4th in a series
Do you hear that rumbling in the distance? Or maybe it’s not so far away. It’s the sound of a run – a run on your talent bank. And if you are resting on your engagement rating laurels, I’ve got bad news for you. Engagement no longer is connected to retention. In fact, your “highly engaged” individuals are more likely to be the first to go!
What’s driving the departures? In a word – frustration. According to Hay Group authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew, it is frustration that leads to indifference, apathy, and a loss of emotional commitment – and it is highest among “engaged” employees, according to recent studies.
What’s causing the frustration?
Loss of Focus. While people are anxious to contribute (a good thing), there are so many “priorities” that the question of “How can I contribute?” has been replaced by “How can I keep pace?” And leaders are not helping the matter. As corporate belt-tightening has become a continuing practice, “do more with less” has become “do everything with nothing,” and the average employee is experiencing a “growing sense of insignificance.”
So how does performance management help solve the problem?
It starts with understanding the alignment of goals to the organization’s priorities. The individual performer needs to know what value his/her work is adding to the organization. Not just what they are being asked (or told) to do, but why it is important – to them, the group, and the organization.
This connection starts long before the performance expectation discussion is conducted. It is the leader’s responsibility to communicate to the team members what is going to be important to the department for the next performance cycle. Granted, priorities and goals may change down the line, and we will discuss that in a later post, but you have to start somewhere. When individuals, especially high performers, know the “why” behind the expectations, they are more able to suggest ideas, accept the challenges, and perform at their best because they understand the value their contribution adds to the process as well as the overall goals of the organization.
In the previous post, I talked about creating effective, SMART goals for the in dividual contributor that are aligned with the department objectives. Who creates these goals? It’s a collaborative effort between the individual and his/her leader. Yes, I said collaborative. While the leader does have final say in the matter, it should be an idea that starts in the head of the individual and gets discussed and agreed to during the set ting expectations dialog. People have more buy-in to something they thought of than of something that was forced upon them. (Remember how you felt when your parents told you that you HAD to some chore? Same concept.)
When it comes time for the Setting Expectations Discussion, both parties are ready and actually looking forward to the discussion. The individual contributor has his/her ideas for meeting the goals, the supervising manager has the big picture perspective to measure the final agreements against. And so they begin – walking through the individual expectations goal by goal. If issues or concerns arise, they are empathetically dealt with then and there. Levels of required support for each goal are also discussed. Some goals will be relatively easy to reach. Others will require a certain amount of guidance, coaching, and development. But this gets agree to up front, so each party knows what they are responsible for to make sure the goals are met.
Red-Lining
Just like the tachometer on your car, there is a limit to how much you can push an individual to perform. As I mentioned at the top of this post, many employees feel they are already in the “red zone” and are about to burn out their engines. How does this get prevented? Priorities!
“Do you want me to rush this rush, or rush the rush I’m rushing now?”
As each goal gets discussed, it is given a particular place on the priority ladder. Not all goals are created equal. Some carry more weight than others, and the understanding of that weight is the responsibility of both the individual contributor and the supervising manager. That way when tasks compete for an individual’s time and attention, the department/organizational priorities become the planning filter. If priorities need to be adjusted, it becomes the responsibility of the individual to discuss that adjustment with his/her leader.
I have had many of these discussions with my leaders throughout various performance cycles. As a new task comes into my purview, I need to know where it should be placed on the priority list. If that list is full (I’m dangerously close to the Red Line), my leader and I talked about reshuffling the list, usually dropping something that was lower on the list until the new task was completed.
Working Within The Matrix
I know of situations where an individual contributor is responsible to more than one supervising manager. If that is the case, these managers need to work together to make sure the combination of their expectations do not red-line the individual contributor. The responsibility for this should fall on the supervising manager to whom the individual directly reports (i.e., the one who signs the payroll authorization).
The whole purpose of the setting expectation discussion is that each party comes away with a complete understanding of not only what is expected, but why that expectation exists, and its priority in the grand scheme of things. When these three items are in alignment, it makes it easier for the individual contributor to devote his/her discretionary energies to what is most important to the organization.
Next post will discuss what should happen when priorities/expectations change mid-stream.
John Lake has been a Business Culture and Performance Consultant/Trainer for over 20 years. JDLake Communications, LLC is designed to help organizations retain the talent they don’t know they are about to lose.
