Performance Management
Performance management, the final component of our talent management model, is one of the most difficult aspects of managing the talent supply chain and one of the most crucial to the overall success of the Human Capital Strategy. In general, performance management is designed to translate the company’s strategy and goals throughout the organization by breaking them down into divisional, departmental, team, and individual goals and objectives. Each person employed by the company should ultimately have specific, measurable, challenging yet realistic goals to be delivered in a given timeframe. When done well, this process creates transparency and accountability throughout the organization and ensures that the overall organization and all of its subsystems are working together toward collective success. It can also become a key innovation vehicle by opening the pathway for manager/employee dialogue. The enhanced communication, collaboration, and transparent nature of performance management will be especially attractive to Gen Y. In fact, they will push us to utilize these systems more thoroughly and effectively than ever before.
Historically, organizations have used a more isolated approach with a basic annual performance evaluation. These were often focused only on the individual, completed only once per year, and seen primarily as another task on the managers’ to-do list. As our organizations grew more sophisticated, these annual evaluations were tied to department and then organizational goals. Today, we have very sophisticated electronic systems in place that can align every single employee with the goals and strategies of the overall company. Not all, not even most, organizations have these sophisticated systems, but they are available and will become more and more accessible, even to small companies as the technology moves to a cloud base.
According to Wikipedia, there are also “self-propelled performance management systems” that are an excellent way to get individuals to take responsibility for their own performance. Here are some quotes on the benefits of these self-propelled systems:
1. the fastest known method for career promotion
2. the quickest way for career advancement
3. the surest way for career progress
4. the best ingredient in career path planning
5. the only true and lasting virtue for career success
6. the most neglected part in teachings about management and leadership principles
7. the most complete and sophisticated application of performance management
8. the best integration of human behavior research findings, with the latest management, leadership, and organizational development principles
9. the best automated method for organizational change, development, growth, performance, and profit
10. the quickest way for career building, career development, and moving up on the stepping stones of the corporate career ladder
11. the surest and fastest way for increased motivation, productivity, growth, performance, and profitability for both the individual and the organization
12. the best career builder and career booster for any career
13. inspirational, as it gets people moving, makes them self-starters in utilizing own talents and initiative, automatically like magic1
Of course, some companies are not quite to the self-propelled model yet. Many are still below the basics with no performance management at all or just an annual performance evaluation, and yes, some are still using paper documents. Nonetheless, we are collectively moving forward bit by bit. With technology and the excellent systems that are available today, feedback can be consistent, even continuous, and both transparency and accountability can become a way of life for everyone throughout the company. It can, but that doesn’t mean that it will just because your organization has the latest and greatest performance management system.
All of this techno capability is great and can even be done within a reasonable budget, but these sophisticated systems called performance management systems (PMS) are still just tools. A great tool can help a person do better work, but it cannot do the work for the person. These systems are a constant prompt and excellent source of data management for the organization, but performance management is still ultimately about the people. And while we refer to people as the talent supply chain, people are still people not products and, as every manager knows, people issues are messy and riddled with conflict. Therefore, performance management inherently has lots of issues.
As we read in the first part of this book, who is managing who is one source of conflict (Boomers managing Gen X, Gen X managing Gen Y, etc.), but there are many more potential points of conflict such as whether or not someone is getting the results they are supposed to be getting, playing nice with the other kids on the playground, and on and on. So performance management can become conflict management.
Your company can prepare both the managers and employees to effectively implement performance management processes with one important ingredient: preparation. Just like we have to prepare for the generational parade to keep marching forward, when it comes to performance management, managers and employees who know what to expect, what to do, and how to do it are much more likely to be successful than those who don’t.
Yes, we know. This is not really a new revelation. In fact, it is basic. So why are so few organizations doing the basics and even fewer doing the basics well? When coaching, Hagemann occasionally has a frustrated executive complain about going over basics of communication, building cohesive teams, demonstrating executive presence, emphasizing strategy execution, dealing with conflict, etc. Hagemann tells them just what we are going to tell you now: we can’t move to advanced and sophisticated until we have a foundation built on basics. It isn’t about learning something new. It’s about mastery of the basics. When you master the basics, we’ll be happy to move on to an advanced Human Capital class.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.
— Michelangelo
So the key is preparation, and organizations can prepare in several ways. An initial introduction to how the company handles performance management and the technology can be included during employee orientation. If employees know what to expect, they will know when they are not getting it. This puts the pressure on everyone from the bottom to the top to implement the performance processes, because if the managers don’t do it, the employees will know and push the issue from the bottom up. Now Gen X may be happy if the performance management system is ignored and the executive-seat–hoarding Boomers may not care, but Gen Yers—they will care. They want their feedback, and they want it now, and don’t forget, they’ll be happy to give Boomers and Gen X a little feedback of their own. Luckily for them the processes are evolving, and it is much more interactive than top-down as it was in the past. This leads us back to our earlier discussion of managing Gen Yers—be prepared to receive their feedback. They have had a voice since they were babies, and they don’t plan to lose it now that they’ve entered the workforce.
As a way of preparation, classes can also be offered on an ad hoc basis or required as a prerequisite to other more “advanced” leadership classes. If possible, we recommend establishing a required performance management class for all managers. It will need to include the hard stuff such as how to deal with the difficult performance evaluations, how to document appropriately, how to help an ambitious employee advance his or her career, etc., but it should also include a learning module on the technology. It is hard to effectively use a system that one has not been trained how to use.
