TopGrading

Raging against Mediocrity

What does it take to be an excellent performance-oriented employee at Treefrog?

By taking the initiative to become a high-performance Frog, you help us all achieve greatness, not just yourself. Take a look at the following components and self-assess regularly. By choosing one area to consciously work on at a time, you will help the team dramatically and in turn grow yourself.

The table below is largely stolen verbatim from an HR book by Bradford D. Smart, PhD entitled “TopGrading” (*the hours and IQ are from him, not Treefrog - consider this accordingly). What follows is industry standard knowledge compiled from the book in the format provided in the book. Only Frogs who have only A-level characteristics are considered - according to his book - A-class employees, and these individuals form the basis of a high-performance culture.

Every 90 days, you should challenge yourself to focus on THREE of these components;

One for the whole company, which you will take action to help improve.
One you set for yourself.
One set by another Frog (your direct report?), as you may not know what you need to change yourself.

Keep a written tally of your experience and growth in these three areas.

Feel free to challenge yourself on all of them!

Talent	A = Exemplary	B = Good	C = Mediocre
Passion for Success	Drives for the success of client, team, and company with every action.	When reminded, focuses on success.	Inwardly focused on tactics and own vision.
Sense of Magic	Always thinking about creating a magical experience - regularly inspiring team and clients.	Spikes of magical experience appear from time to time.	Uninterested in anything but surviving day to day.
Well of Eureka	Regular inspirational moments of Eureka driving company and clients.	With prodding, works with team to develop innovation.	Merely interested in the status quo. Considers small changes innovative.
Success Mindset	Sees the opportunity to succeed; goes over and above wherever possible.	Works according to expectations.	Counting the minutes waiting for the day to end.
Vision (Ideas)	Helps create and communicate new ideas regularly.	Ideas lack credibility; are usually unrealistic or strategically flawed.	Embraces tradition over forward thinking. “That’s how we do it”.
Intelligence	Quick study, rapidly performs analysis. (IQ 130+)*	Smart. (IQ 120-129)*	Difficulty coping with complex situations. (IQ 119 or lower)*
Response to Change	Highly adaptive, engages and promotes meaningful change.	Prefers slow change.	Prefers the status quo.
Passion	Extremely high energy level; driven to succeed. “Superhuman”. (55+ workweeks + work from home)*	Motivated; energetic at times. (50-54 hour workweeks)*	Inconsistent pace; requires regular reminders to meet work-week minimum. (40-49 hours)*
Resourcefulness	Impressive ability to find ways over, under and around barriers; invents new paradigms and processes.	Open-minded; occasionally finds a solution.	Defeated by obstacles.
Customer Focused	Extremely focused and adaptive to both stated and unstated customer needs.	Knows that customer is “King”, but only when necessary.	Inwardly focused; thinks in terms of the products or how “we” think it should be done, not what the customer needs.
Feedback/Coaching	Regularly successfully counsels and teaches other team members to help their performance and personal/career growth.	Provides irregular suggestions and feedback; inconsistent with help.	Inaccessible, critical, stingy with praise, late or shallow feedback, fails to share knowledge with others and may even hide information to protect own career or skills.
Team Building/Collaboration	Regularly inspires successful collaboration to help the team succeed.	Wants teamwork but doesn’t make it happen.	Drains others; actions prevent collaboration.
Track Record	Exceeds expectations of employees, customers and leadership.	Meets expectations of leadership.	Sporadically meets expectations.
Integrity	Ironclad.	Generally honest.	Bends the rules.
Consistency	Always gets the job done reliably.	Often gets the job done. Requires supervision.	Drops balls regularly.
Follow-up	Ensures every project is completed and follows up with both client and team to ensure excellence.	Follows up sporadically to ensure completion.	Fails to see the big picture - is task-based.
Position Knowledge	Well informed and leading-edge in relevant knowledge. Leader in field.	Believe self to be leader in field but does not perform accordingly.	Barely enough knowledge to hold position.
Initiative	Regularly and energetically generates new responsibilities, ideas, solutions and initiatives to save time and money.	Shows initiative when necessary.	Needs prodding to suggest alternative solutions.
Planning/Organizing/Priority Setting	Sets appropriate priorities and manages time effectively to always achieve objectives.	Sufficiently organized to complete most assigned tasks.	Ineffective planning results in frequently missed deadlines.
Decision Making	Consistently uses sound judgment in making decisions when no precedent has been established.	Generally reliable; makes decisions based on available directives.	Uses poor judgment; is unreliable.
Teamwork	Goes out of the way to help and encourage others.	Willingly works with others upon request.	Occasionally participates or refuses to work with others.
Creativity	Thinks “outside the box” with innovative solutions which contribute to the team and company growth regularly.	Offers creative solutions in some situations.	Rarely contributes ideas; works and acts within existing frameworks.
Accuracy/Attention to Detail	Exceptional accuracy and attention to detail on all projects before external checking on first effort.	Usually aware of details and able to note and correct errors.	Work consistently contains errors requiring revisions.
Fashion	Consistently dresses with distinction and care; dresses to inspire self and others.	Clean, though dresses with little thought or care.	Often sloppy or under-dressed.
Consistency of Output	Works with all components of the project (visuals provided, client or team directives etc.) to ensure task is consistent with the whole project.	Slight variations from directives necessitate rework.	Frequent deviations from client or team directives, affecting timeliness, profitability and client satisfaction.
Visual Aesthetics	Demonstrates clear and consistent effort to make work look aesthetically excellent.	Recognizes aesthetic excellence.	Puts little effort into making things look good. Excuses self with “a lack of visual talent”.
