Category Archives: Performance Management

Trust Bestowed or Earned – Which Comes First?

Posted on March 3, 2011 by | 2 comments

In an earlier article I commented extensively on Stephen Covey’s book entitled “The Speed of Trust – The One Thing That Changes Everything”.  This article presumes the reader already has a strong appreciation for the importance of trust in improving work relations between people and its multiplicative effect on overall organization performance.  This article offers some insights into the actual practice, even the mechanics, of building trust.

When thinking about the trust-building process, I was immediately confronted with a chicken-and-egg problem: does one party earn the trust of another party first, or does one party start by bestowing trust on the other before it is earned.  I learned a lot about this dynamic from my dog, Zelda.

Zelda is black Labrador and, like most labs, she always wants to be where we are.  Wherever we are in the house she will lay down as near as possible.  In fact, most of the time she lays down exactly under foot, directly in your way, and then proceeds to fall happily asleep.  As I would get up to move past or around her I would have to step very close to her body.  Despite the very real risk of being stepped on accidentally, she would lie there completely still and serene.  It struck me that she was completely confident that I would not hurt her; she had bestowed a high degree of trust in me, and she had done so before I earned it.

We can debate about whether dogs are instinctively trained to trust humans or whether she was bestowing “blind trust”, but what was more interesting was seeing how I behaved in response to receiving this gift.  Seeing, and feeling, the trust she had placed in my behavior, I felt an extraordinary responsibility to be careful to not step on her.  It was very important that I not betray her trust.  I wanted to validate her trust and “earn” what was already given.  It struck me that this is the opposite of our common conception that trust needs to be earned first.

In addition to earning trust, one party can ask for trust, i.e. the performer saying, in effect, “trust me”.  This was the case the first time my son asked to borrow the car keys.  I notice, however, that while my teenager son is constantly pushing the boundaries of our established trust level, he does not ask me for a new level of trust that would be way beyond my comfort zone or the parameters of our existing trust level(s).  We are engaged in the process of building trust.

More precisely it is a reinforcing cycle – a cycle of action and reaction that either builds, maintains or diminishes trust.  The acts of bestowing and earning trust are present in virtually all human interactions.   The result of this cycle of behavior with Zelda is that she and I have an amazing degree of trust in each other.  The actual cycle mechanics are that each person implicitly attempts to match the level of trust either bestowed or asked by the other; i.e. one expects to be trusted to the level of what they have earned in previous interactions, and one bestows trust only up to the level of what they expect the other party can earn.  It goes without saying the cycle is not always smooth and forward.  The cycle with my son is not linear; he is granted more trust the older he gets, but, as with most teenagers, there are also setbacks where trust is damaged and requires rebuilding.

We do not typically bestow trust way beyond what we think is justified based on our expectations of the other person’s response, and, conversely, we do not expect to be granted trust way beyond what we think the other person can accept.  The one who initiates the trust-building cycle limits the strength and dynamism of the cycle by trying to anticipate and match the expected response from the other (i.e. they limit their level of trust based on pre-judgments of the other).

Imagine if this were not the case.  Imagine if the cycle started from within without regard for pre-judgments about in-kind responses, such as Zelda bestowing way more trust in me before I had earned it.  I propose that people who bestow more trust than is “warranted”, or who ask for more trust than they have previously “earned”, build higher levels of trust very much faster.

This is not the same as blind trust.  It would be naïve to overlook the risk associated with such behavior.  In fact, risk is the special ingredient that propels and energizes the whole cycle.  Trust need not be blind.  Having bestowed a great trust does not mean you can not follow up and stay deeply involved in the execution by the other party.  Asking for frequent progress reports may still be appropriate, but the quality and mood of the dialog is entirely different.  Conversely, asking for more trust does not mean you perform in isolation from the stakeholder.  Having taken on more trust, you are obliged to be even more communicative about progress and concerns.

This discussion would not be complete without mentioning the preeminent importance of outcomes.  The trust cycle ultimately depends on whether the performer earned the trust they were given or asked for.  As Stephen Covey says, the performer’s pattern of meeting commitments is the “Big Kahuna” for building trust.  The point of this article is to suggest that managers who bestow trust on performers before it is earned can accelerate the cycle.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Performance Management, Trust

Priorities Don’t Deliver – The Only Thing That Matters Is Agreeing On A Delivery Date

Posted on February 4, 2011 by | 3 comments

When someone delegates a task to someone else it’s common business practice for the requester to assign a priority (high, medium, low) to the task.  It’s done all the time, in email messages, task assignments, yearly goals, etc.  The priority is a signal from the boss that the “top” priorities are most important to him/her, and they are expected to be done ahead of others.

