High Performers Are Destroying Your Company - And You're Helping Them
Jan 7
7 min read
I watched a company lose their best people whilst desperately protecting their worst.
They had top salespeople - the kind who hit every target, closed every quarter strong, made the numbers look brilliant on paper. Management was terrified of losing them.
Meanwhile, good employees kept resigning. The ones who showed up early, helped teammates, embodied company values, stayed late when it mattered. The ones worth keeping.
Management couldn't understand it. They had the data. They had the KPIs. They had sophisticated performance reviews.
They were measuring the wrong thing entirely.
The $292 Billion Blind Spot
Here's what traditional evaluation systems miss: U.S. companies could save $292 billion in 2025 by avoiding toxic hires, according to Hogan Assessments research.
That's not a typo.
When you only measure KPIs, you ignore the hidden profitability being destroyed by having the wrong people in the wrong places. You reward high performance regardless of whether that person is building your culture or dismantling it from the inside.
Performance without alignment is just expensive destruction.
I've seen this pattern repeatedly across my own companies and dozens of client organisations.
The difference isn't in what they produce. It's in what they protect.
The Two-Axis Truth
Employees can have identical job descriptions and behave completely differently.
The difference comes down to one thing: whether they understand why they're doing what they're doing and why they're in that specific workplace at this specific time in their life.
Without that connection, they don't become your best employees. They become your most expensive ones.
This is why you need to evaluate on two axes, not one:
Performance (the KPIs everyone already measures)
Alignment (the values-to-behaviour connection most leaders ignore)
When you map your team against both dimensions, four distinct groups emerge:
High performance + High alignment = Your most profitable employees. Elevate them. They'll cascade culture downward and help develop everyone else.
Low performance + High alignment = People who need development. Upskill them. They're worth the investment because they already understand why they're here.
Low performance + Low alignment = Align them or replace them. You're losing money and culture simultaneously.
High performance + Low alignment = Your toxic zone. These people destroy profitability despite hitting targets.
That last category is where most leaders get it catastrophically wrong.
What Low Alignment Actually Looks Like
When I say "low alignment," I'm not talking about someone who occasionally disagrees or challenges ideas.
I'm diagnosing something specific: the gap between company values and actual behavior.
Here's how to spot it:
Take your company values and translate them into job-specific behaviors. Every single employee needs to know exactly what conduct those values require in their particular role.
Because values manifest differently depending on position.
"Integrity" for a salesperson means transparent pricing and honest timelines. For a developer, it means flagging technical debt before it becomes a crisis. For a manager, it means having difficult conversations instead of avoiding them.
Values-to-behaviour is your code of conduct.
When someone consistently hits their KPIs but violates this code, you have misalignment. And that misalignment costs you in ways your performance metrics will never capture.
The Resignation Pattern Nobody Notices
In that company I mentioned earlier, here's what was actually happening:
The high-performing salespeople with low alignment were creating a toxic environment. They hit targets but undermined teammates. They closed deals but burned relationships. They made numbers but destroyed culture.
The aligned employees - the ones who understood and embodied company values - looked around and thought: "This isn't the company I joined."
So they left.
When you evaluate on performance alone, you miss why your best people are planning their exit.
You're not losing people because competitors pay more.
You're losing them because you're protecting the wrong performers.
The Hidden Friction Tax
Misalignment creates internal friction that traditional evaluation systems can't detect.
When alignment is missing, people spend more time managing dysfunction than creating value.
I've watched this play out in my own companies and dozens of client organisations. The pattern is always the same:
High performers with low alignment create problems that high-alignment employees spend their time solving. Then leadership wonders why productivity is down despite having "top talent."
But here's what matters: engagement isn't about perks or benefits. It's about alignment.
When employees feel aligned with their work and organization, companies are 23% more profitable than those with disengaged staff, according to Gallup's 2024-2025 research. And the cost of getting it wrong? Disengagement cost the global economy $438 billion in lost productivity in 2024 alone.
The Diagnostic Framework That Actually Works
Here's how to stop guessing and start diagnosing:
Step 1: Define values-to-behavior for each role
Take your company values and write specific behavioral examples for each position. What does "collaboration" look like for a developer versus a sales manager? What does "innovation" mean for operations versus marketing?
Put this directly into job descriptions. Make it measurable.
Step 2: Score each team member on both dimensions
Evaluate every employee on two separate scores:
Performance score: Use your existing KPIs - are they hitting targets, delivering results, meeting productivity standards?
