Master Your Game: Performance Management
Master Your Game: Performance Management
Plan on a regular schedule for entering into a dialogue with each of your employees. These active working sessions should focus on your expectations of them, measure their performance against set goals, acknowledge success, and work through future challenges.
Managing the Scorecard
When considering an employee's performance, establish goals for each and have a measurement system in place. These scorekeeping systems are essential for tracking progress against set goals. One caution: they indicate where a person is or is not performing, but they do not assist the person to perform differently. As discussed in an earlier article, the performance development system still requires regular employee performance dialogue.
Unfortunately, many managers are uncomfortable with conversations that focus on behaviour, and avoid these conversations and evaluation sessions with their people. For employees who view performance evaluations as being linked to compensation, there is a disincentive to be open, honest and reveal vulnerabilities for fear of having this information restrain their next raise.
To succeed in assisting individuals to adapt, shift their thinking, and innovate a different set of outcomes, managers must practice coaching dialogues - the ability to use contextual listening and powerful questioning skills to elicit honest responses. With executive coaching and training to develop this skill, along with an effective performance development plan, managers will be well-equipped to engage in high quality developmental conversations.
A Simple Performance Development System
It is not about filling out complicated forms and ticking all the boxes, but having an appropriate conversation with each member of the group.
Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, authors of First Break All The Rules, provide some simple guidelines for a performance management system. Here's what they recommend:
• Plan a simple routine focused on what to say and how to say it to each employee. It is about making a personal connection with each one of your direct reports.
• Schedule frequent and regular meetings. Regular meetings provide a forum and an opportunity for confidence-building acknowledgement. It also provides just-in-time feedback relevant to the situation and becomes a reward in itself.
• Encourage participation. Have employees track their own performance and learnings, goals, successes and challenges. This is an opportunity for self-discovery, a chance for them to think about how they would like you to support them and what support they need. Developmental initiatives can then be targeted at the specific challenges.
• Simplify the performance development process. It can be a simple 30 minute meeting once a month with ten minutes focused on the past, and the rest focused on the future. After all, results will flow from focusing on how and what the person does in the future, not what they did in the past.
The System Works
Not only does this performance development process work for individuals, it also works for teams. I worked with an organization that has successfully shifted their weekly staff meetings to this process. In a 1 1/2 hour meeting, each person has three minutes to report on a success from the previous week, share their biggest challenge in the coming week, and inform other people about what might impact them. The balance of the meeting is spent finding creative solutions to the challenges this week and in the future. Meetings have shifted from being predictable and mundane to being highly engaging events where valuable dialogue and work is being conducted.
Performance development will increase the probability that the performance evaluation will result in a positive outcome for you, the leader, the individual and the organization. Together with the right coaching skills, performance evaluations can be positive, mutually-enhancing sessions for you and your employees.
Successful Development,
Jacque Small
Master Your Game Performance Management - To learn more about this author, visit Jacque Small's Website.
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Having a performance plan and honing your coaching dialogue skills will help you with your performance management role. As a leader, managing the performance development of your team is critical to attaining the success you seek. A good performance development system, executed expertly, will assist your team to grow and develop to meet the goals and objectives that you will evaluate them against.
Plan on a regular schedule for entering into a dialogue with each of your employees. These active working sessions should focus on your expectations of them, measure their performance against set goals, acknowledge success, and work through future challenges.
Managing the Scorecard
When considering an employee's performance, establish goals for each and have a measurement system in place. These scorekeeping systems are essential for tracking progress against set goals. One caution: they indicate where a person is or is not performing, but they do not assist the person to perform differently. As discussed in an earlier article, the performance development system still requires regular employee performance dialogue.
Unfortunately, many managers are uncomfortable with conversations that focus on behaviour, and avoid these conversations and evaluation sessions with their people. For employees who view performance evaluations as being linked to compensation, there is a disincentive to be open, honest and reveal vulnerabilities for fear of having this information restrain their next raise.
To succeed in assisting individuals to adapt, shift their thinking, and innovate a different set of outcomes, managers must practice coaching dialogues - the ability to use contextual listening and powerful questioning skills to elicit honest responses. With executive coaching and training to develop this skill, along with an effective performance development plan, managers will be well-equipped to engage in high quality developmental conversations.
A Simple Performance Development System
It is not about filling out complicated forms and ticking all the boxes, but having an appropriate conversation with each member of the group.
Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, authors of First Break All The Rules, provide some simple guidelines for a performance management system. Here's what they recommend:
• Plan a simple routine focused on what to say and how to say it to each employee. It is about making a personal connection with each one of your direct reports.
• Schedule frequent and regular meetings. Regular meetings provide a forum and an opportunity for confidence-building acknowledgement. It also provides just-in-time feedback relevant to the situation and becomes a reward in itself.
• Encourage participation. Have employees track their own performance and learnings, goals, successes and challenges. This is an opportunity for self-discovery, a chance for them to think about how they would like you to support them and what support they need. Developmental initiatives can then be targeted at the specific challenges.
• Simplify the performance development process. It can be a simple 30 minute meeting once a month with ten minutes focused on the past, and the rest focused on the future. After all, results will flow from focusing on how and what the person does in the future, not what they did in the past.
The System Works
Not only does this performance development process work for individuals, it also works for teams. I worked with an organization that has successfully shifted their weekly staff meetings to this process. In a 1 1/2 hour meeting, each person has three minutes to report on a success from the previous week, share their biggest challenge in the coming week, and inform other people about what might impact them. The balance of the meeting is spent finding creative solutions to the challenges this week and in the future. Meetings have shifted from being predictable and mundane to being highly engaging events where valuable dialogue and work is being conducted.
Performance development will increase the probability that the performance evaluation will result in a positive outcome for you, the leader, the individual and the organization. Together with the right coaching skills, performance evaluations can be positive, mutually-enhancing sessions for you and your employees.
Successful Development,
Jacque Small
Master Your Game Performance Management - To learn more about this author, visit Jacque Small's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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