How to put motivation back in the Performance Management system?

Why do Performance Management systems fail to deliver in so many organisations? One can’t appreciate enough the power of the MBO -- Management By Objectives concept (Peter Drucker), yet, in real life the terms ‘objectives’ or ‘goals’ seem burdensome and not a welcome part of the work life. Add to the list, terms such as ‘performance appraisal’ and ‘feedback’ and a list of authoritarian-sounding terms echoing the command and control past of the workplace, start to appear. It seems like a good idea to examine what is missing in a performance management system and explore ideas to fix it.?

Organisations use many tools to engage and motivate employees. From compensation to culture, a lot of the recruitment, retention and performance strategies are based on factors leading to motivation. For performance management, however, motivation has to be built within the process and not outside of it. It is not the fuel for the performance engine but a part of it’s design. Do you recall ever feeling great about performance objectives? Have you gone home after work and declared, “Wow what a great day I had today. What fun I had designing my performance objectives. Can’t wait to go to work tomorrow and get the objectives going”. Never? Well then that is really problem #1 with the system itself. The first core process of the performance management system fails to motivate us. So, let’s try and put the motivation inside the performance management process. Without it we are doing a good job of expecting people to excel through a system that psychologically holds them back.????

1.?????The first pitfall is that objectives have the potential to create fear of failure and people feel disempowered?when experiencing fear. This is not inherent in the MBO concept but has become evident through the practice of setting objectives with a cascade or top-down approach. A simple process change can help deal with this disempowerment; try setting objectives through a strategy game. This gives meaning to, and contextualizes the objectives and helps people connect positively with what they have set out to achieve. The emphasis shifts from ‘prove yourself’ to ‘solve a puzzle’.??

2.?????The second block to motivation is the relational aspect within the performance management system. You guessed it right. I am referring to the boss and her feedback to us. Every performance management system emphasises regular feedback but very few organisations train their employees in giving feedback. As a result, poorly expressed feedback triggers defense mechanisms and people may feel emotionally detached to the person as well as the content of the feedback. Here are a few tips to ensure that the feedback works as a tool of motivation. Firstly, feedback is never, yes, never ever the same as judgement. It’s food for thought and self-reflection. It is never a ‘gotcha’ moment for the boss but always an ‘aha’ moment for the person receiving the feedback. One good way to develop an empathic connection for giving feedback is to share many of your own stories of what has worked and what didn’t.

3.?????The most powerful way to build motivation into the performance management system is to help people connect their job and work objectives with something as deeply personal as their sense of purpose. Without connecting with purpose, it is hard to access the discretionary energy that creates the difference between good and exceptional. While this is a powerful tool of motivation, it is also the most difficult one because our sense of purpose, what we want to achieve in life and what we want to give to the world are all aspects of ourselves which have been put on the back burner for a while because we have been busy working on our objectives since school days. The solution? Do ‘Purpose Breakout Sessions’ that help people reconnect with who they are and where they are headed.?

4.?????Another great way to put motivation back in performance management process is to silence the inner critic by celebrating the small wins. The inner critic is the voice from our formative years as we struggled to learn to walk, ride the bi-cycle and made many mistakes and were even reprimanded for it by teachers or parents. Or when our friends and peers made us feel bad about ourselves. This internal critic is still with us when a client is angry, a boss is upset, a colleague gets a promotion or a business deal doesn’t close as per our expectations. The inner critic brings up all the guilt and shame from our early life. A good performance culture would build in mechanisms to deal with disappointments and failure, to help people bounce back and access their more positive and productive selves. An effective way to do so is to help people access counselling and coaching on regular basis.?

5.?????The most difficult part of the performance management process is the performance appraisal time. If not handled well, it will be experienced as judgement, disempowerment and even intimidation. So how do we balance ‘What gets measured, gets managed’ (Peter Drucker) with ‘’Unconditional positive regard” (Carl Rogers)? How do we serve the process as well as the person? In cases where the process triumphs, the person might be left to carry unresolved grievance. It is important to take special care about three factors so that the appraisal process is as objective as possible. The first is the Halo Effect. Someone who is a high achiever or otherwise, might have influenced our perception to always see their performance as better than or below its actual level. The second is the Recency Effect where someone’s recent accomplishment or failure is projected over their whole year’s performance. The third aspect to watch out for is not a cognitive bias like the ones discussed above but a subjective, relational process. In appraising a particular person’s performance, if you experience power over the next person then it is an indication that a psychological boundary is being breached by you. It’s time for immediate self-reflection and a change in the pattern of relating; the dialogue or narrative needs to be addressed. If you experience being pressured into not being objective in the discussion but being overly accommodating towards the next person, then a psychological boundary is being breached by the appraisee as in the meta communication they are saying “you owe me”. In both cases boundaries need to be addressed.?????

How does one manage a Humanistic (Carl Rogers) approach to the appraisal process? It would entail putting the person before the performance. Can this be done? I think if the appraisal discussion is carried out with empathy and an unconditional positive regard, people will feel valued irrespective of the performance rating. The recommended way to go about it is to acknowledge skills and competencies, brain power and behaviours that support the achievement of objectives. This is unconditional positive regard for the person whose performance is being appraised and in the meta communication the person feels understood and received. Failing to do so will reinforce a negative self-image and give more power to the internal critic.?

It would be correct to say that any process is as good as the people who are running it. For an organization to truly benefit from the MBO process, it is extremely important to train people in managing it at each of it’s critical points of human interaction.?????????????????