seeking new information, new data, and new perspectives. It’s listening to learn. However, you are still listening for what’s in it for you. You’re not curious, but listening to gain knowledge or get something out of the listening. You are taking what you already think and building upon it.
At this level you are open to hearing something you haven’t heard before. You have some new data points and information that challenges your assumptions. Perhaps it exposes some new content or new reality to you. Here, you can actually walk away from the conversation with a memory of what was said and how it changed your perception. You leave the conversation thinking new things or in new ways.
Listening with Curiosity and Compassion
In this level of listening you are really connecting to the other person. You’ve got an empathic, emotional connection. This is when you’re listening soul to soul, heart to heart, and seeing the experience through another person’s eyes. You’re not only challenging your own assumptions, but actually considering that the other person’s reality is valid. You get to experience that person’s experience. Most one-on-ones should be done with this empathic, emotional connection. You’re letting go of your agenda and having an open mind and heart, building trust, and deepening your relationship with this person. You’re curious.
This is when you are fully engaged and focused on the speaker’s words and what those words mean to you and to the speaker. Nothing distracts you from the person with whom you are speaking. They have your full and undivided attention and it is clear to them that this is so.
Listening for What’s Possible
This level of listening is generative. You have moved beyond any friction and are completely immersed in flow. Everybody is participating. You both are in service of something bigger than the agenda and listening with an open will. In this level, you aren’t just listening to the person, but acknowledging the future that wants to be created. This is where innovation happens. This is where the collective genius is not just tapped into, but realized.
This is the highest and most meaningful level of listening and is where you want to spend as much time as possible.
Listening at the Highest Level Every Time
We all need diverse opinions and viewpoints. When you listen from the lower levels of listening, which is not really listening at all, you miss out on so much, from critical information and feedback, to a chance to develop rapport with your team, a loved one, or even a total stranger.
The most effective leaders all excel at listening from the highest level. They make people feel valued, respected, and understood. They are also always honing their skills and becoming better listeners. They continually work on opening their mind, heart, and will. It’s a continual process of evolution. They are present and focused on whatever or whomever is in front of them. Meaningfully listening to those around you enables you to elevate yourself as a leader, build trust and rapport, and empower the people you’re listening to. Evolving your leadership and achieving optimal results begins with listening.
About the author:
Margaret Graziano, known as the Evolutionist, is the founder and CEO of KeenAlignment, as well as a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author for her book “Ignite Culture.” She has been recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women Leaders. Magi’s groundbreaking work is driven by her power to uncover and catalyze human potential. Go to www.MargaretGraziano.com for more information.
by Rene Street | Oct 17, 2024 | Business, Uncategorized
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GenAI) are transforming business at an unprecedented pace, offering a variety of advantages that can give your business a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving landscape. They can unlock key insights from your data and elevate your productivity, customer experience, and innovation.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence – Identify patterns and make predictions. AI is the ability of computer systems to simulate human intelligence to perform tasks. It allows businesses to automate processes and improve decision-making with data-driven insights.
Generative AI – Create new and original content. GenAI is a subset of AI that can leverage large data sets to create high-quality content in many forms, like text, images, video, and software code.
Use Cases
- Content Creation – Create a diverse range of content – From sales and marketing briefs, blog posts, and social media updates to IT best practices and workflows, your team can target content across verticals, horizontals, or personas, generating a wide range of content.
- Code Generation – Streamline and customize software development – From natural language code creation to automating routine tasks or documenting best practices, AI can allow developers and IT to focus on more complex challenges.
- Digital Assistance – Elevate your employees’ or customers’ self-service experience with AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots available 24/7. This tool supports many tasks, including onboarding new employees, job training, answering HR questions on demand, and IT helpdesk support. It can also assist in navigating customers through product offerings, answering inquiries, and communicating in a client’s native language.
- Digital Twins – Gain valuable insights by creating a digital replica of a segment of a product or process for testing, analytics, or predictive analytics. – It can be used for simulations to analyze business processes, predict efficiency, and aid in the development of large-scale products or projects, such as bridges, buildings, mechanical jet turbines, aircraft, and automobiles, before a physical model is created.
