People Leadership

  • Objective performance measures

    One trend I’ve observed over time is high performing employees are particularly drawn to quantifiable and objective measures of performance. That seems intuitive. You sort of expect those who take pride in their work and want to excel at it to want measurable proof as validation. I initially assumed this to be driven by external forces: those who are great want to be able to show they are great and receive the external recognition and validation that comes with that. While there’s probably some truth to that, the desire for objective performance measures goes far beyond. Below are additional reasons I’ve noticed.

    1. Clarifies expectations and accountability. When targets are clear and measurable, there’s less room for misinterpretation between an employee and boss. Great employees want to know what is required to be excellent.

    2. Validation of improvement. Using a measurable performance metric over time can validate you’re consistently getting better. The same way it’s satisfying to set a new best personal best half-marathon time, it’s satisfying to validate you are consistently improving your output at work. That is for intrinsic reasons.

    3. Relative performance. Using consistent, objective measurement ensures a manager is aware of who is performing on a team and who is not. From my experience, it’s extremely frustrating when you have a colleague, or worse a boss, who is performing really poorly and you aren’t sure if anyone else realizes. Having more objective measures provides some relief that poor performance will be surfaced and hopefully addressed.

    4. Facts over feelings. When performance is being measured objectively, there’s less concern that favouritism or feelings are strongly influencing performance outcomes on a team.

    It’s not always possible to quantify success measures in every role. In those cases, the more objective you can make the qualitative measure (e.g., think “SMART” goals), the better.

  • A tough performance situation

    One of the most challenging performance management situations occurs when you have an employee who is genuinely putting forth their best effort but still can’t meet the expectations of the role. These ones hurt. When someone isn’t capable and doesn’t care to put any effort in, it’s easy to act. But when the engagement and caring is high, it’s natural to feel a strong desire and obligation to help.

    Unfortunately, if you’ve exhausted all your training strategies and the capabilities simply aren’t there, at some point you need to accept that allowing an individual to strive for success and not succeed inhibits them from finding an alternative role where they can truly thrive. While true in all challenging employee performance situations, it’s particularly important in these cases to remind yourself of this point.

  • Admit it when you’re wrong. Be Accountable.

    There’s a consistent theme among the strongest performers and leaders I’ve worked with. And that is a complete willingness to both admit being wrong, and to take accountability for errors, mistakes, and poor performance. Even when those mistakes might only be partially the individual’s fault. Doing so indicates humility, self-awareness and confidence, and an accountability mindset.

    In contrast, when I work with a leader who often skirts accountability, or who is always ready with an explanation as to why they’ve been unsuccessful due to factors outside of their control, it can be a major red flag. And cultivating an accountability mindset becomes harder the more senior and the later someone is in their career. If a team member struggles to take accountability at age 50, I doubt they are going to get it by 60.

    Let’s use an example. You’re overseeing a large project to install and operate a new piece of manufacturing equipment in your plant. The equipment is delayed. Once it arrives, the installation representative from the manufacturer comes down with a flu and you lose two weeks while the equipment sits idle. Finally, it’s installed but the quality calibration is much more challenging than expected and you lose two months. Eventually, it’s installed, operating efficiently, and ready to produce parts. But the whole process has taken 8 months when the objective was to have it operational in 4.

    Here’s how a weak Operations manager might respond.  “We really did our best, but a series of unfortunate events happened. It’s really too bad, but sometimes, that’s the way it goes. Shelly in Procurement should have given us better information on the delivery date. I told Remy in Quality that we would need more time, but he didn’t listen. I did my best.”

    Here’s how an average Operations manager might respond. “We messed up on this one. We should have added more contingency time into the plan for all these unforeseen events. We won’t make that mistake again.”

    Here’s how an excellent Operations manager might respond. “We made a series of serious mistakes on this one. I take full accountability for the delay. First, we should have reviewed past data on actual vs. estimated delivery date for this manufacturer. Second, we should have had a planned, local backup for the installation. I’m not sure what happened on the calibration, but I’m going to work closely with Remy in Quality to learn what we can so I can plan better for next time.”

    Ultimately, the more you can embrace an ownership mindset and take accountability, the better you will become as a leader. Did someone on your team let you down? Your first thought might be “they suck”. But more importantly, could you have trained them better? Could you have hired better? Could you have set better expectations? It’s challenging but ultimately highly rewarding to take accountability, and your peers, direct reports, and boss will notice.