How-To Performance Manage Like a Boss

 

There are 3 distinct steps to managing performance consistently and effectively.  These steps are 

• Aligning with Expectations
• Empowering your Team
• Accountability.  

In our practice we’ve met many managers that miss 1 or all of these steps and it’s killing their performance.  Let’s dive into each of these and why they matter.

Aligning on Expectations

Aligning on expectations is always the first step in any performance management strategy.  You can’t plan a strategy for how to be successful if you don’t know where you’re going.  Imagine you’re going on a trip and you run out the door before deciding where your trip is going to be.  You might head 50 miles in the wrong direction.  This seems like a ridiculous scenario and it is, but it also happens every day in work.  People show up and begin working without and their manager hasn’t given them any direction on what their goals are.

Notice we’re talking about goals and destinations?  It’s important to define the right outcomes and not the process.  In our trip scenario above we needed to define the destination, not how we get there.  If we say we’re going to Atlanta by 6 PM on Thursday it doesn’t matter if we drive, fly or take a train as long as we get to our destination on time.  This same principle applies to the work you and your teams do.  Don’t fall into the trap of defining how they do their work, but instead define the result.  Every team member is different and they’ll often come up with unique paths to the same desired outcome.  Allowing your team to be innovative and creative in how they reach targets helps spark their inner desire to come to work and do their best work.

Empowering your team to solutions

What do we mean by empowerment?  We mean allowing your team to go out and get the results on their own.  That’s why you hired them right?  Many times leaders have trouble letting go and feel a need to tightly define the work of their team or to be there every step of the way as they complete tasks.  This is called micromanagement and there’s no doubt that your teams hate it as much as you do.  This kind of high level management is only effective in brand new employees.  As soon as employees begin to demonstrate their ability to perform independently you must back off and empower them to find their own path to the end result.

Employees that are empowered to find their own solutions to complex problems at work have a greater sense of accomplishment, feel more connected to the team mission and will find novel ways to solve problems that you might never have considered.  Your team has a whole set of talents and life experiences that will allow them to attack problems and targets in ways that will work for them.  Allow them to discover these solutions and not only will you as their leader have less stress, you’ll also have employees that perform at a higher level when you’re not there.

This principle can also be helpful when you have a struggling employee that is resistant to coaching.  In these situations set a clear target and move to the last step of accountability if they are showing signs of resistance to coaching.  This can often lead them to be very open to coaching and they may actively ask you or a peer for that support.  This gives you the ability to coach them much more effectively through a difficult problem.

Accountability

You have to account for what you’ve said you would do. This is a crucial component of high performing teams that have a great sense of pride in what they do.  You might be surprised at how many times we have found leaders that do not hold their teams accountable. When teams are not held accountable to targets and deadlines they learn that what they’re doing doesn’t really matter or worse that their leader doesn’t care.  These can be devastating to team performance and morale.  There are always some people that will perform at a high level no matter what their manager is doing, but most people need the reinforcement whether positive or performance improvement.

Notice we said positive reinforcement?  Accountability goes both ways.  We lead this section off by saying that you must account for what you’ve said you would do.  That means that when you do a great job you celebrate that performance and review how you got their to learn any valuable lessons that may be in your work.  It also means that you transparently call out when you and your team miss targets or deadlines.  If you miss too many you do move on to performance management and remember the goal of performance management is to improve the performance of you and your team.

We’ve helped many leaders that were struggling with performance management and we can help you to.  Reach out to Success Advising today to learn more about how we can help you and your team achieve your goals now!