This practice has less value than we think.  Assigning priorities to task assignments does not drive better outcomes – i.e. does not assure that the right things get done at the right time.

What good is it to have low priority items that we know will never get done? They’re cluttering some list, but, if truth were told, they’ll never get done.  We’ve made a record of them, but we just don’t have the courage to delete them.  On the other hand, what good is it to have numerous high priority items, with more being added each week?  Before you have completed the list, another “top priority” item is added.  In the end, you can only work on one at a time.

In the final analysis, priorities don’t really drive delivery very much.  Due Date is the only thing that drives delivery.

So, when you want to get something done, don’t specify the priority, ASK the intended performer for a delivery date.  And I do mean ASK.

This practice is so much different than ASSIGNING a priority and a due date.  The actual conversation should be a REQUEST not an assignment.  You are ASKING a performer to execute some outcome and ASKING when they can commit to deliver it.  Delivery date is the only thing that really matters.  A high priority item that won’t be delivered when needed is useless.  And just adding a low priority item to a long list of tasks that will never get delivered is also useless.  Juggling several “high priority” items should not be left to the performer’s discretion.

Instead, make a clear REQUEST, and ASK your performer when they can deliver.  Sure, in making the request it’s good to communicate about the relative importance of the task, but just assigning a priority has only limited value in the decision-making of the performer as to what to do next.  In response to the REQUEST, the performer looks at what’s already on their plate, considers a series of factors (e.g. urgency, intuition, personal interest, political value, career advancement, difficulty of accomplishment, etc.) and responds with a proposed delivery date.  If their response is not soon enough, some negotiation of delivery date may be appropriate.  But in the end there is an AGREEMENT about a delivery date.  This is all that matters.

This practice seems so obvious, but it is surprisingly rare.  Instead, we persist in assigning work and giving out priorities.  It kind-of works, but it is very inefficient.  Let’s have better conversations and make clear agreements.  Requesters should drop the notion (or at least rely a lot less on it) of assigning their priority to the request, with the implicit assumption that high priority items get done first.  Instead, both parties would be better served by focusing on obtaining an agreed due date (regardless of what priority the requester or the performer may have in mind).

Next generation task management systems will focus on forging agreements around delivery dates, not on assigning priorities.

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Posted in Execution, Organization Development, Performance Management, Workplace norms

Performance Management Does Not Equal Performance Improvement – Improving Systems Requires More Than Paving The Cow Path

Posted on December 6, 2010 by | 1 comment

Performance management systems have been around for over three decades.  As an HR manager at a high tech company in 1984, I was responsible for administering the annual “performance review period”.  The annual review was supposed to be a time for setting goals and providing developmental feedback.  It also insured that every manager had at least one performance-related conversation with each employee each year.  It was also seen as a way to either justify the planned salary increase or, in cases where there were problems, to begin a documentation trail to move an employee out of the company without legal ramifications.  The real action regarding evaluating each employee’s performance took place in the rating and ranking session that all the managers participated in during which compensation increases were decided.  Once this two-day meeting was completed, HR had to hound the managers to get all their reviews written.  Since the salary increase was already determined in the rating/ranking meeting, the performance review document was often written so as to support the proposed salary increase.  Performance strengths and developmental goals for the next period were included in the document that went into the employee file.  Managers understood that this annual process was “necessary”, but no one, not even the HR folks, really believed that the annual performance review actually led to improved employee or departmental performance.

The basic process has evolved very little since then with the exception of two changes: there is a somewhat greater emphasis on setting goals, and the tools for actually writing the review document have changed.  Enhancements have been directed primarily at speeding up the process, not improving it.

Whereas in 1984 the manager would be expected to compose a one or two page personal appraisal report using a word processor (the newer programs at the time had spell checking), today managers can “write” the review with a few clicks of their mouse.  Today’s performance management software lets managers click to select the characteristic (e.g. “exhibits teamwork”) they want to include from a predefined list (sometimes called “coaching tips”), click to decide how strongly or weakly worded they want to make the point, and voila, a politically correct, legally correct, and spell-checked paragraph has been “written”.  Several more clicks and in less than 10 minutes the reviewing manager is done with the (too often dreaded) annual review process for that employee.

I recently viewed the product tour for an industry-leading performance management system.  In touting its system application sophistication the vendor boasted… “With the click of a button…the document can be automatically personalized…”  Does anyone else see the oxymoron here….”automatically personalized”?

This is the same old practice packaged with enhanced electronic aids.  The increasing speed and automation of this approach actually serves to reduce the value of the employee performance review process.  We’ve just paved the cow path and upped the speed limit!  Is this really the direction we want to be going?

