They Will Rise...Or Not

When I was an elementary level educator, sometime during the first week of school every school year, I opened a discussion with my students about expectations. I pointed to the number 100 on our grading scale, and told them, "That number is there, because it IS attainable." We talked about challenges that we all face in reaching that number, and that you're not always going to hit it, but it's a good visual reminder of goals. From there, it was incumbent upon me to provide them with the right guidance to help them achieve their goals.

Fast-forward to the corporate world and navigating the muddy waters of the performance review process. At one annual performance review one-on-one meeting, the Senior VP of our team actually began our discussion by saying, "The top rating of our scale is 5, but we hardly ever give 5s." I thought for a moment, and offered him this, "If your top rating is NOT attainable, then your people will not attempt to reach it. You will always receive level 4 performance or below." Since then, I have always proactively asked about performance ratings and coporate standards. I have also quietly observed where merit increases meet performance ratings, and where simple standard "cost of living" minimum pay raises occur. It's no surprise that there are disconnects.

Taking Habit 1 and Habit 5 from Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we can each move on to apply Habit 7 to pursue and facilitate our career development and advancement. For employees, this is a delicate dance. For employers, it's a balance challenge. Reaching the right spot for each employee is critical to retaining the best talent. Offering high expectations, and remembering to recognize when those are met, are vital to business continuity and employee engagement.