Alignment score: Evaluate their values-to-behaviour - do they consistently demonstrate the specific behaviours you defined in Step 1 for their role?
Be honest in both assessments. The numbers don't lie, and neither should the values evaluation.
Step 3: Map each person to their quadrant
Now plot every employee on the two-axis grid using their scores: performance (KPIs) on one axis, alignment (values-to-behaviour) on the other.
This visual map immediately shows you where everyone sits. The high performer who everyone secretly dreads working with? They'll land in high performance, low alignment. The person who needs skill development but shows up for teammates? High alignment, needs development.
Step 4: Take action based on quadrant
High performance + High alignment: Elevate them. Give them leadership opportunities, involve them in culture-building, let them mentor others.
Low performance + High alignment: Develop them. Invest in training, provide clear growth paths, give them time to improve.
Low performance + Low alignment: Align or replace. Have direct conversations about values fit. If alignment can't be established, exit them.
High performance + Low alignment: Align or exit. This is where most leaders fail. They see the numbers and ignore the damage. Stop it. Address the misalignment directly. If they can't or won't align, let them go regardless of performance.
Step 5: Track and reward both dimensions equally
Stop treating this as an annual review exercise only. Integrate both performance and alignment tracking into every review conversation:
Annual performance reviews should evaluate KPIs and values-to-behaviour with equal weight.
Regular check-ins between managers and employees should track progress on both dimensions simultaneously.
Any conversation about performance must also address alignment - they're inseparable.
And here's the critical part most organizations miss:
Reward both equally.
Just as you reward KPI achievers with bonuses, promotions, and recognition, you must reward employees who demonstrate exceptional values-to-behavior. Publicly recognize people who embody your values in the best possible way. Celebrate alignment as loudly as you celebrate performance.
Because what you reward is what you reinforce. And reinforcing both performance and alignment is what actually moves and changes culture.
The Profitability Equation Nobody Teaches
When you evaluate both performance and alignment, you're not doing "soft" HR work. You're directly addressing the variables that control profitability.
Every employee sitting in the high performance, low alignment quadrant is costing you money you'll never see on a P&L. They're driving away talent you need, creating friction that slows execution, and building a culture that repels the very people you want to attract.
What This Looks Like in Practice
I implemented this framework across my own companies and with dozens of clients.
The pattern is consistent: within 90 days of mapping teams and taking action based on alignment, retention of high-value employees improves, internal conflict decreases, and productivity increases without adding headcount or changing strategy.
Because you've stopped rewarding performance at any cost.
You've started building a team where the best people want to stay, where culture reinforces itself instead of eroding, where high performers are also high-alignment employees who make everyone around them better.
The goal isn't to fill your company with high performers. It's to move everyone toward the high performance, high alignment quadrant.
Some people need development to get there. Some need alignment conversations. Some need to exit.
But when you know where everyone sits, you know exactly what action to take.
The Framework Your Evaluation System Is Missing
Traditional performance reviews ask: "Is this person performing well?"
That's the wrong question.
The right question is: "Is this person aligned with what we need them to do, and are they performing at the level required for their role?"
Both dimensions matter. Both are measurable. Both predict outcomes.
When you only measure performance, you optimise for short-term results whilst destroying long-term capability. When you measure both performance and alignment, you build a team that compounds value over time.
Your evaluation system isn't just measuring people - it's telling them whether you understand what actually matters.
If you're only looking at KPIs, you're telling them that hitting numbers is all that counts. That behaviour doesn't matter. That culture is negotiable.
And your best people will leave to find organisations that understand the difference.
Start Here
If you're a manager, map your team right now. Draw the two-axis grid. Plot each person honestly.
You'll immediately see who needs what: elevation, development, alignment, or replacement.
Then take action. Have the conversations. Make the investments. Exit the people who can't or won't align.
Your evaluation system doesn't fail because it's not sophisticated enough.
It fails because it's measuring the wrong thing.
Performance tells you what someone produces. Alignment tells you whether they're building or destroying whilst they produce it.
You need both.
Want the complete framework for evaluating not just your team, but your customers and strategy? Download a free chapter of Unstoppable Business Growth . It includes the full values-to-behavior matrix.
Because the companies that win aren't the ones with the best performers.
They're the ones who know the difference between performance and alignment - and refuse to sacrifice one for the other.