I will mention here three initial concerns I have with this development:

(1)  Speeding up the writing process reduces the effectiveness of the intended communication to the employee. The process of writing is actually a process of thinking.  Managers who take the time to compose their own original paragraphs are likely to be much more specific and grounded in their feedback than any generalized “coaching tip”.  Additionally, the act of the writing is also indirectly helping the manager to prepare his/her script for the upcoming meeting with the employee. [Note: Some performance management systems enable sending the document to the employee and obtaining their electronic signature, thus allowing the manager to actually skip the meeting or personal communication altogether.]

(2) Automating the document sets the wrong mood for the actual meeting with the employee to discuss their performance. Automating the document implicitly suggests that the review process is “automatic”, mechanistic, and mostly quantitative.  Automated writing suggests that template writing is better.  The quicker the manager and employee get through this annual process the quicker they can get back to the “real work”—as if employee development were not part of the job.

(3)  This performance management system is often confused with a performance improvement system. Traditional performance management systems have the right lever for improving performance: the one-to-one communication between manager and employee.  Conversely, they have a totally inadequate and warped implementation of the practice in terms of frequency of occurrence and quality of this conversation.  Performance improvement conversations do benefit from periodic goal setting and review, but the real driver is at the more granular level of making and keeping commitments on a week-by-week, month-after-month basis.  Every task request a manager makes is an opportunity to forge an effective agreement for a specific and defined performance level.  Each request begins a dialog that should have an explicit delivery and assessment at the end.  Each dialog is an opportunity to enhance performance and build trust.

A new breed of software tools is coming to the market based on the concept of performance improvement.  The annual employee review document will persist, but the new tools will focus on the frequency and quality of the one-to-one ongoing dialog between managers and their staff.  The real lever for boosting personal and enterprise-wide performance is elevating and illuminating these closed-loop conversations.  These new software applications will offer the first fundamental advancement in performance management practice in over three decades.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, HR Systems/Technology, Organization Development, Performance Management

Something Invisible is Killing the Animals – What Microbiology can teach us about the health of enterprises

Posted on November 2, 2010 by | Leave a comment

In the middle 1800’s Louis Pasteur and Agostino Bassi proposed the radical idea that something invisible was killing the animals.  Their insights and later developments are known today as germ theory.  Their hypothesis was highly controversial, but their carefully designed experiments gradually gained converts and lifted a shroud that led to numerous breakthroughs.  This work, coupled with advancements in the technology of the microscope, was the foundation of Microbiology.

I propose we are on the verge of a similar breakthrough in the “biology” of enterprises.  Similar to animal cells, information exchange is the smallest component of an action that results in a new outcome.  The interpersonal exchange is the dialog that takes place between a requester and a performer.  Like cells in our bodies, how well these conversations are functioning (i.e. how well they are crafted, nurtured, tracked, and evaluated) has a direct relationship on how well the whole organism-enterprise performs.

By deconstructing, we can readily see that all initiatives are the result of a network of requester-performer conversations.  But there is no technology today, analogous to the microscope, which really enables us to “see” these in-progress conversations.  We know these conversations are going on, but there is no effective means to evaluate their “health” and impact on the enterprise.  In fact, something invisible may be “killing” the enterprise.

New technology, however, is coming.  We are at the beginning of finally being able to “see” these conversations in progress and to begin intervening to strengthen them.

First of all, let’s be clear about what can currently be seen and what is lacking. Today knowledge workers use emails, wiki’s, task management software tools, and shared documents to initiate, track, and review work initiatives and related workflow.  On reflection, however, these tools reveal only fragments of a complete conversation – the skin and bones, as it were.  Moreover, they omit some of the most important parts of the actual dialog between the person who made a request and the intended performer.

The thread of an email comes closest to revealing a complete conversation, but even this is a small fraction of the whole.  Email threads can show who is talking to whom and can provide a glimpse into the content.  On the other hand, emails are not action-oriented, and there is nothing in an email thread that speaks to the “status” or quality of the conversation.  Moreover, each email is an isolated bit of data; there is no technology that enables observation of patterns across emails.

What needs to be seen-understood-evaluated is the quality (“health”) of the dialog.  Dialog assessment quality addresses questions such as:

  • Was the original request clear and understood by the intended performer?
  • Did the performer actually agree to deliver what was requested on the agreed upon date?
  • Is the delivery going to be made on time?  If not, what intervened along the way to force a change in the delivery?
  • Was a final delivery made, and when, and was it actually responsive to the original request?

