Redefining success at work

Businesses have at their disposal a huge range of tools for measuring the success of their employees. These tools have evolved over time as we’ve tried to make our organisations ever more efficient. So, we look at things like productivity, performance and engagement; we set ‘SMART’ objectives and measure employees against these at the end of each year. For those that can show progress against pre-defined areas then great – they get a better reward or even a promotion, and they can see just how successful they are in the form of a salary increase and more management responsibility.

A successful career, defined traditionally, is like a game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ – if you can keep climbing to the top you know you’re doing well.

The limits of traditional ‘success’

This seems to me like a very narrow way of measuring success. The KPI approach relies on setting goals for employees that are only measured once a year or so. This is crazy in a world where business priorities change continually. I’m sure you’ve experienced the situation yourself: when you come to discuss your performance at your annual review your KPIs and objectives seem like relics of a former life – utterly divorced from the realities of your current role.

And then there’s the increasing irrelevance of money as a way of defining success. Of course, money will always be important, but the new generations entering the workforce care as much or more about other factors, such as having a healthy work/life balance or working in creative roles and having impact, being proud of what they do and who they work with. The idea that status, power and money is everything is being challenged by a new generation who would prefer simply to do something they love and be happy.

Success in the modern age

I think it’s time to redefine success so that it’s more in keeping with the realities of modern businesses and the requirements of today’s talent. What would that look like? For me, the answer’s relatively simple: the definition of success needs to be refocused around the collective achievement – what everyone achieves as a whole. But to do this effectively, businesses will need to embrace a complete change of culture.

When we define success as a collective achievement the way we measure individual employees changes. We can throw away irrelevant KPIs and instead look at how individuals interact within their wider teams: how their work benefits the team, and what actions they take to help the team meet its goals. Not much different than in competitive team sports.

I believe this approach will lead to better business outcomes as internal competitive urges (‘how can I show I’m better than my peers’) are replaced by collaborative urges (‘how can I help my team exceed expectations?’). It’s also much better for the individual: freed from having to focus on their own journey up the ladder they can find roles that are the perfect fit for them and hone their careers there, safe in the knowledge their hard work for the collective good will be recognised by their employer.

Managing for success

Managers, for their part, will need to look at a wider variety of metrics when overseeing their teams. The manager needs to make sure the team is working optimally, so they must put effort into employee engagement programmes to ensure everyone is engaged and healthy – after all, happy employees have, on average, 31% higher productivity. Ensuring diversity will also be important as teams perform much better when they have greater ethnic and gender diversity. Finally, we can get rid of confrontational annual performance reviews and replace them with ongoing conversations with employees to ensure they feel supported and they understand what they need to do for their teams. These, and other measures, will provide the basis of much more productive, innovative and engaged teams.

The sooner we move towards a collective understanding of success, the sooner we can create experiences that enrich professionally and personally our employees and shape successful careers for employees, and teams that are better at achieving their goals.