CHAPTER 4

Assessing Performance Isn’t a Onetime Event

Performance management is an ongoing process, not a one-and-done event. Circumstances and priorities can shift over time, and gaps can form if employees are unable to keep up—which why so many companies are implementing more-flexible performance cycles. So it’s particularly important, especially in a fast-changing work environment, that you observe the quality of your employees’ performance and respond to it in the moment. In the previous section you read about defining goals and adjusting them as needed. Now we’ll focus on keeping track of performance and responding to it regularly.

Unlike a time-bound formal review session (which we’ll discuss in section 4), assessing performance and providing feedback is a continual process. You and your employees will both benefit if you give feedback often. Take advantage of your check-in sessions as opportunities to track your employees’ strengths, weaknesses, interests, and ambitions while also staying apprised of their progress. You’ll be able to identify where your employees may be falling short of their goals and collaborate on ways to correct course.

Periodic progress checks and ongoing observation are essential in order to help you:

• Stay grounded in goals. Checking in to monitor progress toward goals offers the opportunity to revise targets based on changing priorities or circumstances. You might discover that your employee is on track to meet a goal ahead of schedule—or you might need to remind them about important items that may not be the current focus of their attention.
• Recognize and reinforce strong performance. People always welcome positive feedback about their contributions, successes, and achievements, so be liberal with your praise. In fact, some experts suggest that to boost performance, you should provide more positive feedback than negative. (To learn more about offering recognition, see chapter 7.)
• Become aware of performance gaps, and close them. A performance gap is the difference between someone’s current performance and what is required. As a manager, it’s crucial that you identify small gaps before they snowball into bigger issues.

If you’re up-to-date on your direct report’s progress, you’ll be well positioned to catch any problems early and work with your employee to correct course—before they veer so far off target that carefully set goals become unattainable. Ongoing observation is key to staying on top of any issues and identifying the root cause of problems, as well as finding opportunities for positive feedback and recognition.

Observe and Gather Data

To best track performance, observe your employees and how they are progressing toward their goals. Your mission should be to identify an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and to understand the impact that their work and behavior has on the person’s ability to achieve specific objectives, as well as their contribution to the organization as a whole. You’ll also want to keep ongoing notes on their performance. (See the sidebar “Document Your Observations.”)

If there are periodic milestones built into your employee’s goals, you’ll easily be able to spot performance gaps as they develop. For example, Nadia is worried about her employee Eileen’s performance. Eileen’s goal is to increase sales in her territory by 10% this calendar year, but the first-quarter results show that Eileen’s sales are only 2% above last year’s numbers for the same period. If this trend continues, Eileen won’t meet her annual goal. Nadia would be wise to check in with Eileen—earlier rather than later—to see what can be done to close the gap before it’s too late.

Perhaps someone demonstrates a behavior that is causing problems. It’s important to assess whether it’s an anomaly that won’t cause future damage or an ongoing behavior pattern that requires your immediate feedback so your employee can change. Consider these examples:

• During a team meeting, Harriet observed that her direct report Raul frequently interrupted others, preventing them from expressing their views. This tripped up team dynamics and undermined the teamwork that Harriet’s unit depended on for its success.
• Miguel noticed that Leila, an off-site member of his team, often seemed the first to pipe up in brainstorming sessions with reasons why a colleague’s suggestion wouldn’t work. After overhearing some heated conversations between on-site teammates, Miguel became concerned that Leila’s comments might be inhibiting the group.

While your own personal observations are important, in today’s environment where tasks are complex or involve a team, you may not have the ability to see the full picture. It’s helpful to ask for others’ thoughts as well. Feedback from other sources provides a useful reality check of your own views—and may provide you with new information about additional good or bad performance. So, when appropriate, discuss these situations with trusted colleagues—in confidence. Add their observations to your own.

For example, Harriet viewed Raul’s habit of interrupting others as stifling valuable dialogue, but someone else may applaud his strenuous articulation of his views. To better understand whether Raul was indeed hurting team interactions, Harriet could go to another manager, Leo, and request that he observe Raul’s participation in an upcoming meeting and report back on his impressions. (Note that she should not request that the manager look for interruptions specifically, so as not to influence his thinking.) Once she hears back from Leo, Harriet will be better able to fairly assess whether Raul’s interruptions are actually a hindrance to his performance. Similarly, Miguel could ask members of his team whether Leila’s critiques during their brainstorming sessions are bothering others—and if so, how—to understand the impact of her actions before jumping to conclusions.

Always ensure you have a complete picture of the situation, and continue to watch your direct report’s work and behavior if you have any doubts about your perceptions. Avoid premature judgment, and recognize that, no matter someone’s behavior, any assumptions about the causes are just that—assumptions. Instead, consider what might underlie an employee’s disappointing work results, and make the effort to accurately assess what’s causing the problem.