The above are the critical factors that really matter in terms of performance; this is execution in-progress.  Multiplied a thousand times, the quality of these conversations obviously determines the success of the enterprise.

So now that we understand what we’re looking for, I submit that software technology can play a role similar to the microscope.  There are two main challenges, and software technology offers value for each.

The first challenge is the need to capture a complete conversation that has enough information with which the enterprise-requestor-implementer can assess the quality of the dialog.  Email threads are insufficient; an additional technology is needed that mandates and captures more data and that includes the full closed-loop with a beginning, middle, and end.  Once the conversation has begun, the two parties need to progress along a guided path that eventually leads to some closure and assessment.  All work requests-initiatives do naturally progress and, one way or another, the parties move forward with each other.  Some outcome is achieved.  But, left to their own devices, individuals will not generally follow the discipline needed to capture all the information needed to assess the conversation.  Here is where carefully designed technology can play a role to enforce some discipline into the conversation that captures the data needed for assessment.

The second challenge is the need to expose these complete conversations for viewing.  Once a conversation can be “seen” it can be determined if it was optimal and beneficial to the enterprise-customer.  We will be seeing, for the first time, execution-in-progress. If the whole conversation pattern can be seen, the requester-implementer can intervene to mend, repair, inoculate, or vaccinate the whole body of the enterprise’s performance.  A complete conversation database can be used to display both individual performance parameters and enterprise-wide trends at a granular level previously unavailable.

As in microbiology, many small interactions, nearly invisible, can determine the essential culture and effectiveness of the enterprise.  New technologies are coming that will enable truly transformative observations about enterprise performance that may be as important as microbiology has been to improving human health.

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Posted in Execution, HR Systems/Technology, Performance Management

“Who Will Do What By When” – a Book Review

Posted on October 19, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The title of this book says it all.  Getting work done with others requires the response to this simple question.  Obvious, right?  But as this entertaining book points out, in the real work world it’s not at all that simple.

Tom and Birgit Hanson wrote this book in 2005 with the subtitle “How to Improve Performance, Accountability and Trust with Integrity”.  Rendered in a personal parable about very believable characters in familiar work settings, the authors lay out a system of practices that are at the heart of really answering the question – Who will do what by when.

The authors remind us that our common work norms are not reliable in squarely addressing the WWDWBW question.  First of all, judgments and interpretations about other people’s motives and abilities often create some blindness on the part of managers.  Secondly, the discipline of clearly defining a task and obtaining an agreement and commitment from the intended performer is often glossed over.  And third, even though most would agree that making and keeping promises is key to your reputation and the success of your organization, the practice of really making “promises” is rare.

The system they outline is at once common sense and familiar, but also rare in actual business practice.  It involves the manager making a clear request and obtaining a clear response from the performer of agreement or a counter offer along with a promise to perform by a certain date.  Clarity up front is key.  Closing the loop is equally important.  If the promise is not going to be fulfilled the performer is obliged to re-negotiate a new deadline before the due date.  As the authors note “No one fulfills all their promises, but you can honor all your promises.”  After a delivery has been made, the manager is obliged to provide a clear acknowledgement (e.g. a simple thank you) or a well-considered “complaint”.  The authors also provide several helpful suggestions on how to structure and deliver complaints so that outcomes are improved and relationships are enhanced going forward.

One of the aspects of the book that I most appreciated was bringing the word “integrity” into our every-day work lexicon.  Integrity in business is not always about the big decisions, big deals, and fraud.  It’s also important to notice the smaller behaviors that help to either build or erode one’s personal integrity.  The authors hold up a mirror to self-evaluate and disclose our own lapses of integrity in our business dealings.  Integrity (doing what you say you are going to do) is a personal “tool” that helps you get things done.  Even “small things”, like habitually coming late to meetings, are noticed by your colleagues and erode your integrity which does translate into real dollar costs of doing business.

Conversely, the authors provide a road map for building up and maintaining one’s integrity, and they provide a glimpse of the substantial positive, bottom line effects.  They offer a specific list of “Integrity Tools”.  It’s a simple idea they call “operating with integrity” which is a “system [that relies on] a series of familiar actions, such as request, promise, and acknowledgement, applied in a more rigorous, clearly defined way.  We call the actions Integrity Tools because they help build, maintain and restore integrity to any interpersonal situation … Integrity is the foundation of interpersonal excellence [that] determines the reliability, speed, and bandwidth of your team’s performance.”

The practices promoted by their system improve work norms and behaviors, but sustaining the changes only comes with practice.  Doing it repeatedly is different than speaking about it.  Software systems (e.g. 4 Spires) can reinforce and instantiate the “integrity operating system”.

