Crafting A High-Performance Mindset | Justin Hughes, Strategic Advisor and Former Red Arrows Executive Officer

James was delighted to have recently been joined by Justin Hughes, Strategic Advisor and Former Red Arrows Executive Officer, on a truly stirring episode of Tech Salescraft. Exploring Justin’s plethora of experiences across a multitude of careers and ventures, we gain unique insights into the traits necessary to craft a high-performance mindset. Justin shares his thoughts on leadership, communication, reflection, and the mindsets that allow us and our team to excel, reaching new levels of success. It was a truly fantastic conversation with so much to unpack.
“This is the dichotomy of leadership: we all know what a good leader looks like… but there is often a conflict between the numbers and the values.”
For many team leaders, they are situated in a place where they have to address the demands of their boss and their team. The boss will often require certain numerical targets to be met to ensure the business revenue and the likes is able to grow. The team leader will then be directly responsible for ensuring the team is working towards hitting said targets, whilst also ensuring company values and culture isn’t compromised. As highlighted by Justin, it can often be a difficult balance as firms can become detracted from the more holistic side of the firm by the numbers. But when that balance is found, high performance ensues as the strongly embedded values come to drive the numbers, as opposed to them being isolated, conflicting silos.
“Every business has a hygiene level and that informs you as to how much risk you can take on the skill side.”
Could the Red Arrows take on a person who has never flown before? A rather extreme example but it serves to capture issues surrounding recruitment and learning and development opportunities. As stressed by Justin, every firm has a threshold which informs them of the type of people they are able to onboard. Depending on the stage your business is at and the demands of the marketplace, you may only be able to hire experienced professionals, or you may be at a stage to bring on the next generation of the industry. This demands an astute and honest risk assessment of your firm. And then when you are bringing on new talent, it is crucial you assess their skillset and cultural fit to better ensure the hygiene level has been met (or is achievable with a development programme) and the high performance of the firm isn’t jeopardized.
This is a mere snapshot of Justin’s fascinating conversation with James. Justin’s infectious passion for high performance is evident throughout the episode; and his wealth of fascinating experiences creates a truly comprehensive discussion that doesn’t fail to inspire. Thank you Justin for joining us on Tech Salescraft, it was brilliant to be exposed to the nuances of a high performance mindset. You can watch the full episode now on YouTube, or listen across all major podcast streaming platforms.