From hindsight to enablement - creating a sense of purpose through performance architecture.

In reality done well our performance management system should be the core of our business. This process should be our North Star.

So as HR teams what can we be doing to enable our businesses with this superpower?

Lets start with the possibility of a name change - firstly I don’t really think it does what it says on the box?- it often doesn’t drive performance and secondly for me the name evokes painful distant memories of an email from HR saying - you need to fill out some forms at the end of the year after an annual meeting - because we say so.

As people professionals I really think we need to start again to help with the reframing and positioning of this critical activity in our companies.?

As a start - how about some new branding such as Business Success Architecture ? I like this title because this process should integrate across many different activity systems and?organisational architecture and it needs to be repositioned as one that is positive and supporting to the line manager.

Before we dive deeper into what we need to do - let’s start talking about why we need to do it.?

It really doesn’t matter where performance management processes came from or who was responsible for continuing it - lets call it out - managing performance is not an annual conversation covering 52 weeks performance, learning, reward , career aspirations, resetting of next years objectives?and generally catching up. It has grown into this Frankensteins HR monster and it just doesn’t work.?

Not convinced? - Let’s begin with some basic psychology.

I know feedback is a gift - or it is supposed to be, but its a bit more complicated than that - here are some of the bigger issues.

Let’s start with only linking it to reward as the sole purpose of its existence. If Santa asks if you have been good this year - what do you think the answer will be ? If reward is the sole primary focus this can sometimes lead to confrontation and awkward meetings just in case the employee doesn’t get any presents afterwards. Use it to help support equity in reward decisions but dont make that its only purpose.

Then come the biases ? Fundamental Attribution bias (we assume we know the reasons why someone isn’t performing even before we have looked into it.) - Recency Bias (Short term view), Over Confidence Bias (we all think we perform better than we do) - there are many more and they don’t really help the conversation go that well.

Then it comes down to pinning down true measures of the employees performance - tricky if they are working in a team, tricky if they are working in a tough economy, tricky if they didn’t have the resources or the tools to do the job. Trying to separate the signal (true performance) from the noise (factors out of the employees control) at the end of?a?year means most times the feedback really isn’t a gift.

So we end up with a Frankenstein meeting, talking about performance that could be a year old, skewed by numerous biases, trying to measure and quantify an imperfect system with a defensive employee and led by an equally unmotivated line manager - probably untrained in giving feedback.

I think you get where I am coming from.

So we know that its not working - so where do we need to start the changes ?

Lets start with the frame and then the name.

Lets start with the purpose - lets create a system that helps us align our people with our strategy, by creating Business Success Architecture that engages our people with aligned objectives, supports them in that delivery, and either encourages ongoing achievement or strengths based coaching to get back on track in a frequency that suits your business tempo and the performance based culture you want to encourage.

I know Mr Taylor got there first with his scientific management - but the last 100 years of work by psychologists tell us that this isn’t the way to engage people at work - particularly the new generations that we have entering the workplace and the knowledge workers of today. Mr Taylor’s work was designed for the factories of the 19th century - lets leave it in the history books.

From the Hawthorne experiments to Herzberg’s work everything guides us towards 3 things that will engage our people and it is systems that support - Autonomy Mastery and Purpose.?

Let’s look now how a new process can bring these principles alive.

The first part of Business Success will be setting KPI’s/OKRS/Projects - whatever the name - it is what our people need to be doing to help the business achieve its strategy. A weapon of choice at the top? - A Balanced Scorecard and then the cascading of those objectives across the business. Many theories support this approach to drive engagement?- Expectancy Theory and Path Goal theory - and of course this supports employee purpose.

The next stage is how we communicate how we want people to achieve that. If we know culture is how we do things around here - lets work on desirable cultural shapers - how about behaviours that our customers value? Or behaviours that support a culture that could gives us a competitive advantage ?

You have a number of options here - most people could opt for a competency framework which would work. Another option would be taking your values from that poster on the wall and work on defining them into observable behavioural definitions based on job families and then put these as the guides to what you think good looks like. If you want 2 or 10 - its up to you, but for me less is more.

So we have got this far, but there is one big element still missing that we all forget about.?

If you think of the myriad of interactions that your employees have each day, on calls, in meetings, supporting all around our complex businesses - how do we acknowledge and feedback on all the things we don’t see? - Technology is the answer.

Using an online PM application you have the ability for teams to give kudos to their colleagues (linked to the defined behaviours) from any device at any time. Not only do they get positive reinforced feedback - the line manager gets to see it. Think of it like a spontaneous 360 feedback. It’s a win win for everyone.

So know we have some stuff to talk about - what do we do next?

I would advocate weekly or monthly check in meetings to overview progress against targets and to feedback on observable behaviours.?

Keeping it informal and regular will hopefully break some apprehension barriers and managers trained on strengths based feedback will help with the transition to making regular meetings part of your DNA.?

Where you can - results should feed into the online system and this means that the meetings will be a lot more transparent with real time information people can see everyday. Not something a year old.

Then enabling people to work on how they can achieve their objectives with more frequency moves into supporting Autonomy, and where learning needs are identified to help with their success at work and training applied, we move to elements of Mastery. We also know that the key to engaging people is 2 way communication , the frequency here will drive that key engager.

So the outcomes ? Do we really try and make something so potentially riddled with bias into an exact science or accept that achieving our company targets, engaging our teams and shaping our culture should be more than enough?

I recommend - let’s keep it simple. We still advocate ratings - but more around 3 levels that either reinforces or encourages development - lets keep it simple.?

Next - learning opportunities where possible can be addressed through platforms such as Udemy or your own in-house online offering, delivered in an agile and timely manner. Information on consistent high performers can feed into your talent pool as good performance should still be the price of admission.

Is this the start and the end ? Not really, it’s just the core of Business Success. Now you need to consider the rest of the architecture that needs adding and creating with complimentary bundles of high performing working practices throughout your business. This will range from clear expectations set at an amazing induction as you articulate your brands story and aligning people with that, an interlinked internal communication system supporting and updating on company wide business progress and allowing 2 way feedback, frequently celebrating success, visible leadership and a transparent and equitable internal talent process that grows people within the organisation, all linked to the Scorecard and the Values.?

That does what it says on the box now.

So what can all this potentially do if we get it right ?

• It will engage your teams with your strategy and communicate your purpose
• Act as a cultural shaper - particularly if you have core values and want to bring them alive?
• It will encourage the application of discretionary effort and potentially drive?many desirable outcomes from better customer service to greater innovation.
• It will identify learning opportunities quicker?
• It will serve to identify, engage and retain key talent
• Foster more productive 2 way dialogue?
• Build Line Manager and employee relationships
• Act as an early warning system for employee performance issues.
• Create a performance focused organisation?- which would have the ability to course correct quicker (particular in the volatile business world we live in now)

Oh and of course - it will drive your Business Performance. I nearly forgot that one.