Finally, as the authors advise…”if you only remember to say the title of this book several minutes before the end of your meetings, the book will have been a great investment!”

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Execution, Performance Management, Workplace norms

Performance Management – A Conversation Not an Event (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on September 17, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the third in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely, Performance Improvement).  This is the second of 2 parts to Performance Management: A Conversation Not an Event.

In the prior posting I focused on the first three of the following six characteristics of an effective performance-related conversation, the result of which was the forging of a clear agreement to deliver.

  1. Openness and candor between the manager and the performer
  2. Opportunity for the performer to negotiate and agree upon the terms of delivery
  3. Clear commitment by the performer for achieving the desired outcomes
  4. Continuity of the dialog; each party stays engaged and provides regular updates
  5. Ongoing assessment and updates by the performer regarding the status of their commitment
  6. Immediate acknowledgement and assessment by the manager of the delivered outcome

This article discusses the final three characteristics of the conversation that deal with what transpires during delivery, acknowledgement, and closing the loop of the conversation.

The fourth characteristic is continuity.  Continuity is similar to, though not the same as, follow up.  Effective performance management is an ongoing conversation; the conversation is active and two-sided. This includes regular one-on-one face-to-face meetings and conversations as well as the thread of e-mails that pertain to the achievement of the agreed upon outcomes.  There is a shared memory, along with some documentation, of how the conversation was initiated, what goals and concerns were expressed, what agreements were made, what challenges were encountered along the way, and what outcomes have been achieved.  Managers need to become better “customers” by providing clear delivery and output requirements, making better detailed and informative requests and staying engaged throughout the entire process.  The manager does not delegate and then simply ask: “Did you do it?” The delegation of a task is not the end of a performance conversation, but rather the beginning of a genuine collaboration.

A fifth characteristic is the ongoing assessment and updates by the performer as to the status or “health” of their agreement.  Goals are not always met or immediately achievable, tasks encounter problems, and performers need to be forthcoming as they become aware of possible shortfalls in delivery or complexity of the deliverable.  Because the manager is now “counting on” the employee to deliver, there is a heightened responsibility on the part of the performer to report progress, particularly if they sense the target date might be missed.  As soon as there is any doubt that they may not make the delivery as planned, instead of “putting their head in the sand” and permitting the manager to rely on hope alone, the performer updates and re-engages with their manager about renegotiating the commitment. Early warning of possible problems is a hallmark of these conversations, as is renegotiation in light of new information. Commitments that can no longer be met are identified early when remedial action and adjustments are most often less costly and more easily corrected. Similarly, if the manager’s original concerns change or there is a change of direction, the manager is obliged to immediately inform the employee and negotiate new deliveries.

Of course, having to report delays or (potentially) missed deadlines are the most challenging portions of the conversation, and, if performers have agreed to stretch for really superior results, there will be more of these “negative” reports. It is precisely in these moments when the manager’s behavior is critical. If the manager responds to “bad news” with a sense of shared commitment and partnership they will join in the performer’s concern and help solve it.  Recriminations, if any, will be minimal. It is not about extracting a commitment from the employee and then beating them up if it is not done. There is just as much responsibility about being a good customer as there is being a good performer.  Partner-like behavior builds trust and makes it easier for the performer to report problems.  We all know that issues or problems caught early are much easier to resolve.  Prompting early notice of breakdowns is a key factor for improving overall organization performance.

The sixth characteristic is honest and immediate acknowledgement and assessment of the deliverable(s) by the manager.  Managers should not wait until the end of the year having built up a library of good news and developmental areas to finally share.  Managers are engaged throughout the delivery and provide clear and candid assessments about whether and how their concerns were addressed.  These mini-reviews and assessments are at the heart of an organization’s continuous learning cycle.

Conversation outcomes are different too

The outcomes from a dialog with these six characteristics are also very different. The manager leaves the first “meeting of minds” conversation with a confident feeling that the performer is committed to achieving the goal/project according to the negotiated agreement. He can count on the performer’s commitment, though this is not to say that they have blind confidence in the outcome. Having had a candid discussion about the performer’s concerns and risks entailed, the manager may even have a less confident feeling than before. Rather than “simply” assigning a task with little or no discussion and assuming it will get done, i.e., a “false” confidence, the manager in these conversations is much more engaged with all the possibilities and the pitfalls associated with the task. Being confident in the employee’s commitment, however, provides the manager with a solid sense that accountability for delivery has been taken on, and is now “owned” by the employee.  A subtle, but critical shift has thus occurred.

