BECKS: The Swiss Army Knife of Performance Management

Performance management. Just the phrase is enough to make many a manager's heart sink, isn't it? When you first start to manage, it's often seen as a negative thing - handling underperformance or even having to 'manage people out' of the business.?

Once you’re more experienced that bit might feel easier. You know your aim should be to consistently facilitate improved individual and collective performance from our team, regardless of the start (or current) point. But it can be hard to prioritise because it feels like a big commitment that’s unwieldy and time consuming. Enter BECKS – a tool I think deserves to be far better known than it currently is.

What is BECKS?

BECKS is a simple but powerful tool that does two rather nifty things:

1. It helps you figure out why someone's performing at their current level (be that stellar or subpar)

2. It uncovers opportunities to boost performance, regardless of where they're starting from

And it does those things in a simple, informal and easy to understand way without the need for paperwork, a PIP or a PDP

BECKS stands for:

B - Behaviour

E - Environment

C - Clarity

K - Knowledge

S - Skill

Each of these elements contributes to someone's overall performance. By getting specific about these aspects, you build a better shared understanding of why someone's performance is at their current level, along with blockers that might be getting in the way of them performing at a higher level.

Putting BECKS into Action

Let's look at how you can apply BECKS to accelerate performance growth in high potential and new hire scenarios:

The Rising Star

When you've got a high performer, they will often be chomping at the bit for development and will (hopefully) take ownership of running with it, so use BECKS to guide your discussion with them:

- Behaviour: "What leadership behaviours do you think will be needed at the next level? How can we give you opportunities to practise these?"

- Environment: "Are there any different environments or contexts we should expose you to? What would build your confidence that you're ready to step up?"

- Clarity: "Let's discuss the expectations for the next level role. How do you see your current performance aligning with those?"

- Knowledge: "What areas of the business/industry/your specialism would you like to understand better? How can we facilitate that learning?"

- Skills: "What skills do you think will be critical for your next career role that may not be so vital at the moment? How can we help you develop these in your current role?"

Working together, you can then create a development plan that stretches them while still delivering in their current role. The aim is to challenge them, not overwhelm them so pick out 2 or 3 priorities rather than create a shopping list of new stuff to add on to their current day job.

The New Hire

Even great leaders can struggle to find the time to plan effective onboarding. BECKS can be a powerful tool for structuring your thinking about what to include in an induction process that gets new team members up to speed quickly and effectively:

- Behaviour: Ensure you outline expected behaviours and cultural norms. Consider assigning a 'culture buddy' to help them navigate the unwritten rules.

- Environment: Ensure they're set up for success. This isn't just about their physical workspace, but also about access to stakeholders and resources.

- Clarity: Provide crystal clear expectations for their role, both for the induction period and beyond. How is success measured in this role?

- Knowledge: Think about what knowledge they will need and how they can gain it. Which key stakeholders will they need to interact with? What meetings will they need to contribute to and what will they need to know in order to do that?

- Skills: Following the recruitment process, you should have a good handle on what aspects of the role someone has already demonstrated the required level of skill along with where they might need to develop further.

Making BECKS Work for You

BECKS isn't revolutionary - it's simply a useful tool to help structure your thinking around performance. But like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how you use it.

When implementing BECKS:

1. Use it as a mental checklist, not a rigid script.?

2. Familiarise yourself with it by applying it to yourself and your own performance

3. Encourage your team to use it for self-assessment and peer feedback. It creates a common language for performance discussions.

To gauge its effectiveness, look for more focused performance discussions, clearer development plans, and team members taking more ownership of their performance. Improved results should follow.

BECKS is a tool to support your leadership, not define it. Use it flexibly, adapt it to your style, and see how it works for you. You might find it becomes a valuable part of your performance management toolkit.

Want to dive deeper into how BECKS can work for you or your team, or need training for team members in effective performance management or other crucial career and leadership skills? Let's chat about how I can help