Notice subtle requests for help

While observation is essential to understanding performance, it’s also important to perceive the indirect ways your employees may be asking for help. People don’t always know what kind of help they need or exactly how to ask for it. Sales manager Rita, for example, was frustrated by the vague monthly reports she was getting from Philip, a salesperson on her team. In their check-in meetings he asked few questions, but after receiving more similarly unsatisfactory reports, Rita realized that Philip might have dropped hints that he wasn’t sure what information she was looking for.

Make a practice of actively listening when discussing projects or progress with your employee, and confirm that they understand exactly what you’re asking of them. Some people, reluctant to show they’re not clear on something, may subtly drop hints rather than ask for clarification directly. Tune in—what you hear may help you figure out how to improve a person’s work.

Identify Possible Causes of Poor Performance

If you’ve noticed an employee’s work isn’t up to par, your next step is to investigate what may be causing the issue. The underlying cause could be a skill deficiency, poor time management or personal work habits, lack of motivation, conflict with another employee, or unclear direction on your part. Or it could be something else entirely, like a misunderstanding of expectations.

Underperformance may have a nonobvious cause and have nothing to do with lack of skill or motivation. Here are a few possible reasons why people may fall short of expectations:

• Bad processes. W. Edwards Deming, one of the great management teachers of the past century, warned business leaders that the source of unsatisfactory performance was usually bad work processes. If you want better performance, look to the work process before you look for faults in your people. Perhaps your employee who is frustratingly late in delivering documents is being hampered by a cumbersome approval process that relies on getting sign-offs from someone who travels often or doesn’t always turn requests around quickly.
• Workplace tensions. Workload inequities (even if temporary) or simply a visceral dislike may produce conflict that impairs performance. Perhaps two teammates have both applied for a higher-level position; when one is promoted, the other may grow resentful. Another common—and easily remedied—cause of workplace tensions is communication style differences between colleagues. If you can discover what’s behind conflict or tension, you may be able to neutralize it.
• Work overload. Even the most-committed employee will burn out if you demand too much too fast, so beware of unreasonably ambitious goals and expectations. Don’t set the bar too high. If you notice after a series of check-ins that someone has yet to make progress toward a goal, ask what’s holding them back; doing so may lead you to reassess the objective. Temporary situations can also affect the quality of an employee’s or even a team’s work. If one team member misses a number of days of work to tend to an ill family member, for example, their colleagues may feel supportive but also overburdened from picking up the slack.
• Personal problems. Sometimes the root cause of poor performance may have nothing to do with work at all. A health crisis at home may be distracting your direct report, or an employee may be struggling to manage both workplace and family demands. You might be able to help mitigate these problems if you learn what they are. For example, if an employee is stretched thin between caring for young children as well as aging parents, perhaps you can offer a flexible work schedule or an option to work remotely on occasion to allow the individual to aid their family.

If you notice poor performance, remember that there may be underlying issues that you need to identify before moving forward with a plan of action. Remedies will differ depending on the cause.

Are you part of the problem?

As you consider possible reasons behind a performance gap, assess whether you’ve played a role in the issue. Ask yourself if you’ve unwittingly thrown up roadblocks by, say, reducing necessary resources, overloading your employee with responsibility, or micromanaging. Consider these questions:

• Have I been clear in my expectations? It’s possible that your employee may not know exactly what you’re looking for. If you suspect a lack of clarity is the issue, ask your direct report to explain the task or project in their own words, instead of simply asking whether or not they understand you.
• Am I holding up my end of the bargain? Perhaps you and your employee have agreed that they need to step up their leadership skills and take on more responsibility—but when they tried to take ownership of a recent project, you insisted on daily updates. While this might not seem like an unreasonable request, to your employee, it could appear that you distrust them and are micromanaging.
• How often and to what extent have I intervened in the employee’s area of responsibility? If their performance doesn’t measure up, maybe it is because you overruled their decisions or insisted that they follow your approach to completing the work. Some people learn best by doing research and preparing beforehand, but others thrive with a less cautious approach. Action-oriented individuals may need more freedom to experiment in order to master new skills.
• Have I changed priorities and assigned tasks without employee input? Perhaps you assigned an employee a new short-term project, underestimating how much time it would take away from their longer-term goals. Or you might have given an assignment that was impossible to complete on time. An unexpected—and unplanned for—shift in time or resources can throw anyone off their game.

When you have identified the cause of a problem, decide if it’s worth addressing. Is this a true performance gap or a temporary glitch? If it was a onetime misstep unlikely to be repeated—an error made the first time a person used a new tool or attempted a new task, perhaps—you might let it go. Avoid giving feedback, too, in situations where your employee can’t change or control the outcome. If they’re being held up by someone else’s delayed sign-off, for example, then they may not be the appropriate target for your feedback. Something that you deem to be a problem may simply be a matter of preference. Harriet may find Raul’s habit of interruption annoying, but if it has no effect on team dynamics or performance, it may make sense to overlook it.

On the other hand, if you discover a performance problem that could happen again if not addressed, plan to discuss the issue sooner rather than later. The next chapter will guide you through the process of delivering effective feedback.