This shift enables the manager to reduce the need to micromanage. This alone frees up organizational “waste” in the form of managers’ time and systems spent on checking up, e.g., picture the wasted time a project manager spends each week polling everyone on the team and updating an MS Project Plan to see if each performer is on target with their deliveries.

The performer, for their part, leaves the conversation with a feeling of real commitment to achieving the outcome: Just “working hard at it” and “doing my best” or “giving my best effort” is no longer adequate.  The performer has made an agreement that they do not want to break.  There is no room for cynicism regarding the delivery.  Under this scenario the performer is being treated like a full partner.  They have not just been assigned a new task that can be put on the top on the pile of other tasks.  The performer has engaged in a frank and careful conversation laying out their capabilities and constraints.  The performer and manager have negotiated a delivery that can be met.

Performance-related conversations that exhibit the six characteristics mentioned above achieve an entirely different quality than typical task assignments.  Both the requester and performer are upfront with each other, striving together for something more than average outcomes, and with increasing trust.  The soft core of improving performance lies exactly here.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Performance Management

Performance Management – A Conversation not an Event (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on September 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the third in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely, Performance Improvement).

First, some context and my angle.  Performance management means different things to different people.  I am not speaking here about systems that record employee ratings and rankings, that train employees, that capture 360 degree feedback, that build success plans, nor that help managers write the annual performance review document.  I am less interested in measuring and managing current performance, than I am in how management can actually lift measurable performance metrics for the organization as a whole by improving the performance of individual employees through the use of a new generation of practices and behaviors.  My angle is the belief that easy to use and understand software applications can instantiate and perpetuate these new practices.

The title of this article sets the stage: Performance Management is not an event.  Do we really think that a once-per-year “performance review” meeting followed by a two-page performance appraisal document (signed by manager and employee) has a significant effect on improving performance throughout the year? Do we really think that the goal-setting that goes on in these meetings is the motivation for excelling?

Performance improvement is a process – a set of consistent behaviors and practices, carried out by and between managers and employees, that are designed to stimulate, motivate, and evaluate personal performance. The regular one-on-one meeting with your boss, for example, has significantly more impact and effect on individual performance than the yearly review meeting.  What is even more important than the regularity of these encounters is the quality of the conversation that goes on in them.

The Nature and Quality of the Performance Conversation

So how can we begin to talk about the quality of a conversation?  What are its characteristics?  Would we know one if we heard it?  And, if we could begin to describe a quality performance-related conversation in some repeatable terms, is there really any way to inculcate and socialize the organization so all managers follow the same pattern and general approaches?  These are the questions I will address in the remaining portion of this article and the one to follow.

The use of the term “conversation” does not necessarily imply or require a face-to-face meeting.  The conversation referred to is an explicit, two-sided, back and forth interchange of comments and concerns regarding the requested results.  The dialog can happen in-person or remotely, synchronously or asynchronously.

I propose that an effective performance-related conversation will exhibit the following 6 observable characteristics:

  1. Openness and candor between the manager and the performer
  2. Opportunity for the performer to negotiate and agree upon the terms of delivery
  3. Clear commitment by the performer for achieving the desired outcomes
  4. Continuity of the dialog; each party stays engaged and provides regular updates
  5. Ongoing assessment by the performer regarding the status of their commitment
  6. Immediate acknowledgement and assessment by the manager of the delivered outcome

The first three characteristics will be discussed in this posting and the fourth through sixth characteristic will be discussed in a future posting.

The first characteristic of an effective performance-related conversation is openness and candor. The manager and the employee must first identify and agree upon what level of performance the employee is capable of or is being asked to perform.  Even at this stage there can be difficulties.  It is a rare employee who readily admits what their full capabilities really are.  Due to the penalty of failure atmosphere within most companies, employees profer modest goals and then “exceed” them. This common sense approach generally guides employee behavior. We all want to impress and not disappoint so we imply a level of performance that is well within our comfort zone. It would be a rare manager who could coax a straight answer to the question “what do you really think you could accomplish?” Such straight talk only occurs when there is a genuine sense of partnership between the manager and employee; a sense that the manager is not just the order-giver, but is rather the employee’s true supporter and ally.  Underlying this is a shared sense of how possible failure to deliver will be tolerated.  How organizations handle failure is a primary driver of employee behavior.

