How to Break Through a Performance Plateau: What High Performers Do When Results Stop Moving
A plateau is more dangerous than a dip. That sounds backward until you've lived through both.
If you're trying to figure out how to break through a performance plateau, here is the short answer: stop trying harder in the same gear and start challenging what's working. More effort in the same direction just gets you more of the same result. The breakthrough usually comes from changing the scoreboard you measure yourself against, then studying the gap between where you are and what the next level actually requires.
My name is on a Guinness World Record as the first Monster Jam driver to break 100 mph, and today I bring what the track taught me to organizations like Deutsche Bank, Chick-fil-A, and KOA as a leadership keynote speaker. But one of the hardest stretches of my driving career had nothing to do with crashing. I was landing every jump. I still wasn't winning.
Here is why that kind of stall is so hard to see, what I changed to get out of it, and the first move I'd make this week if you've been stuck at the same level for a while.
Plateau vs Decline in Leadership: Why the Plateau Is More Dangerous Than the Dip
Leaders tend to treat every stall the same way, but a decline and a plateau are different problems with different fixes. A plateau is more dangerous than a dip because nothing in a plateau hurts badly enough to force you into a change.
I experienced that in Monster Jam. I got to the point where I could consistently land the truck from all the jumps and finish the run. I'd even put a pretty good score up on the board. But I still wasn't winning anything.
From the outside, everything looked fine, and that's exactly what makes a plateau so dangerous. When you're crashing every weekend, you know something has to change. But when you're consistently finishing fourth or fifth, it's really easy to convince yourself that you're close enough and you just need to keep doing more of the same things. Eventually I had to recognize that the gear that made me good wasn't necessarily the gear that was going to make me great.
Here is the line between the two:
A dip means something is broken, and you can feel it. The job is to figure out what's broken and start building momentum again. I lived my own version of that over two years and roughly a hundred crashes, and I break down how I climbed out in how to get out of a career dip.
A plateau means nothing is broken, and nothing hurts. The job is to challenge what's working, which is a lot harder, because you're being asked to change something that isn't failing.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle to your next level is the fact that your current level is still pretty comfortable.
The High Performer Plateau: What I Changed When Trying Harder Stopped Working
When a high performer plateaus, the first instinct is usually to try harder. That was mine. But it's usually the wrong answer, because more effort in the same direction and the same gear just gets you more of the same result.
The biggest change I made was what I was measuring. Early in my career, just completing a run in my monster truck was success to me. Then putting together a competitive run became success.
Eventually I had to stop measuring myself against whether I had done well and start measuring myself against what the people who were winning were doing differently:
Where were they carrying more speed?
Where were they taking calculated risks that maybe I wasn't taking?
Where were they creating the moments that separated a good run from a winning one?
That changed the way I prepared. I wasn't trying to improve my own performance anymore. I was studying the gap between my performance and the standard that was required.
This is where high performers get into trouble: they keep improving against an old definition of success. If you want to break through a performance plateau, sometimes the breakthrough comes from changing the scoreboard you're using.
Why a Team Performance Plateau Hides Behind Hit Targets
A team performance plateau rarely shows up as a problem on paper. It usually looks like success.
I've walked into mature organizations where the numbers were really good, the team was experienced, and leadership could point to plenty of reasons to feel successful. But within a few minutes, you could hear the plateau in the way they talked. Most of the conversation was about protecting what already worked instead of discovering what would work next.
That's usually a growth problem. The team hasn't stopped performing, but they've stopped learning, and hitting your targets can hide that for a really long time. You can hit this year's number while your customer is changing, your competition is improving, or your industry is moving in a direction you're not prepared for yet.
That's why I don't think growth is simply about getting bigger numbers. Growth is increasing the capability of the people producing those numbers.
It's the first gear in my G.E.A.R. Framework, the four-gear system of Growth, Engagement, Acceleration, and Risk that I teach leadership teams to diagnose why they've stalled and which gear gets them moving again. I explain why the Growth gear starts with your inputs in the fuel tank theory of leadership growth.
If the results look the same and the people producing them haven't had to learn anything new, I'd be asking whether you're performing well or simply getting really good at yesterday's game. A plateau is only one way a team stalls, so if you're not sure which gear your team is stuck in, start with the four signs your team is stuck.
Stuck at the Same Level for 18 Months? Your First Move Isn't Working Harder
If you've been stuck at the same level in your career for 18 months, the first move to break through a performance plateau isn't to work harder. It's to identify what your current level of success is allowing you to avoid changing.
Here is how to start this week:
Audit the last 90 days. Ask yourself: what am I doing today that used to create growth, but now only maintains where I am?
Pick one of those assumptions. Just one. Then challenge it this week.
Choose how you'll challenge it. Change an input. Learn a new skill. Ask someone performing at the next level what they see that you don't. Or test something your current playbook wouldn't normally tell you to try.
In Geared for Life, I wrote that a successful business owner who feels like they've plateaued needs to be willing to look under the hood and discover the gears they have available to get unstuck. That 90-day audit is what looking under the hood looks like in practice.
How to tell within 30 days if it's working
Don't measure the first 30 days only by whether your results immediately start to improve. Look for evidence that you're learning again:
Are you asking different questions all of a sudden?
Are you trying different things?
Are you discovering information you didn't have 30 days ago?
That's how you know you're starting to move.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you break through a performance plateau?
Stop adding effort in the same gear and change what you're measuring. Compare yourself to the standard the next level requires, not to your own past performance. Then pick one assumption behind your current results and challenge it this week by changing an input, learning a new skill, asking someone at the next level what they see, or testing something your playbook wouldn't suggest.
What is the difference between a plateau and a dip?
A dip is a decline where something is broken and you can feel it, so the work is finding what's broken and rebuilding momentum. A plateau is a stall where nothing is broken and results still look fine, so the work is challenging what's already working. That's why a plateau is more dangerous: nothing hurts badly enough to force a change.
Why do results plateau at work even when you're working hard?
Because effort usually isn't the constraint. More effort in the same direction produces more of the same result. Results tend to plateau when a person or team keeps improving against an old definition of success while the standard for winning has moved.
Which G.E.A.R. gear is usually behind a team performance plateau?
Usually Growth. A plateaued team hasn't stopped performing, it has stopped learning, and hitting targets can hide that for a long time. In the G.E.A.R. Framework, growth means increasing the capability of the people producing the numbers, not just producing bigger numbers.
How do you know if you're getting off a plateau?
Look for learning before you look for results. In the first 30 days, check whether you're asking different questions, trying different things, and discovering information you didn't have a month ago. Those are the early signs you've started to move.
Shift Before You Accelerate
The mistake high performers make on a plateau is flooring the gas in the same gear. Sometimes the next level requires you to shift before you accelerate. That's what finding your next gear really means, and it's the heart of the G.E.A.R. Framework: the gear that made you good is rarely the one that makes you great.
It's also the conversation I bring to leadership teams whose numbers look fine but whose growth has quietly stopped.
Bring Finding Your Next Gear to Your Next Conference
Bryce Kenny delivers the G.E.A.R. Framework as a keynote for franchise conventions, corporate conferences, and association events. If your team keeps hitting its numbers but hasn't had to learn anything new in a while, this keynote shows them how to spot the plateau, change the scoreboard they measure against, and start finding their next gear before the market forces the issue.
Call (770) 315-2117 or book Bryce Kenny for your next conference →