As we recommended in Chapter 14, we believe having a “base” assessment that aligns the organization and creates a common language is helpful for both learning and performance management. Our favorites for this purpose is either the Golden Personality Type Profiler or the MBTI assessment. Both are widely used communication preference assessments. They offer a foundation for understanding individual differences and applying that understanding to the ways people think, communicate, and interact with each other. Here is a brief quote on the topic from Hagemann’s article “Creating a Successful ‘MBTI® Organization’” published in CPP’s TYPEwriter:2
An “MBTI® organization” is a company that has committed corporate resources to improving communication using the MBTI® assessment tool as a foundation piece. A successful MBTI® organization values and understands the idea that as a company grows and develops, the MBTI® instrument continues to serve a vital purpose as a tool that can help employees throughout their careers. As individual and corporate needs change, the assessment can always provide new and more insightful information for personal development.
So when it comes to performance management discussions, having a tool that everyone can collectively use for communication will reduce the generational barriers and mitigate a lot of potential miscommunications.
In the first part of this book, we covered many ways to help the diverse generations communicate better and manage each other, so for now, let’s tackle the more generalized issue of performance feedback while maintaining our focus on the shifting demographics.
It doesn’t matter how many strategies, systems, and processes you put into place, they can all have significant weaknesses in the way performance measures are identified, integrated, communicated, and acted upon. It is actually sort of counterintuitive: the thing that managers often dread the most—giving feedback on performance—may actually do more to create job satisfaction than most of the other manager efforts. As long as feedback is given appropriately, even those who need to change or improve performance are grateful for the feedback. The not knowing and the guessing are what lead to dissatisfaction. Most of us have had managers who did not map out clear expectations or give us enough feedback, and we wasted a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what the manager liked or didn’t like, what was helpful and what wasn’t helpful. We should not have to go deep-sea fishing to get this rather basic information.
Still, there’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that it is difficult to be the provider of this basic information. Knowing what to do is at least half the battle, and we’ll cover that later. The other half is courage. For that we give you the Lion’s Badge of Courage from The Wizard of Oz, because truly you already have all you need. You just have to draw it out when you need it, and no matter what your generation, when it comes to giving feedback, you’re going to need it.
On the “what to do,” remember that performance management is much more than an employee evaluation. It is an organizational process and can provide a significant portion to a company’s culture of accountability. Let’s break it down into components. Most performance management processes will include
• a company-wide expectation and accountability for managing performance;
• identified roles and responsibilities with the ability to demonstrate how they tie to the overall company vision and strategy;
• written job descriptions;
• expected organizational and/or leadership competencies with weights adjustable for the position in question;
• clearly articulated performance expectations for both the role and the competencies;
• objective performance measures;
• constituent feedback mechanisms such as 360-degree feedback surveys, customer surveys, peer reviews, etc.;
• both long-term and short-term goals with accountability to and results for the company;
• standard performance improvement processes that provide a way for the manager and employee to create a performance improvement contract (this is especially important when performance improvement is required for continued employment);
• user-friendly approach for both the individual and his or her manager.
If the performance management process is on a technology platform, the technology will work best if it
• is “bolted on” to current organizational technology systems, such as your Human Resource information system;
• has a way for both the employee and the manager to engage the system;
• allows employees to track their own progress, report in, ask for a meeting with his/her manager, etc.;
• easily transfers employee performance information from one manager to another;
• captures both the imperative and the useful information in a timely and easy manner;
• has a dashboard so that cumulative metrics can be gathered easily and shared in chart form to senior executives and HR leaders;
• has a high level of interaction, promoting regular communication and feedback.
Employees can help the process be successful by
• making sure that they clearly understand expectations— they should ask until they are totally clear;
• soliciting feedback regularly;
• letting an HR leader know if their manager is not providing adequate, or any, performance feedback.
Performance management processes done well will actually improve employees’ strategic, daily decision making by insisting on alignment of personal goals with the organizational goals and strategies—but only if it is done well. When it comes to the formal performance review, we have a few suggested steps:
1. Prepare by thinking through the employee’s performance and considering his/her communication style.
2. Mirror your corporate culture and values.
3. Use a performance document that has the performance objectives and measures.
4. Have the employee complete a self-evaluation of the document ahead of time.
5. Begin by reviewing the employee’s self-evaluation together.
6. With each objective, listen carefully and then provide your own feedback to either reinforce his/her self-evaluation or provide clear guidance into how his/her performance can improve.
7. Let the employee know what he/she does well, what he/she needs to do more of, less of, or differently.
8. Use role-playing and storytelling as a means of examples and guidance.
9. Be prepared to engage in a crucial conversation when performance improvement is needed—in fact, be prepared either way. You never know what employees are bringing into a performance review.
10. Remember to focus on helping each employee push his/ her strengths to the next level and simultaneously make improvements in areas of weakness.
11. Mutually develop an action plan for performance improvement or next level performance.
12. Set step goals and checkpoints for ongoing feedback.
13. Don’t run an assembly line. Treat each person as the unique human resource that they are.
14. Don’t use yourself as an example of success.
15. Be kind, be clear, and be consistent.
Informal performance feedback can be at any teachable moment and more like a gentle guidance or mentoring than a mandate or correction.
And, don’t forget to ask the employee about his/her career aspirations. In this area, consider yourself his/her advocate. You can never really lose by helping another person with his/her career. Remember the employee is not technically “yours.” If you’re doing a good job, they will stay as long as they can, but eventually most will continue to move throughout his/her career. It is rare today for employees to stay in the same position 20-plus years. Your role as this individual’s manager may be short or long. Either way, make it count.
Notes
1. “Performance Management.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 24 July 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_management.
2. Hagemann, Bonnie. “Creating a Successful MBTI® Organization.” The TYPEwriter 5:2 (Fall 2002). p. 1. Print.