The second characteristic is a genuine sense of negotiation. Where the employee is being asked to make a firm commitment they are taking on risk.  Where there is risk, there must be negotiation. The manager can make a request that the employee feels is risky. But, then, the employee has to be able to say: “No – I can not fully commit to the requested delivery date and/or expected final output.” For the employee to make a valid commitment, an honest negotiation option must be an acceptable response, e.g., “No, I can not commit to this level of achievement, but I will commit to this delivery date and provide this output.” Each of the parties needs to recognize and agree when risks are being borne and how each will behave if performance or output falls short. The employee can say: “This is what I think I can deliver, but if this happens then I think I can deliver a different level”.  The manager is then able to respond: “If I take care of this concern for you, then what more could you do?” There is a sense of real partnership and trust where both parties make explicit commitments to each other that involve mutual dependencies and obligations.

This is more like a peer-to-peer conversation – it is definitely not a traditional top-down conversation.  Moreover, this type of negotiation is actually quite rare today in corporate America.  Few employees have the courage or ability to negotiate; yet all feel that the “pocket veto” (i.e. allowing the request to go unchallenged at first while knowing it will not actually get done) is just fine.  Perhaps they sense that an up-front confrontation is difficult and the probability is high that the manager will forget the request over time.  For the manager who seeks to gain real and continual commitment they must allow for and present real room for negotiation when a request is made.

The third characteristic is a shared commitment for the outcome. People excel when they are committed to achieving outcomes, not just working down a list of assignments they have been tasked to complete or perform.  Just “showing up” and “doing your best effort” will achieve the acceptable outcomes a portion of the time.  Excelling, however, requires real commitment.  Having publicly committed oneself – having, in effect, made a promise to achieve a resolution to a shared concern by a certain date – has at least three positive effects.

  • First, the conversation gets much more precise as each of the parties share expectations and concerns.
  • Second, the performer is more likely to push themselves to do that “little” extra to keep their public promise.
  • Third, as concerns arise that jeopardize delivery, the employee is motivated to immediately renegotiate terms with the manager / customer thus incenting an early warning of possible breakdowns in terms of due date or deliverables.

The first three characteristics described above are devoted to the initial stage of an effective performance-related conversation – the meeting of the minds and the proper formation of a clear agreement to deliver.  A follow-on posting will discuss the desirable characteristics in the follow on stages of the conversation – delivery and acknowledgement.

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Posted in Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Performance Management

Performance Management – Something is Missing

Posted on September 3, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the second in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely, Performance Improvement).

There is still something missing in modern approaches to performance management.

Performance management is the very last Human Resources (HR) domain yet to be conquered by progressive organizations. Payroll systems have been around for decades. Benefit plan design and selection technology were perfected in the early 1990s.  Staffing systems and training administration systems came of age in the late 1990s. Powerful employee shared service centers were implemented over the turn of the century.  Sophisticated compensation schemes and salary planning software have been around for many years. Employee and manager self-service applications have grown substantially in the last five years.

Performance management on the other hand, which arguably contributes most to an organization’s success, is still mostly viewed as a once-a-year review and goal planning session between employees and their boss. Does anyone really think that this meeting, which is then captured in several vendor-driven software applications, drives performance improvement?  Most organizations today are still approaching performance management systems using a paradigm that is over two decades old.

Enterprises have attacked performance management using a host of approaches and tools. Leadership development programs, courses, and consulting interventions have been staples for a long time. In the 1980s and early 1990s, companies set about crafting yearly goal-setting and review sessions, and an employee’s “focal review” was often tied to their pay increase or bonus for the year. “Visioning” to get the organization “fired up” and “aligned” was popular in the 1990s. Then there was the notion that performance was all about hiring and retaining the best people – if you got the right people, high performance would follow. There has been emphasis on metrics and reporting – better analytics would, perhaps, boost performance.  The use of 360 reviews was popularized several years ago. Most recently, the focus has been on tying ever-more complex pay and bonus schemes to improve performance.

These tools add value and have their place in a comprehensive approach to improving organization performance. But, all of these tools have just about reached their limits, and most of us would agree that we still do not have performance management quite figured out.

Despite the application and honing of all these tools over the last two decades, we sense there is still something missing.  There is something in the middle of all this, something big and squishy at the core of performance management, something nameless and difficult to talk about much less attempt to influence, some additional piece of the puzzle, something still missing in how we attempt to guide and improve individual and organizational performance.

This is the second of a series of articles on performance management in which I offer some insights and suggestions for teasing out a specific set of practices, behaviors, and tools aimed at what’s really missing in managing and improving individual performance.  For me, the key lies in elevating the quality of the dialog between managers and their staff.  Real improvements in performance can be achieved by focusing on making clear requests, forging explicit agreements, negotiating commitments that shift accountability to the performer, providing deeper visibility into execution, and building trust.  I will also address the surprising role that systems (specifically, software applications) can play in dealing with this soft stuff.

