What is Above Performance Management

In a fantasy world, leadership would establish strategy, put programs in place, tell people what is required of them, and everyone at every level would do exactly what is necessary to create value and increase viability. It’s in their self-interest to do so and any rational individual should be able to see that.

They don’t. They may agree that the path chosen is correct, but agreement is one thing, and doing something differently is another. Talk, as they say, is cheap. And habits are hard to change.

Knowledge or even understanding is not enough to modify ingrained habits built over many years of doing things the same way. They are the primary source of our comfort at work. Many great initiatives have ended in the scrap heap because people understood what was required and had the requisite skills but succumbed to the overwhelming pressure to do things the way they had always done them. Excellent programs have died at the first point of crisis because people were determined to prove they wouldn’t work.

In the end, if any initiative is to be successful people have to want to do it. This means that leaders throughout the organization must be able to engage people in the behaviors necessary to transform executive intent into bottom-line impact. People need to do the things necessary to deliver success and they must do them on a consistent basis. 

People will “want to do it” only after they have received satisfactory answers to three basic questions:

1      What do you want me to do?

2      How am I doing?

3      What’s in it for me?

What do you want me to do?

More, better, faster is not a satisfactory reply. The answer must be clear. There should be no confusion about meaning or intent. The words chosen should be easily understood by everyone. “Process more claims” is better than “Increase efficiency”. It should also be precise. This means people should know exactly what is required of them. “Process 20 claims per hour” is better than “Process more claims”. It must be meaningful. Employees need to understand how their effort will contribute to overall success. They should be able to describe what you expect them to do. “If you review the claim before inputting it you will reduce the number that you have to redo” is better than “You are still not meeting your processing goal”.

The best way to answer the question is to pinpoint both the results and behaviors necessary to be effective. Every person must understand precisely what they need to accomplish and the discrete personal activities which will deliver the accomplishment. A focus solely on results makes success difficult to replicate and can lead, at best to frustration and at worst to self-interest or dishonest behavior. A focus solely on behavior can lead to activity for activity’s sake.

How am I doing?

“If you don’t hear from me, you are doing all right” simply does not cut it anymore. Perhaps it never did. The reply must be quantitative. People need concrete milestones to which they can relate. “Your team generated two escalated customer complaints yesterday. Perhaps you should review the procedure prior to the start of the shift” is better than “There have been some glitches lately. Get them fixed”. Comments should also be related to past performance. A sense of progress can be very motivating. It should also be related to a goal. When people see the destination their desire to get there increases. This is critical in developing the feeling of accomplishment that is so important in building commitment. “Your group had only four escalated complaints last week. That’s a 30% improvement over the week before and is close to our goal of 2 or less.” is better than “Four complaints are simply unacceptable.”

The answer should also trigger reinforcement or celebration. The idea is to recognize all accomplishments, not just the big ones. Waiting for long periods for recognition negatively impacts overall performance because other competing stimuli which are reinforced sooner will take precedence. Taking time to gossip about new processes may become more attractive than taking time to implement them.

While measurement is very important, its impact is limited by the extent to which the data can be turned into feedback. Information about performance becomes meaningful when it allows individuals to confirm or adjust their behavior or teams to celebrate their success.

What’s in it for me?

“You get to keep your job.” will not sustain performance after the basic standards are met. It certainly will not energize people or build commitment. It will also create a culture of entitlement where people expect tangible incentives for everything they do beyond the minimum.

For the past 30 years, we have been asking people what they expect for doing good work. The most common response has been personal recognition. People want to be recognized when they feel that they have done something to deserve it. However, for recognition to have an impact, it must meet four critical criteria.

It must be specific. The deliverer must show that he or she understands exactly what the individual has done. “Thank you for working late yesterday on this report.” Is better than thanks for all your help.” It must also be sincere. This is not about being nice it’s about telling the person how their effort has helped. Thank you for working late yesterday on this report. It helped me to meet my deadline” is better than “Thanks for your help with the report” It should be immediate or as soon as possible after the act. And it should be personalized. Thank you for working late yesterday on this report. It helped me to meet my deadline. I really appreciate this.” is better than “Thank you for working late yesterday on this report. It will help the division meet its deadline”

In the One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard talked about catching people doing things right. Experience shows, however, that this is not easy. As leaders, we have all been successful as fixers. Success has been about finding problems and correcting them. Many of us manage by exception. This makes it difficult to see the good things people do. In fact, it is virtually impossible to identify individual contributions on a consistent basis without a system.

In many organizations, people contribute because they have to. They want to avoid trouble so they do what they need to do to get by. Commonly, they also do no more than they need to do to get by. To be truly successful this paradigm must change. We need to move from have to, to want to. For this to occur, organizations must find ways to reinforce individual contributions and celebrate team success.

Managing performance must become a systematic data-oriented process that triggers frequent, specific, sincere, immediate, and personalized recognition. This means many of us must change the way we manage. On an ongoing basis, every leader must be able to clearly communicate expectations around results and the behaviors required to achieve those results. He or she must be capable of building measurement and feedback systems that allow organizations to chart progress and build individual competence on a real-time basis. Finally, people need to align reward and recognition around the behaviors and results that impact viability most. And, in the end, create a culture where people “Want to do it.”