Performance Management

Performance management is sometimes only a euphemism for dramatic changes such as firing or promoting, but in fact, it’s a huge part of the manager’s job:
to sustainably achieve results and retention.

Performance is not achieved in a singular moment of the year called “performance review” or “evaluation cycle”.
Could anyone become better at anything if they get feedback and guidance once a year?

Performance management means continuous work day after day throughout the entire journey of their direct reports with the organization:

Hiring
This is the very beginning. The manager will be effective if they know what they look for from skills and experience to behaviors, which are reflected in the job description.
Being truthful and clear about the role, tasks, expected behaviors and goals will help bring in people who fit in and filter out those who don’t.

Onboarding
This stage, which starts from the moment they accept the offer until several months into the role, is the time they are more in learning mode and adapting to the ways of working and what success looks like.

Expectations
Setting clear expectations, not a mere “do your best”, but rather reinforcing the actual behaviors in various ways and repeating them often will increase the chances of the desired outcomes.

Being a role model
Actions speak louder than words — if you violate the values and expectations you talk about, everyone will learn they can do it too, and it sends a confusing message. Practice what you preach, set an example of the desired behaviors, and make it easy for the directs to follow.

1:1
With the purpose of building trust and rapport, showing care and learning about the direct, 1:1s are also the basis for the credibility of future feedback giving.

Feedback
A wide spectrum of feedback is the main tool, and as a reminder, it is both negative and positive — encouraging less of a specific future behavior or more of it.

Whether giving feedback directly after an event, later that day or the latest on the weekly 1:1, we have levels of severity in case previous steps failed. Let’s take a negative feedback example:

• Asking them to commit to doing better: “When you did X, Y happened. Can you do better next time?”
• Asking them to explain what they’d do better: “When you did X, Y happened. What can you do better next time?”
• Feedback about breaching commitment: “You committed to doing Z, and it didn’t happen. What can you do differently in the future?”

Coaching
It’s wiser to work on strengths and make them even better than to work on weaknesses unless they are an important part of the job or are career-limiting.
Coaching is a great way to get to the desired skill level (“soft” or functional), where either you only frame and facilitate the effort and the direct report is doing the work, or you are an expert with enough time to carry out the training yourself.

Delegation
Delegating work to the direct reports, which is not a “fire and forget”, but rather a guided process, is another tool to get results and extend the employees’ capabilities.

Performance Review
Contrary to the belief that performance management equals performance review, as elaborated in this article, the performance review is only a summary of what has already been discussed with the direct report throughout the year. There is no new information or surprises.
The purpose of the performance review is actually for the organization, not for the employee — it’s designed for succession planning and as a basis to justify compensation and role changes.

IDP — Individual Development Plan
A plan that combines the organization’s needs with the skills and desires of the direct report. We all need to learn and grow, otherwise, we’d be going backward as our organization and competition continue growing.
As its name suggests, it is an actionable plan. To be effective it needs to have milestones, frequent check-ins, support and available resources.

PIP — Performance Improvement Plan
When the direct report fails to perform at the expected level after all the previous efforts have been exhausted, the manager has to be very clear that the direct report is now on PIP, and failure to achieve improvement will have severe consequences, either firing or demoting. This stage is usually also necessary to mitigate potential legal disputes if the direct report is to be fired.

Demotion, transition, firing
If the PIP failed, the manager would need to make drastic changes. Firing is one option, transitioning to another more suitable role is another, and demoting is yet another one.

Promotion, responsibilities, roles
As direct reports grow and bring more value, and have proven themselves in certain areas, they get to have a bigger influence in the form of a promotion, transition to management or to a new role, or additional responsibilities.

Force Multiplication
Ideally, after all this hard work of the manager and the direct reports, they are ready to behave in the same way toward others, as new ambassadors of performance management.

The right tool for the job
It is up to you, the manager, to know which tool to use when, reflect and improve.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens

The book of Ecclesiastes

Originally published at http://yanivpreiss.com on April 14, 2024.