75 Reasons to Innovate Performance Management

Why you haven’t and crazy not to.

1“Humans are biased. So, we’re screwed.”Bias is inherent in all that we do. We all have different motives, moods, and dreams. Our experiences and goals play a part in how we view the world and everyone in it.

Then we do performance reviews. We try and convince ourselves that the ratings we assign to people are somehow objective. But, it just isn’t true.

Structure communicationMake ideas can flourish.Encouraging opinion sharing often will ultimately minimize bias in communication.

“There’s too many processes already. We need ideas instead!”

2There’s a process for everything. IT-support tickets and equipment requests to conference room reservations and dress codes. Communication processes are no different.

Organizational communication has one purpose.All-hands meetings, vision statements, and performance reviews are part of the same purpose. Once you realize it, you’ll see how silly it is to separate them in the first place.

Simplify. Streamline. With technology. Engage more employees faster.

“It’s a lot easier to review performance than it is to improve it.”

3Are the words “performance review” a euphemism. They refer to a hazy talent management strategy without defined purpose. Are they supposed to improve performance?

Why look back?By the time a performance appraisal is made, the job is already done. Reviews produce ratings. Improving performance depends on employee development.

Measurement, development or both?Appraising performance requires only comparison. Employee development requires honest conversation.

“Reviews aren’t just for figuring annual raises and bonuses.”

4Comp., perks and recognition aren’t the same thing. A lot has been written recently about separating annual reviews from raises and bonuses. For a good reason.

Engagement is doing a thing at a time and a place. People want to win. They want to be on a winning team. They want to be part of a whole. They want an engaging place to work.

You can engage people without more money. Research shows definitively that what most strongly drives engagement rarely includes compensation.

“The link between strategy and performance management is murky.”

5 There is a link between strategy and execution, right? If not, how could we possibly rate employees from excellent to poor on whether they helped to drive our business forward?Is it clear in your organization?

Clarify goals. Not once a year, but in every meeting. The pillars of overall strategy should form the outline by which individual and manager goals are created. Repeat them often.

A strategy set in stone isn’t a strategy at all.It takes commitment and willingness to adjust. Most importantly, it takes frequency and repetition.

“Performance is a product of individual desire.”

6You can’t rate someone into high performance. They have to want it. It’s a critical mistake to believe that people will perform just because there’s a review.

Do annual reviews help employees improve?As part of the holistic feedback context, they bookend regularly scheduled, structured conversations. That’s how you create the cultural conditions favorable for learning, feedback, reflection and accountability.

Communicate a culture of feedback.That means focus on culture. It’s the best you can do. After that, it’s up to them.

“Employees are people too.”

7 Work and life happen at the same time.There are forces that work to undercut your employees’ performance. Most of them have nothing to do with workplace.

Your strategy is in flux. Change is all around you. They may work in a new department three months after they start. Your managers need leadership training. But, they also need to remain top performers. And coach employees. And do all the paperwork.

You can’t control everything. But in order to maximize your people investments, shouldn’t you manage what you can? Isn’t that just responsible?

“We’re too small for performance management.” 8 Like it or not, you’re managing performance.

Whether you’re doing it well, with purpose or without, you employees are being held to some standard of performance.

We can all manage performance more effectively. The question is whether or not you’re doing it in a measured and planful way.If you’re not, you should.

Get started.Establish your cultural objectives. Hold people accountable to them.

“We’ve got better things to do than create a culture of performance.”

9Culture is real.“We make stuff. We do stuff. Employee engagement and workplace culture is a bunch of psycho-babble.”

Not much is more important to do.Ignoring culture is wrong-headed. We’re all busy, but ignore the logic of culture at your own risk.

Maintain your culture. It’s a big mistake to let it go, but it’s never too late to fix.

“We’re too big. One review is all we can do.”

10Too many moving parts is a poor excuse.You’re too big to do it right, huh? Sounds like too big to fail.

Talent management requires invested time.But, as a percentage of the investment you’ve already made in your employees, the additional effort required to meaningfully make performance engaging is fairly minimal.

Get leaders.Your employees already have managers. Improving relationship quality with a little software support. An ounce of effort today is worth a ton of results tomorrow.

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Thank you for continuingto engage employee performance!

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