- Computer Vision – Automate the analysis of image data captured from video and still cameras to address workloads, such as quality control, security and safety, and medical image analysis. It can be used for route guidance and traffic monitoring, detecting overheating equipment, identifying anomalies in X-ray and MRI scans, and ensuring only authorized personnel enter a secure facility.
- Design and data creation – Use AI and synthetic data to model and test for new insights in scenarios where there is insufficient data, a need to maintain data integrity, or a desire to uphold privacy standards. – It can be used by cybersecurity teams to generate data sets for training and testing their systems against cyberattacks. It also helps maintain privacy for medical research, which often relies on synthetic data. Dell AI PCs with Intel® Core™ Ultra processor delivers the next generation of hybrid architecture for supercharged computing with a battery that lasts. Latitude has been fueling transformation for our customers for the past thirty years and these new PCs will help lead your industry in the AI era.
With the introduction of Intel® Core™ Ultra processors with Intel vPro® and the new integrated multi-processor package with central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU), a day in the life of a hybrid worker will be more productive, secure and collaborative.
But what benefits will this new hybrid architecture bring? It will bring:
- Energy efficiency: Combining the benefits of the NPU to offload capabilities like auto-framing, background blur and eye-tracking with the power efficiency of Intel Core Ultra processors, gives workers up to 38% more battery life and valuable working time in a day packed with Zoom calls.
- Inclusive collaboration: Imagine being able to talk real-time with someone who speaks a different language without any network dependency or delay. This future is here with applications like Omnibridge, which leverage on-device AI capabilities to deliver new collaboration features such as live English to American Sign Language translation.
- Seamless content creation: By distributing AI processing across the CPU, GPU and now NPU – users can enjoy up to more than 3X faster AI-enhanced features with Cyberlink and almost twice1.5X better photo editing performance with Adobe Lightroom.
- Faster security and threat detection: Dell has built the industry’s most secure commercial PCs with hardware and firmware features built to combat modern cyberattacks. This has just become better with CrowdStrike running security threat detection on the device, utilizing less than 1% CPU usage for a more seamless device experience.
These advancements in AI capabilities will give your workforce the leg up on competition and represent the largest architectural shift in PCs within 40 years. It will support more than 100 optimized AI apps and more than 300 AI-optimized experiences powering the next wave of commercial use cases from collaboration tools and personal assistance to strengthened security.
by Rene Street | Aug 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Being present in today’s world is more difficult than it has ever been before. Everyone is constantly bombarded by emails, text messages, social media, news, advertisements, and all the other distractions of the modern world.
A lack of presence, especially in leadership, can often lead to poor communication, a lack of rapport with those around you, and volatility, uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity in the workplace. One of the easiest ways to solve this problem is to understand and change the way you listen to those around you.
Most people don’t focus on or participate in listening in a way that actually makes a difference. Learning to truly listen and engage with whomever you are talking to enables connection, builds trust, and elevates flow across the board. When you strengthen your ability to listen, you become a better communicator. When you level up your ability to hear, you show up as somebody who is more open to feedback and who appreciates the contribution of what others are thinking and feeling. Upleveling your listening begins first and foremost with understanding what, how, and when you aren’t really listening.
Listening from Obligation
When this happens, there is little to no effort from the listener, either due to various distractions or a lack of caring about what the speaker has to say. Common behaviors when you’re listening at this level are multitasking, such as playing on your phone or scrolling through emails when someone is talking to you, tuning out/daydreaming, and anticipating what you think they are going to say and interjecting words for them. This kind of listening makes it impossible to develop rapport.
This level of listening also includes pretend listening, where you are not paying attention to the speaker, however you still act as though you are listening. The listener’s brain is paying attention to other things, but they are maintaining involvement in the conversation. Think of sitting next to someone very talkative on the plane or talking on the phone with a chatty family member. You aren’t absorbing or understanding the information the speaker is sharing.
