Performance Management is an important part of your accountability system. In general accountability is accounting for what you said you would do. Performance management is the part of accountability by where you work with your employees to identify success or failure and work toward solutions if performance did not meet expectations.
Timeliness
The first key to successful performance management is to have the conversation with your employee as soon as possible. Many leaders fear this conversation to such an extent that they will put this conversation off and off until it is too late to be effective. Overcoming this reluctance to action is crucial to an effective system of positive reinforcement. Imagine that you have a child that is taking candy from the cabinet when they don’t have permission. You would immediately stop them and have a conversation. If it continued you would immediately move to punish me. You would not, however, wait a few weeks and then address the issue. Imagine telling that child two weeks later “Remember, when you took that candy? Don’t do that anymore.” Not only would they be unlikely to remember, it wouldn’t have an impact.
Prepare to overcome fear
Overcoming that fear of conversation can be much easier if you’re planned for it. In the case of sales targets an effective leader will have set up repeating meetings specifically to discuss performance with their teams to ensure that both they and their team know when they’ll be having the conversation. This will force the leader to review the performance of the employee beforehand and simultaneously compel the employee to reflect on their performance before speaking to their leader. By writing down the date and time of the meeting as well as the purpose the leader will be much less likely to put the conversation off and this will be to the benefit of the business, the leader and the employee.
Clear outcomes
The meeting itself should have clear goals and as well. Understand the actual performance to target. Both the leader and the employee acknowledge if that performance met expectations or did not and this is made easier when the leader asks the employee to review their own performance and then adds their observations to that. A discussion occurs around what led to that performance. Changes that will occur going forward, if any should be discussed. Clearly defined performance expectations with explicit timelines must also be discussed and agreed upon. The leader should express confidence and detail how they will support the employee in achieving those targets. Lastly, everything must be documented in writing and shared with the employee as well as stored in their record.
Stay Focused
Many times leaders will enter a performance improvement conversation without clearly defined outcomes. These conversations can be meandering and uncomfortable for both the leader and the employee because they don’t know where it’s going. The anxiety this creates can cause the leader and employee to be defensive toward each other and derail the entire process. Have clear outcomes for the conversation.
Open and honest
By having this conversation candidly and timely there is no room for ambiguity on performance. Both the leader and the employee understand what the performance was and what the expectations are. They have a clear plan and the employee feels supported by their leader. They also both know that they will review performance again at the same time in 1 month.
Good with the bad
Accountability conversations must also occur for employees that performed well and should have the same defined outcomes. While it might not seem necessary to have a conversation with a high performing employee it's just as important to discuss their performance as it is with an employee that is not meeting expectations. Recognizing that your employee performed well and telling them so, is a crucial component of a happy and productive employee. This shows that you have seen and recognized their performance and are encouraging them to continue to perform at a high level.
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