Making performance management meaningful

Being known by those who are asked to trust

It is hard to trust someone who we don't know. Trust is increased in proportion to our belief that we are known by the one who we are asked to put our faith in. How could their promises and decision-making count for anything if we have doubts about whether they are really taking into account how their actions will affect us?

As an organisation it follows that if it wants its people to trust it, it must show real effort to know them. Is it enough to know merely the outcomes of their work? No. What matters is to know what kind of person they are in the context of their job. When companies take time to really understand their people, they are in a better position to trust them and be trusted. This creates an environment where on-the-job expertise can be harnessed and insights encouraged.

Objectivity and the uncontrollable variables of contexts

Any process of evaluation must be objective and fair, especially if judgements formed by it could lead to decisions about remuneration. Specific, measurable outcomes have been favoured because they appear objective and their value can be rationally linked to profitability. But they have proved highly problematic.

Targets easily become the primary value of the organisation, undermining other, often more distinctive, corporate values. This creates a context where poor judgement is less easy to identify. The company brand can start to look tarnished and stained. The fact is, measurable, performance targets are not non-dependent variables. Businesses are complex systems with interdependent elements. Even apparently simple jobs will depend for their accomplishment on employees being free to do tasks unhindered by environmental and personnel pressures and impediments. But in the real world this just doesn't happen.

Problems with output targets

These kinds of targets create the illusion that industry is static. As if it’s only others elsewhere who have to worry about change, developments and shifting contexts. As long as I meet my targets, set somewhere in the past, I’m doing a good job. Some of the time this may be the case but what if I spot a problem or learn to do something better? Targets offer little incentive for me to be alert to the wider value I could add to the business. Many good companies create cultures which reward positive contributions but even here there is a significant difference between feeling valued, receiving a prize or a listing in the company’s role of honour, and having my annual salary increased by a decent percentage. Furthermore, targets place little obligation on line managers to review staff work as if it was a learning activity, one where the employee’s disposition to develop and contribute understanding and insight about their work matters.

Should management value the learning-employee?

Whatever our task, job and assignment, if we are really pushing our performance we are going to face learning challenges. Even the most mundane and repetitive jobs can be seen as learning activities. I have spoken to cleaners, shop assistants, junior waiters and data processing people all who could describe to me how they learnt to do their jobs better and more efficiently. The level and complexity of learning, its focus in terms of personal development, will be different in relation to the kinds of work being carried out. But people should be able to feel they are growing and changing and increasing their understanding in whatever work they are doing. Recognising this learning is the first step towards taking personal growth and development seriously. It is these things that build loyalty, increase commitment, harness potential and reduce error.

The limits of target driven performance management

But let’s get back to the problems of targets. As soon as a measurable, output target has been set little, if any, considered judgement will be required by the line manager responsible for evaluating its completion. If the target is met, job done. If not, they listen to mitigating circumstances, accept the ones deemed legitimate, commiserate and follow organisational protocol. This is a simplification, but it's true that issues of quality and insightful decision-making rarely emerge as important when considering this aspect of the role of performance management. 

The real worth of any targets are rarely in their ability to motivate and stimulate significant improved effort and output. Targets are effective in indicating value priorities and they can be good at revealing weakness points in processes. In this respect, they are necessary for strategic management. But they are burdensome, inefficient and counter-productive when used as a tool to motivate, reward and develop people.

The primary value of targets has not received the attention it deserves. All businesses aim to improve their profits, decrease costs and increase productivity. But does this mean everyone in a company should feel that these things are what should influence the performance of their job? No, because companies need people in different roles having different value valences. For example, if my role relates to company safety, then my primary value is that. My line manager may ask me at review meetings if I can put in place more efficient checks or security systems. But on a daily basis I need to concentrate on making sure everyone is safe. Yes, it I fail the brand will suffer, profits could be hit. But when I'm about my weekly tasks it is singularly unhelpful for me to worry about doing more in less time or cutting corners with less experienced staff. Those things are not what my performance should be judged on. If this isn't the case, quality slips occur, customer service diminishes and imagination dries up. It’s the job of organisational leadership to manage the values direction of the company. It’s this strategic management that makes the quality of ‘vision’ so essential in leaders (but this another topic.) Targets must be aligned to the primary values of each job not in relation to the whole organisations macro-objectives.

The second value of targets is in their ability to reveal weaknesses. This has been neglected because the tempting approach is to use targets as a means to find fault with the employee so as not to have to increase pay. However, one of the biggest values to an organisation rests in its ability to discern and correct weaknesses before they are exposed in the market place. Employees throughout the company are the greatest asset in relation to this endeavour. Their ability to spot, understand and explain weakness in their own performance, their role or the organisation as a whole should be viewed positively. It denotes a high level of learning, engagement and commitment. We should worry when someone thinks they are great when everyone around them can see they are not. But looking for errors, slip ups and failures to meet targets as key indicators of performance in themselves is a mistake.

Targets should be seen as testing mechanisms

Targets are useful if seen as tests of values, systems, working contexts, skills and the aptitudes necessary to thrive and do a job well. But to view them as being capable of effectively and positively evaluating performance is very problematic.

The goal should be to value employee learning, conscientious reflectiveness and personal growth. A Mixed-methods Approach to Performance (MAP) uses measurable targets and qualitative interpretations, focusing on the value of the process itself and the quality of the reflective capabilities of staff. An employee’s critical reflections may be graded in relation to the quality of their interpretations and explanations of the data reviewed concerning their work.

How to increase the learning orientation of a company?

The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) developed at the University of Bristol, has been shown to be a powerful tool to help organisations renew, review and re-orientate themselves as learning-focused. It prompts personal reflection, creates measurable data with which to track and bench-mark progress, profiles individuals and groups, and provides a language of learning, richly value imbued. It is the perfect complement to evaluations of staff performance which include other measures – including output targets – allowing for nuanced and authentic judgements to be made about the quality of work performed.

Thanks for reading. If you’ve appreciated the post please ‘like’ and share with your network. More posts can be found at https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/author/nigel-newton-76992624 

Nigel Newton is a consultant, speaker and educational researcher working to help organisations and individuals realise their potential. 

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