Managing Performance
Performance management is usually associated with sorting out a difficult people situation that will take time and not be a very positive experience. No wonder the phrase performance management strikes fear into the heart of even the most experienced business owners! But do not despair. Performance management techniques will have a positive impact on your business success if tacked in the right way.
So how can I do this in my team?
Three basic principles about people:
- Managing performance something you do every day either consciously or subconsciously.
- A minimum of 99% of your team want to do a good job.
- Given the right encouragement, you can unlock people’s potential to help your business succeed.
Your leadership:
- Create the environment for success – define customer service quality, team behaviours and how the team hold each other to account for the successes and failures in the striving to deliver the business.
- Inspire people to give of their best; championing your team; resilience when things go wrong; building relationships; influencing people.
- Set expectations; coaching; giving feedback – both positive and negative; one to one and team meetings; tackling issues; listening to their views.
Creating the environment for success:
- Does the team have explicit evidence of your definition of quality means in terms of customer care, personal performance and working together?
- Are all team members bought into this? Have I tackled any concerns? How do I champion the high performers?
- Do I celebrate failure as a way of the business to grow? Do I actively support and give praise for a job well done? Do I encourage feedback?
Individual contributions:
- Do I know the personal aspirations of my key people? What are their career ambitions and interests? Do they trust me to develop them?
- Are they clear on my expectations and plans for the business? Monitor performance? Use coaching techniques? Have regular, structured reviews?
- Do I coach to ensure our ways of doing things are understood? In my team, who are:
- who care and know – my champions*
- who care but don’t know – my loose cannons
- who know but don’t care – my bystanders
- who neither care or know – my weak links
- and is it possible for all my team to be champions?
Managing the day to day:
- Do I take time in assigning tasks to the right people? Do they have the skills to deliver what is expected? Which tasks can I use to develop people? Are some people becoming bored?
- Do I manage consistently? Am I spending time with my champions and weak links? How do I provide opportunities for my champions whilst at the same time address the weak link issues?
- Do I address poor performance quickly? Separating the serious from someone having a bad day?
If you approach performance management as one of the key skills in building your business, your team members will progress to bigger and better things realising the part your played in their success and ultimately, your business success.