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Posted in Performance Management

Performance Management – Debate and Opinions

Posted on August 31, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This is the first in a series of articles dealing with Performance Management (and more precisely my real interest in Performance Improvement).

This article is structured in the form of a debate that is intended to engage and challenge existing positions and thought patterns. Listed below are four propositions and the Agree and Disagree positions for each proposition.  Included is my position on each Proposition, and I welcome and look forward to hearing which side of the Propositions you support.

Proposition 1:  The once or twice per year performance review does nothing to improve personal performance.

  • Agree: The primary benefit of the annual performance review is to provide a document for the files.  The annual performance review does virtually nothing to engage the employee nor spur an employee’s performance.  The main practice that really drives personal performance is the daily or weekly one-on-one meeting with your manager, management team, and/or internal or external customer.
  • Disagree: The annual performance review meeting and appraisal document are important opportunities to provide feedback that results in significantly improved future performance.  It is also the main opportunity to make sure the employee’s activities are aligned with corporate goals.  Setting goals is a key part of achieving excellent performance.

My view: Even though the proposition is stated in the extreme (i.e. “does nothing to improve…”), I do come down closer to the Agree position.  Setting goals is valuable, but by far the main driver of personal performance is the quality of the relationship and dialog with your manager / customer.  The value of the annual written appraisal is just that it forces the manager to have a conversation and a document in the files.  While it is true that suggestions made during the annual review are treated more seriously than at other times, there are many more opportunities for positive or corrective feedback during the year.  An iterative process of reminders and repetition can drive improvements in personal performance that stick.

Proposition 2:  The dominant driver of organization performance is hiring the right people.

  • Agree: People perform because of who they are, their competencies, and their personal motivations.  Systematic approaches to improving performance lead to only marginal improvements in actual performance.  If you really look at it, people’s day-to-day performance levels do not really change that much.
  • Disagree: Employees can be developed.  Good management practices and training can turn marginal employees into stars.

My view: I go with the Agree position.  Training is useful for providing knowledge and can contribute to some improvement in skills, but will not turn marginal performers into stars.  Bad management practices can certainly drive down personal performance, but I do not believe the opposite is true.  Managers have a disproportionate influence on overall organization performance which is why managerial hires are particularly critical and why systems that reinforce good management practices are so important to the enterprise.

Proposition 3:  Pay-for-performance schemes do not really affect an organization’s performance.

  • Agree: Employees are going to perform at whatever level they can, with or without rating and ranking schemes tied to compensation and bonuses.  Pay-for-performance schemes are simply a means to rationalize pay discrepancies and minimize complaints.  Employees mostly just learn to “game” the system to maximize their pay.
  • Disagree: Money is a real motivator of improved performance.  If employees see an opportunity to make more money, they will excel to get it.

My view: I will take the Agree position again.  Except for sales people and other employees whose pay is largely based on commissions, pay differentials do not motivate better personal performance, i.e. people do not work harder-better-longer to make a 6% raise instead of a 4% raise in base pay.  Bonuses can drive some improvement in personal performance, but only if the potential amount of the bonus is significant and known in advance (i.e. more like a commission scheme).  To press the point, I do not think I have ever seen or experienced a real “pay-for-performance” system (i.e. one that awards significant increases [>=10%] to top performers and no increase for those contributing significantly less).  Human beings are notoriously “relative” – a 5% increase can be good or bad depending on what others are getting.

Proposition 4:  Performance management software systems have little effect on the organization’s performance.

  • Agree: Like virtually all other software tools, performance management software is mostly about recording and reporting what has happened in the past.  They have virtually no effect on actually driving performance improvements going forward.
  • Disagree: Systems can be powerful organization development interventions that can stimulate improved practices and behaviors on the part of managers and employees that have substantial effect on overall performance.

My view: As a software vendor myself, it will be no surprise that I take the Disagree position.  Well-designed systems can do a lot more than just record events and report history.  Over and above the productivity gains and analysis systems provide, interactive systems used by managers and employees enable, nay, require, certain actions by the user to advance the process.  The system designer who is attentive to the power of systems to influence behavior deliberately supports certain entries and avoids others.  Policies and desired practices are embedded in the software.  Using the software “trains” users, and thereby instantiates individual behaviors which can have a substantial impact on organization performance.  Systems that require repetitive interaction can even contribute to the “softer” sides of management that cover trust, accountability, transparency, and the quality of the dialog between managers and their staff. 

What’s your viewpoint on these 4 propositions?  Future articles will propose some ideas for next generation systems that actually improve performance.

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Posted in HR Systems/Technology, Performance Management