Performance Management Gone Dead

It is that time of the year when most teams have their mid-year performance conversations. Is there a way to discuss performance with a more human-centric focus?

It is true that for corporations, profits and the overall financial side of the story rely much on the performance review conversations. It is, however, not the single component of what “performance” really is about.

I am sure many of you have been through periods where the targets were probably not met but you could not have been any more content and proud about your team’s dedication, hard work and how much they have experienced and learned.

This is the “human” side of the story and often the part where real leaders care about: being a people developer rather than merely a performance manager.

There are numerous studies focusing on the young generation’s expectations from the working life. To share in a nutshell, the young generation desires to be respected as human beings and not just performance machines. Moreover, studies demonstrate that a very big majority of the young generation would like to work for companies where they can continuously learn, develop and grow.

You may have also noticed that in many global surveys conducted with the modern talents with different age groups, different backgrounds, in different countries and cultures, the results are more or less the same: They want to stay longer at their current companies should they receive learning and development investment. And how come people development is still regarded in most companies as an HR-only performance goal?

Performance management in its traditional form has been dead for a while now.

What the business world needs is a shift in the way we currently see and handle the performance management, and transform the performance conversation into a development conversation. Like it or not, this transformation is already taking place because companies need to keep the young talents in the corporate game despite the very recent GIG trends popular among the young generation (please check my blogpost on "Implications of GIG Economy on HR"), which I have been shouting very loudly about even before the Pandemic.

As required by the new generation’s needs and desires, leaders should now take a more human-centric stand in setting and reviewing performance goals. Below are some examples that leaders may use for transforming the 2021 performance reviews into development conversations:

• How will I develop my team this year?
• What do my team members need from me and from each other?
• How can I grow each of my team members individually in line with their own career aspirations?
• Based on which criteria will I select and develop my successors?
• How can I best support them in both their professional and personal lives?
• Beyond success and performance, which values will I nurture within my team?
• How can I sustain a positive team culture so that all my team members share their failures and successes with each other and create opportunities to further learn and grow?
• In which areas and how will I lead my team by example?

Please do not hesitate to share your opinions in the comments. What would be even better is to share your best practices - let's spread and multiply them!