Performance Management and CommunicationJanuary 2016

material minds

What is expected of them How they’re doing How they can improve

In order to execute strategy effectively, you need to connect that strategy with the daily action of all employees. In order to connect strategy to action employees need

to know three key things:

This slide deck addresses the second objective, helping employees understand how they are doing. This is Performance Management.

Connecting Strategy With Action

What Performance Management Isn’t

67% of research respondents thought that performance management’s objective was the distribution of rewards.

Many employees think that performance management is annual system for appraisals but it is much more than this. When research was done to ask people what they thought

performance management was, here is what they said.

54% of respondents thought that the objective was to improve accountability.

46% thought talent development was the objective

What Performance Management Really Is

Performance management is a feedback loop that evaluates progress and helps employees work on meeting goals.

These goals should be expressed in metrics to ensure that there is no ambiguity in determining whether or not the goal is met.

Performance management is the mechanism by which employees can come to understand how they are doing, the second of three things critical for employee success.

Preparation

Getting ready for performance management is accomplished by the two previous steps in this slide deck series; Metrics and Delegation

   

 

Metrics

To do a good job with performance management, each employee should have a set of metrics that accurately measures their results and the activities that drive those results.

Delegation

Secondly, the employee’s manager should have delegated responsibility for those metrics and authority over decisions concerning them so that an employee ‘owns’ their metrics.

Step 2 - What does Success look Like?Use Metrics to Communicate Results

• Their role in the organization• How their role connects with the strategy of the firm as a whole• What they have to do to make the firm successful.

If employees need to know what is expected of them, how they are doing and how they can improve, the most effective and unambiguous way to communicate those three things

is by using metrics. With metrics they have a clearer understanding of:

Having developed a set of metrics, a regular report should be developed to quantify results.

• The report should be prepared by the employee, not the manager

• This report should be reviewed weekly if possible or at least monthly.

• It should be produced once metrics are available.

Reporting

Reporting Format

Once the metrics report is ready, the manager should meet with the employee to review and discuss results.

The meeting can be formal or informal but should be led by the employee who, after all, owns the results.

Through this process, the employee knows how they are doing and knows that their manager is aware of this as well. 

Meeting

A Chance for further Communication

A regular performance management meeting is a chance for the manager to communicate other things so the employee knows what is going on.

The manager can use the meeting to communicate corporate results, decisions, rational for decisions and other strategic matters.

Fundamentals of Leadership

Leadership is all about communication.

Metrics add clarity to communication and are unambiguous.

Communication is a two way street and when you communicate metrics, you are communicating about strategy.

Putting it All Together

material minds

Helping companies execute strategy better by connecting strategy with the daily action of all employees.

Charles Plant

416 458 4850cplant (at)materialminds.com

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This is a five part series on Strategy Execution and is comprised of:

1. Strategy Execution2. Using Metrics to Define Success3. Job Design and Delegation4. Performance Management and Communication5. Coaching and Motivation