The Performance Paradox

There is a contradiction at the heart of how we understand performance.

We believe sincerely that success is driven by talent, intelligence and work ethic. However, breakthrough thinking and innovation that drives real top performance and transformation does not fit within our typical comfort zone. This is because innovation and top performance can be perceived as a threat to colleagues and leaders.

Pursuit of Performance

High performance in complex, uncertain environments is strongly associated with the ability to think independently under social pressure. Not with defiance or insubordination, but in a steady, grounded fashion. The ability to hold a perspective and think laterally in pursuit of ideas and solutions often will look like divergence from the group. As the innovative thinking is driven by curiosity and inspiration, external validation is less important than finding a beautify or creative solution. This is the heart of being intrinsically motivated by curiosity. And it can result in questioning a group’s or supervisors’ ideas in the process of exploration.

This is not stubbornness. It is not contrarian. It is a calibrated nonconformity for a higher purpose. A willingness to stay and explore ideas more fully even when others are ready to move on with an obvious or standard solution. Perhaps because of time pressure. Perhaps because of positional authority. These are work dynamics that reward compliance and norms rather than innovation.

These top performers have the psychological and neurological capacity to remain self-directed in environments that subtly, and sometimes overtly, reward agreement.

Psychological research has been pointing to this for decades. Within Self-Determination Theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, autonomy is one of the three core conditions required for optimal human functioning. Autonomy, in this context, does not mean independence or disagreement from others. It means experiencing oneself as the origin of actions. When people act out of choice rather than social pressure, behavior and biology shift.

Neuroscience helps make this more concrete. In studies examining brain activity during task performance, researchers find that people who are more autonomously motivated are also neutrally primed toward error detection and self-regulation. This means they are better at noticing when something is not right, and adjusting in real time. They are not avoiding mistakes; they are engaging with them more effectively. This creates a powerful learning loop that improves performance over time.

Other research has taken this further by looking at what happens in the body during work tasks. In experimental settings where autonomy is increased, participants not only report higher engagement, they also show measurable improvements in productivity. Autonomy is not just a feeling. It’s results.

But there is another layer to this story: autonomy that drives achievement is often hard to sustain in the workplace. That’s because group dynamics and social pressure often win out.

The TV program Survivor illustrates a similar dynamic. The strongest competitors are often voted out just because they are a threat to everyone else. So too in the workplace, talented people who don’t moderate their abilities to fit the norm can find themselves alienated. The pressure to conform is tangible.

Work led by Naomi Eisenberger and colleagues demonstrates that social rejection activates some of the same neural regions involved in physical pain. In other words, when we are at odds with a group, it literally can hurt. Conformity becomes a relief. It reduces tension and restores safety. Over time, many people learn (unconsciously or explicitly) to prioritize social harmony over independent thought, not because they lack ideas, but because the cost of expressing them feels too high.

And yet, some individuals can notice social discomfort without giving in to it. This is the difference between succumbing to the fear versus staying inspired by curiosity. They act with emotional self-regulation and orient consciously toward a grounded, balanced solution.

Research suggests that individuals with a stronger autonomy orientation are more likely to interpret disagreement as information rather than threat. They still notice the feeling of tension but are less governed by it. They don’t feel triggered, because they have developed emotional intelligence. That difference changes behavior in profound ways. Instead of withdrawing into silence, they stay engaged. Instead of conforming, they continue exploring. Instead of abandoning an idea at the first sign of resistance, they hone it.

Workplace Paradox

This is where the paradox is pivotal. The very workplace environments that espouse innovation, creativity, and transformation often contain the subtle and not-so-subtle pressures to suppress the conditions necessary for those outcomes. Organizations will say they want new thinking, but the social dynamics can make new thinking risky. A novel idea can be interpreted not as a contribution, but as a challenge, particularly in environments where authority and expertise are closely tied to identity.

This is true of most workplaces. Financial services. Healthcare. Education. Sciences. Government. Trades. Any workplace that values hierarchy and credentials will tend to behave in this fashion.

This is where psychological health and safety forms the foundation for fostering performance. Principles such as reasonable workloads, eliminating harassment, respect, involvement and more are tactics and behavioural guidelines. But those principles still do not go deep enough. The heart of the risk is insecurity.

An insecure leader will not be able to lead a team without stymieing its success.

In conversation with a c-suite leader about challenges in operational excellence, I pointed to widespread confusion on the business plan and project deliverables. They responded with a hint of anger that there is no time to be inclusive, and decisions will be made centrally: “Everyone just needs to do their job!” This person completely missed the fact that their focus on being right and making big decisions undermined everyone’s ability to align and perform effectively. This leader was doing the best they could in the situation; they were just inexperienced and reactive. Several middle managers were subsequently blamed for underperformance. Stress and anxiety permeated the organization. Conflict ensued. Terminations and deepening mistrust.