Problem Solving	Anticipates problems and effectively averts them before they happen.	Recognizes problems and can implement solutions.	Consistently unable to recognize problems and cannot resolve them effectively without input.
“Can-do” Attitude	Nothing is impossible. Pushes and self-educates self and others to achieve anything and everything.	When consistently prodded, tries new things.	Considers tasks impossible if slightly out of the ordinary.
End-goal	Focuses on the whole.	Focuses on each project, one at a time.	Focuses on the task at hand.
Self-educating	Constantly proactively learning and at the edge of new knowledge; regularly shares with others.	Re-educates as necessary if prompted.	Pushed to educate self on new things; believes no further knowledge required.
Attitude - Internal	Positive, catching attitude others admire.	Unnoticeable attitude.	Regularly brings others’ productivity down from emotional weight.
Attitude - External	Clients praise regularly for consistently enthusiastic responses and pro-active communication.	Meets expectations of clients.	Sporadically under-communicates, seems apathetic or snaps at clients.
Sense of Humour	Regularly brings humour to the working environment.	Occasionally interacts with team members with humour.	Unable to contribute or tolerate humour, or alternatively inappropriate humour offends others.
Future-thinking	Regularly anticipates problems or opportunities and acts before they happen.	Anticipates problems/opportunities but fails to act in time to prevent or benefit from them.	Focuses on day-to-day tasks.
Communication - Oral	Precisely expresses thoughts verbally on the phone and in person. Effective and consistent oral communication.	Communicates effectively without prompting.	Often misunderstood or over-communicates. Talks to much or to little. Crass.
Communication - Written	Precisely expresses thoughts and ideas in writing concisely, neatly and quickly.	Expresses thoughts and ideas in writing well.	Writing is sloppy with frequent misunderstanding from the reader.
Communication - Depth	Digs into every situation looking for better solutions and completely addresses every situation.	Addresses everything without profound thought.	Addresses bare minimum of communication; often leaves things out.
Communication - Upsell	Upsells clients and team members with every discussion.	Sporadically upsells.	Rarely contributes new opportunities for clients or team members.
Communication - Timeliness	Clarifies when communication is forthcoming.	Sits on emails and messages, eventually responding.	Requires prodding and followup for response.
Thoroughness	Knows all relevant documentation well and has a profound grasp of the content.	Skimmed all documentation.	Read the title, then ignored. Often misses details buried deeper in the text (in emails, for example).
Self-Management/Reliability	Proactively identifies and completes tasks without supervision.	Once assigned to a job, no follow through required - it gets done.	Requires regular follow-up to ensure tasks are completed.
Timelines	Everything completed within 24 hours and/or within client expectations and/or within deadlines.	Completes all tasks, though deadlines are missed or pushed regularly.	Drops balls regularly.
Self-knowledge	Knows exactly how much can complete in exact amount of time.	Usually is aware of capacity to do things.	Regularly over-anticipates self capacity.
Capacity	Regularly completes more than expected.	Does what is told.	Does the bare minimum.
Efficiency	Highly efficient in every task - drives for efficiency in every movement of their body.	Generally efficient and takes time to think about efficiency regularly.	Inefficient - no attempt to improve efficiency at any time.
Company Building	Brings new keys for growth without prodding and on own time; for example - builds and manages a checklist or a regular internal communication, or builds and maintains extra systems to help efficiency.	Gets involved with projects once they appear and helps maximize or maintain.	Works the job. Promises to do more, and does not.
Frog Focus	Drives other Frogs with education and training, pushes others to innovate and succeed.	Develops training items when requested to do so.	Self-focused.
Replaceable Self	Is constantly documenting, de-cluttering and strategizing for the growth of Treefrog, making themselves replaceable for future upward mobility or disaster.	When reminded, remembers to clarify past work for others’ involvement.	Territorial about jobs and knowledge, hides passwords and/or focuses on self-knowledge, not company.
Frog as Lifestyle	Regularly engages with the other Frogs, in and out of work.	When necessary, engages with Frogs.	Avoids contact with Frogs wherever possible.
Autonomous	Is always busy with exactly what they should be doing; constantly finds and completes tasks.	Always busy, but has a tendency to lapse into less critical tasks.	Requires regular input to keep going.
Approachability	Always affable and approachable, friendly and consistent.	Periodically difficult or emotional, but generally available and approachable.	People walk on egg-shells when threatened with necessary communication.
Squirrel-Free	Innovates regularly, captures ideas and puts down for later accomplishment.	Often gets caught up with small innovations in favour of urgent tasks.	Consistently off-task following neat new ideas.
Altitude	Makes smart decisions, acts, and communicates completion.	Pushes tasks to highest level of completion before asking for help.	Gives up easily.
Connectivity	All necessary team members know exactly where and what you are doing.	People generally know where you are and what you are doing.	Where are you? Why won’t you answer your phone? Where have you been?
Accountability	Takes responsibility for own and others’ actions. Works as a team to ensure it doesn’t happen again.	Takes responsibility for own actions only.	Blames others. Does not take responsibility for anything.
Practicality	Focuses on practical outcomes and usability.	Focuses on on elements (aesthetics, function, etc.) not the end user.	Focuses on tasks.
Enthusiastic/Vibrant	Loves being a Frog, and shows it.	Likes being a Frog.	It’s just a job.
Respectful	Respectful in all things, puts others first; selfless.	Generally respectful towards others.	Puts self first in everything.
Open-mindedness	Generates strong opinions, but requests feedback regularly, listens attentively, and applies open-minded thought to every task and goal - even self.	Opinionated, but with long discussion considers others’ input.	Has one opinion on everything, stubbornly defends it to the end.
Diversity/Eclectic	Embraces different perspectives, work styles and methods, and adjusts self to engage.	With effort, adjusts to others.	Others must adjust to you.