Listening from the Inside
This is selective listening or downloading. In this level, you are only listening for what someone else is saying to confirm facts you already believe to be true. You are listening inside of your existing context. You parcel out information that you perceive to be uninteresting, lacking in value, or that doesn’t conform to your biases and preconceived notions. This level of listening is problematic because you only hear what you want to hear. When you listen this way, it’s all too often to brush feedback aside and/or filter it out altogether.
You know you’ve been listening like this when you come out of a conversation and everything you expected to happen happened. This type of listening is all about you. Your purpose in listening is to validate yourself and invalidate another if they disagree with you. There is no freedom and nothing new will be created in this kind of listening.
Listening for New Information
This level of listening is about seeking new information, new data, and new perspectives. It’s listening to learn. However, you are still listening for what’s in it for you. You’re not curious, but listening to gain knowledge or get something out of the listening. You are taking what you already think and building upon it.
At this level you are open to hearing something you haven’t heard before. You have some new data points and information that challenges your assumptions. Perhaps it exposes some new content or new reality to you. Here, you can actually walk away from the conversation with a memory of what was said and how it changed your perception. You leave the conversation thinking new things or in new ways.
Listening with Curiosity and Compassion
In this level of listening you are really connecting to the other person. You’ve got an empathic, emotional connection. This is when you’re listening soul to soul, heart to heart, and seeing the experience through another person’s eyes. You’re not only challenging your own assumptions, but actually considering that the other person’s reality is valid. You get to experience that person’s experience. Most one-on-ones should be done with this empathic, emotional connection. You’re letting go of your agenda and having an open mind and heart, building trust, and deepening your relationship with this person. You’re curious.
This is when you are fully engaged and focused on the speaker’s words and what those words mean to you and to the speaker. Nothing distracts you from the person with whom you are speaking. They have your full and undivided attention and it is clear to them that this is so.
Listening for What’s Possible
This level of listening is generative. You have moved beyond any friction and are completely immersed in flow. Everybody is participating. You both are in service of something bigger than the agenda and listening with an open will. In this level, you aren’t just listening to the person, but acknowledging the future that wants to be created. This is where innovation happens. This is where the collective genius is not just tapped into, but realized. This is the highest and most meaningful level of listening and is where you want to spend as much time as possible.
Listening at the Highest Level Every Time
We all need diverse opinions and viewpoints. When you listen from the lower levels of listening, which is not really listening at all, you miss out on so much, from critical information and feedback, to a chance to develop rapport with your team, a loved one, or even a total stranger.
The most effective leaders all excel at listening from the highest level. They make people feel valued, respected, and understood. They are also always honing their skills and becoming better listeners. They continually work on opening their mind, heart, and will. It’s a continual process of evolution. They are present and focused on whatever or whomever is in front of them. Meaningfully listening to those around you enables you to elevate yourself as a leader, build trust and rapport, and empower the people you’re listening to. Evolving your leadership and achieving optimal results begins with listening.
About the Author:
Margaret Graziano, known as the Evolutionist, is the founder and CEO of KeenAlignment, as well as a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author for her book “Ignite Culture.” She has been recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women Leaders. Magi’s groundbreaking work is driven by her power to uncover and catalyze human potential. Go to www.MargaretGraziano.com for more information.
by Rene Street | Jan 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
5 Steps To Turn Negative Thoughts Into Positive Actions
Do you have a Negative Nancy (NN) or Toxic Tim (TT) that you’re keeping longer than you should? Would you let them go if you weren’t so short staffed? One Negative Nancy or Toxic Tim infiltrates the whole company and it spreads throughout, affecting everyone.
Think of it like this: You attend a meeting that NN was in. When you leave, you approach Positive Polly and share with Positive Polly, “It’s so frustrating dealing with NN. Why is she still here? All we do is constantly listen to her babble and unhappiness.” Before you know it, you become a Negative Nancy, and Positive Polly sees the impact the original NN has made on you and the team. It only takes one person thinking negatively to bring the whole environment, culture, and team down. In order to help you, Positive Polly shares the following.