In another situation, a micromanaging c-suite executive caused visceral anger amongst the VPs in the division. The executive felt positional authority to constantly question the smallest details of the VPs. While the VP’s felt the distrust and heaviness of rework on minutia, the executive felt any attempt to raise the conversation to a strategic level as a challenge to their authority. As a result, the VP who spoke up was declared incompetent and insubordinate.

For insecure leaders, independent thinking can feel destabilizing or even threatening. Questions will feel like challenges to competence, control, and relevance. In those moments, the senior leaders may respond by explicitly shutting down ideas or subtly discouraging people who bring them forward. They may be labeled as difficult, misaligned, or hard to manage, even when employee questions are calm, thoughtful and constructive.

From the perspective of the individual, this is disorienting. They are contributing, questioning, trying to improve outcomes. From the perspective of the system, they are deviating from the norm. The gap between those two interpretations is where many high-potential ideas disappear.

At another organization, I witnessed a very creative technology solution come to the senior executive. The executive heard the proposal and thanked the person politely as they left. When the person left the room, the leaders were angry and incensed: How dare they suggest that their idea could work better! What did they know anyway? Good luck selling that anywhere! Well, the innovator decided to take their idea to Silicon Valley and after 7 months, sold it for more than US$90 million.

Early Priming

This social dynamic does not begin in the workplace. In our traditional educational systems, success is often tied to reproducing a correct answer. Students are evaluated based on how well they can remember and replicate established knowledge. This serves an important purpose of having a shared understanding, but it also creates a pattern. Over time, many people learn that there is safety in being right according to someone else’s standard, and risk in venturing beyond it.

In university, I wrote a sociology paper leveraging the material taught. I received a low grade and was shocked. The professor explained why. First, the sole purpose of the paper was to mirror back the material; the rubric was based on a checklist of restating or paraphrasing. Second, I was in undergraduate studies and only graduate students were permitted to be creative and theoretical. I naively believed that university was a place to go beyond the rote learning of grade school only to find another hierarchy limiting innovation. As a professor now, I ask for and reward novel perspectives.

The unintended consequence of our educational practices is that a critical performance-enhancing skill can be underdeveloped: the ability to move past the known into the possible. To question, reinterpret, and build on what already exists. By the time individuals enter the workforce, many have become highly skilled at meeting expectations, but less practiced at redefining them.

A senior manager on my team once asked where I get my ideas from. They wanted to know how to innovate and forecast long term cultural shifts. While I described a practice of attunement to broad sources of information and being able to sit with curiosity, my mind was a whirl with sadness that this skill had not been fostered for this person previously.

Change Resistance

Change management has arisen over the last couple of decades as the pace of technology and globalization has accelerated. When we look at the heart of change management, it is a process to acclimatize people to something new. When people are involved and included, change is easier as everyone is informed and part of the process. When people are not involved, resistance often emerges, driven by factors such as uncertainty, loss of control, and perceived risk. These behaviours are underpinned by insecurity.

Further, those who are early adopters of new ideas are often those who are willing to sit at the edge of consensus or act without referencing external affirmation and reward. These individuals are not outside the system; they are essential to its growth. But they require conditions that allow them to operate without being pushed out.

Summary

This brings us back to the performance paradox. High performance in today’s complex, rapidly changing environments depends on qualities that our systems do not consistently support. We ask for innovation, but reward predictability. We encourage critical thinking, but respond defensively to challenge. We say we want people to take initiative, but make it socially costly to do so without permission.

Resolving this paradox does not mean abandoning structure or standards. It means standing back and seeing that structure as an enabler. The critical need comes down to a simple yet surprisingly difficult task:

• Overcome our individual insecurities that lend to conflict, alienation and groupthink.

• Counter learned coercive behaviour that fosters compliance over creativity, and anxiety over innovation.

Innovation does not fail from lack of ideas. It fails when people are not safe enough to express them.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01

Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089134

Legault, L., & Inzlicht, M. (2013). Self-determination, self-regulation, and the brain: Autonomous motivation improves performance by enhancing neuroaffective responsiveness to error. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 447–457. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033226

Murayama, K., Matsumoto, M., Izuma, K., & Matsumoto, K. (2010). Neural basis of the undermining effect of monetary reward on intrinsic motivation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(49), 20911–20916. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1013305107

Parker, S. K., Morgeson, F. P., & Johns, G. (2017). One hundred years of work design research: Looking back and looking forward. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 403–420. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000106

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In the spirit of respect and truth, I honour and acknowledge that I live and work within the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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