How many hats in your closet?

Over the years I’ve experienced several different kinds of performance management, both on the giving and receiving ends. These methods varied greatly, as I’ve worked in office, retail and entertainment environments as well as having served in the Marines. Finding myself in increasingly complex situations as I grew into positions with more responsibility, I’ve sort of solidified my thoughts on performance management into two major pieces.

First, the whole point of performance management is not to punish employees. It’s to drive improved performance, and it doesn’t only apply in negative/corrective situations. Second, the methods used need to vary based on the situation (thanks, Lisa S.!) and the employee in question.

Now, sometimes punishment may be necessary, such as when an employee willfully violates policy or commits a breach of ethics. But this is frequently not the case.

Often a person will have at best a vague idea that their boss isn’t ecstatic about their behavior or performance without fully understanding why, or even consciously knowing what they’ve done wrong or how to correct it. Sometimes the employee may not feel like her behavior or performance is an issue. In these situations, what you want to do is reinforce positive behavior, and redirect adverse behavior.

A great way to gain employee buy-in here is to set clear expectations or goals, and communicate these to your report with no ambiguity or hesitation. You and your employee have to know where you want her to be before you can figure out how to focus her in that direction. Make sure she understands exactly why you’re setting these goals or policies -- what’s in it for her -- and she’ll be more interested in working toward them.

Whether one of your team members is struggling to meet standards or is looking to excel and receive recognition, as the leader, it's your role to proactively guide the employees forward, not just react to problems as they arise. When those positive results do come, it's crucial to reward the behavior that led to them.

The type of situation and employee should dictate the particular method of performance management. In the Marine Corps, where rigid discipline is critical due to the severe consequences of mission failure, and a lot of the communication is, out of necessity, only one-way, performance management typically consists of authoritarian direction from leadership and strict measures to correct unwanted behavior. I did my fair share of push-ups and got chewed out for what felt like pretty minor stuff in the long run, but I also dished out similar chastisement to my own Marines every now and then.

On the other hand, in a customer service environment where performance is mostly a product of process, managers have a lot more leeway to involve employees in figuring out how they can best get back on track with adhering to process, or improve upon existing processes. I’ve found that the same tactics can’t always be applied to different associates or departments in a retail store, or for that matter even different neighborhood stores in the same chain. There are no cookie-cutter solutions to getting better results out of your team, and you have to constantly measure performance to know if you’re getting what you want and if your tactics are working.

When your reports believe they understand what’s expected of them but know they’re falling short of the mark, consider more sophisticated plans. Ask yourself first if you, the process/project owner, have clearly explained what’s expected of the employee and how he can get there. Does he need additional training, time or resources? Perhaps you need to put your heads together and come up with an action plan that takes advantage of his strengths and establishes a process for building up his weaknesses, or as we like to call it “areas of opportunity.” Keep the lines of communication open and provide frequent honest, useful feedback. Likewise keep an open door policy, and be prepared to accept constructive feedback from your own team.

A manager should never get complacent or accept mediocrity, but must also remember that there are a lot more hats a good leader will wear in addition to disciplinarian. The carrot and the stick are only a few of the tools a people or team manager’s got to have in his or her toolbox when it comes to tweaking employee behavior and getting the best results.

What sort of performance management or “positive discipline” have you used or been through? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss’ Perspective,” subscribe and share this link with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.

The numbers don't lie

When that time of year rolls around and you're doing performance ratings on your employees, you may find yourself tempted to go with your gut feelings about them when assigning scores. If you or your organization has established a legitimate system of determining values though, it may be best to ignore your instinct. Humans are naturally inclined to be biased in favor of people we like - perhaps that evolved a long time ago - but sometimes whether or not we like an employee doesn't tell the whole story.

Early on as a manager, I can remember countless annual performance appraisals where I would catch myself arbitrarily leaning towards higher or lower scores based on how much I liked my reports. That just isn't fair. As my mentors (and HR reps) would remind me every year, you've got to be able to support those scores with data. If someone's a smart-aleck but you check his file and you've never coached him on his communication, then that's on you for not setting the proper expectation. Similarly, if you have a rock star who you're about to give a high rating for dependability, take a peek at her attendance recorded before you put her down as a top performer. Not sure about your sales woman? Check her portfolio performance. How about your tech support agent? Be sure and go over his QA scores.

It's important to document interactions both of the recognition kind and the opportunities for improvement, and do so throughout the entire review period; otherwise at the end of the year you won't have the whole picture. If you've got a report that's a solid team player who just rubs you the wrong way, or who's in need of improvement but frequently buddies up to you, then do the right thing and score them accurately.

You owe it to your employees, but also to yourself and your organization. It's only after you truly know where you stand that you can effectively plan the way forward.

*Special thanks to Shizuka for finally getting me to start my blog.