You have 60,000 thoughts a day and 80% of them are negative. These come in the form or doubt, worry and stress and are linked to poor attitudes, declining engagement, and poor performance. Most people think they are positive and optimistic, yet negativity shows and they don’t recognize it. In fact, 95% of your thoughts are repetitive. So, all of the negative thoughts keep getting repeated, impacting how you show up, speak out, lead, and live.
Your thoughts are the fundamental foundation of everything you do and everything you don’t do, yet often times you don’t think about them. When was the last time you thought about what you thought about? If you’re like most people you think the same way you’ve always thoughts, resulting in the same behaviors, actions, and results. If you want to change relationships, communication, interactions, your confidence, you must first change how you think. Once you change that, then everything else will change as well.
Here is a five-step process to help you change your thoughts to invoke different actions, behaviors and results and develop a positive work environment.
ONE: Identify – Recognize Your Thoughts. There’s an exercise to help you very specifically identify your negative thoughts. It’s called the Stand up/Sit down exercise. This is a great exercise to do as a team. Have someone read a set of statements. For every statement you agree with, you will move your body. Everyone starts in a stand-up position. For example, if the first statement is “If you’re ever thought you’re not smart enough,” and you agree, you’ll sit down. If you disagree with the statement, you’ll remain as you were. If the next statement is, “If you’ve ever thought you don’t have enough time,” and you agree, you’ll move (either stand up or sit down depending on what you did for the first statement). This repeats for every statement read (there should be about 15 statements read). During this activity, you can expect to hear laughter evoke from your group, as they are moving for most of them, which shows that negative thinking arises without you consciously knowing. And you have a lot more of them than you believe.
TWO: Write It. Once you’ve identified your negative thoughts, it’s important to write them down. Something happens in your brain when you write things down. They tend to become real, and you remember them more. So, when you write down your negative thoughts, you become more mindful when they arise. Follow the rest of the process with just one of your negative thoughts. Once you have mastered one, work on another (you don’t want to overwhelm you or burn you out on doing too many at once).
THREE: Triggers – What are your triggers for your negative thinking? Triggers can be a place, situation, mood, experience, or thing. If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone and walked away saying to yourself, “Why do I even bother,” then you also know a trigger can be a person too. And many times, it is a person. Write down all of your triggers. When you’re aware of your triggers, you can be on the lookout for them. When they come up, as they will, you are armed to not allow the negative thoughts to follow.
FOUR: Reframe – List all the ways to reframe the negative thought. There are two ways to do this reframing. First, you can say the opposite of the negative statement. Instead of staying I’m not a good enough leader, you can say, “I’m an awesome leader.” The second way is to ask questions. For instance, what courses do I need to take to become a better leader, what leadership book should I read to improve my leadership skills or who can mentor me into being a better leader. Your brain is constantly talking to. If you say you’re not a good enough leader, your brain will validate it with all the ways that it’s true. If you say you’re an awesome leader, your brain will validate it with all the ways that it’s true. So, listening to the positive part of your brain will make all the difference in your work and life.
FIVEl Action – Once you have your reframing options, pick one to take action on. Nothing changes until you take action on it. Small action makes a huge difference. If you want to know the best leadership book to read, you may initially think you do not know any, however, your brain can solve that dilemma. It’ll reply with ideas to look up leadership books on Google, put a post on Facebook asking your friends for their recommendations or look up Amazon book reviews. Then it’s time to decide which action you will take (which book to order and order it). Small consistent action is key to eradicating negative thinking.
The more you work through this process the more positive thoughts you have. You’ll soon recognize negative thoughts in others and can help them master their own mindset. You’ll become the Positive Polly and help develop a positive work environment that no one wants to leave.
About the Author:
Jessica Rector, MBA, author of the #1 best-selling “Blaze Your Brain to Extinguish Burnout” and nine other books, helps organizations, leaders, and teams Say Yes to eradicate burnout and enhance mental health. As a burnout trailblazer, her research is used in her consulting and speaking and often shared on her podcast, “The Say Yes Experience.” For how Jessica can help your organization and team, go to www.jessicarector.com
