Spotting High Performers at DelightRoom

Growing into a high performer at DelightRoom

Everyone wants to work with a highly capable teammate. To find them, it’s important to first establish clear standards for what we actually consider a "high performer." To set these standards, I thought back to the moments I felt truly moved while working with teammates at DelightRoom. It was surprisingly easy to define these criteria because I've experienced so many moments that made me think, "Ah, so *this* is what working well looks like"—whether it was a sense of deep trust during collaboration or seeing something and thinking, "I really need to copy that." (My own retrospective points from past failures also served as great benchmarks.) I wanted to write this down to organize and remember the strengths of the Delighters who made me think, "This is someone I want to work with," the very traits of a true high performer.

Someone who distinguishes between what they *need* to do and what they *want* to do

This is the first point that became a benchmark through my own past failures. Distinguishing between what needs to be done and what you want to do means understanding work priorities. This is surprisingly hard to recognize, and even if you do, it's not easy to stick to those priorities. It was the very first lesson I learned from observing others after joining DelightRoom. Most startups offer a free environment where you can proactively engage in various tasks. It’s a dream-like environment for anyone who has always wanted to work with high autonomy, but conversely, it can also be an environment where it's tough to independently seek out impactful work. When tasks pile up, you naturally end up choosing the work you are good at within your role, the work you think is important, or the work you simply wanted to do...

Bzzzt, wrong! This is where a high-performing teammate knows how to distinguish whether it's something they *need* to do or something they *want* to do. The criteria for this distinction is, of course, thinking about whether it's a task the company currently considers important. Even if the company currently values A, and the teammate flawlessly executes B, from the company's perspective, that teammate is just seen as wasting time. (Cue the painful memories and tears...) Of course, task B might benefit the company someday, but if you don't march in step with the company's pacing, it's hard to give the impression that you work well. To quickly catch on to what the company currently considers a necessary task and what they want from you, communication is absolutely key. Someone who can prioritize their work by aligning it with the company through communication—that was the person who showed the true marks of a high performer.

Even now, all Delighters do a great job figuring out this prioritization on their own (and if they ever need help organizing things, they make great use of our always-open 1:1 culture). I think this is one of the core reasons DelightRoom is able to move so leanly.

Someone who quickly catches the context and core point, and speaks plainly

I feel this all the time, but the core of work really is communication. I briefly mentioned above that communicating with the company is important to understand work priorities, but honestly, all work gets done through communication. Our work can get irreversibly messed up because of a single miscommunication, or a massively complex task can easily be untangled through good communication. Watching Delighters, I always wondered, "How do they communicate so kindly and warmly? What's their secret?" I found two major commonalities. First, they quickly catch the real problem in a conversation. No matter how rambling or superficial my start is, they accurately read the context and use questions to draw out the actual issue. Before long, I find myself discussing the core problem, realizing, "Ah, *this* was the real issue I was thinking about." They seem to have an objective eye that understands context from hints in the conversation without immediately jumping to link it to a specific problem.

The second is their speaking style. For starters, they never ramble. They have a plainspoken way of getting straight to the point, which hits the core incredibly well and is easy to understand. I feel that rambling is usually employed to hide one's shortcomings (just my highly personal opinion...), but these folks are the real deal, so they have no need to ramble. The key to their plainspoken communication is focusing on questions aimed at finding the core of the conversation. Once they reach the heart of the matter, they deliver their thoughts kindly and comprehensibly, complete with specific examples. Whenever I communicate with Delighters like this, I feel like we can solve any problem, and the communication itself is just incredibly comfortable. It’s probably because you can feel their genuine desire to deeply consider the speaker's story and solve it together.

Someone who focuses on the process rather than the person when finding problems

To add one more special commonality regarding their speaking style: there is always a sense of respect for the other person in a Delighter's questions, which makes it so comfortable. Delighters make you feel like they are conversing based on trust in your concerns and your professional expertise. For example, even if the core of the question is 'Why are you doing it this way?', some people might ask, 'This method is better, why aren't you doing it this way?' But high-performing Delighters ask, 'I'm sure you thought about this too, so I'm curious about the history behind why you chose the current method.' The core of the former question is 'Why did you do that?' The core of the latter is 'What was the environment that influenced this decision?' The former is focused on the person, while the high-performing Delighter is focused on the environment. I believe a Delighter's question carries respect, assuming you had the same concerns, and trust in you as a teammate, believing there must be a reason for choosing the current method anyway.

Perhaps because it's built on such trust, they don't focus on the person maintaining the process. The core of their uniqueness lies in focusing on finding a balanced way to work together, tailored to the current environment and process. Inside a team, there are always plenty of problems to improve. But there is a history behind all of them. By conveying the message that they respect the history itself but are suggesting improvements to raise efficiency, making improvements with Delighters always feels enjoyable.

Writing this out, it seems that attitude makes up a massive part of what makes me feel someone is a 'high performer'. The person who makes working together enjoyable and makes me feel like we are growing together based on trust—that was my definition of a high performer. I’ve talked mostly about attitude points, but the high-performing Delighters equipped with this attitude also produced great results. Even if the results aren't great, they never stop thinking about continuous improvement, so you can always see a change in the outcomes. Being with high-performing Delighters is great because you get to be part of these changes. Working with high-performing Delighters makes even encountering problems enjoyable. Because it allows me to fully focus on the sense of accomplishment felt when we zero in on a problem and solve it. :)