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Performance Driven Culture - Key to Organizational Success

Performance Driven Culture - Key to Organizational Success

At the core of each successful organization you will find a culture that strives for better performance every day. Organizations that excel in their domain are nothing but the result of their leaders painstaking efforts to inculcate a performance driven culture.

A performance driven culture is deep rooted at all levels in the organizationPerformance Driven Culture

Successful organizations have a focus on the performance of their employees. Here employees are rewarded based purely on their performance on a set criteria. Their performance goals and targets are clearly defined and communicated to them in a formal way. The employees feel motivated and accountable for their performance and strive to achieve/exceed the targets set for them. The only thing that pleases the managers and leadership is higher achievements and performance delivery.

Here performance management is not only an HR responsibility but all departments and managers take ownership of the performance management system. Employees at grass root level take self-initiatives to improve their individual and team performance and are often engaged in a die-hard competition with their peers; and raise the performance bars on a regular basis unless they have reached or exceeded the industry bench-mark.

A bumpy road

Nevertheless, the road to success in performance driven culture is not smooth and easy. Here are some of the challenges that an organization faces while nurturing a performance driven culture:

Challenge 1: Defining performance metrics

The first challenge that organizations face is in clearly defining the performance metrics, also called goals, tasks and measures. The challenge lies in finding the quantifiable parameters for many tasks. The best discoveries can be done through discussions among the top leadership and the managers to decide what parameters/ guidelines should be set at all levels of employees. Key employees should be consulted before setting targets for them and their peers. Once the guidelines are set, a goal setting exercise engaging all employees should be conducted to ensure mutual consent of employees and their managers to set and define performance metrics.

Managers should also ensure that a balance between quality of delivery and the quantity of delivery is maintained. For example: No sale should be done based on extreme promises of delivery or if the delivery efforts makes the sale unprofitable.

Challenge 2: Collection, Reporting and analysis of performance evaluation data

The second challenge for a performance driven culture is managing the huge employee performance data that employees and managers feed into the system. There should be an easy mechanism to provide feedback and rate employee performance.
Measure Performance

The data should be well organized and able to report various information like employee achievements, how far they are from their targets, which business unit is performing better and which needs improvement. These inputs will be most valuable to managers and leadership as it will become the source of basis of measuring and improving the performance.

Because your performance data is going to be quite large (even if you are a small company of 50 employees), it is impossible to manage it through paper based (or spreadsheet bases) system. Many organizations use a SaaS based software provided by leading vendors of Performance Management System.

Challenge 3: Identifying The Leaders among Performers

The third challenge of drivingIdentify Top Performers a performance based culture in the organization is finding the top performers among the many close matches. Based on the normal reports you can easily categorize your employees in broad categories like Outstanding, Excellent, Good and Average. However, for your succession planning, promotions, rewards, you need to find the leader among the performers.

This a task of detailed analysis. Here is where you need to refer their past performances, co-relating various metrics, writing off the manipulated performances and look for consistency and the values that are best suited for the leaders in your industry. This may require you to have the previous evaluation history at hand. Most performance management systems (software) have this as an inbuilt/default feature.

ChallengPay for Performancee 4: Appropriate Reward System

Once identified, you should take immediate steps to reward the performers (before your competition does). Rewards should be appropriate and matching the performance, and to some extent the expectations of performers. It can be in terms of cash bonus, promotions, vacations etc. Sometimes HR can ask the performer to give their preference among a band of chosen awards.

The more satisfying the reward is, the more it will create an environment of competition among peers to perform better than others. A poor reward system, on the other hand, will create an indifference of employees towards your performance management system. Linking performance with pay helps organizations to satisfy the performers and motivate the non-performers.

Challenge 5: Dilemma of training or dropping non-performers

One of the significant reasons why some employees and managers do not welcome performance management Employee Training Managementsystem is the fear of exposure of non-performing team members. Unfortunately, in a performance driven culture non-performers have only two options: Improve to a minimum threshold or Exit. A performance driven culture cannot afford to drag the non performers with it. Because non performers can spoil the complete show by setting wrong examples for others and bringing down the average performance of the organization.

Based on the performance evaluation data, you can easily find out the gray areas where the non-performers are lacking. A training and development plan should be chalked out to improve the performance of non-performers. They should be given special attention and time by their immediate supervisors. A suitable training will improve the performance of many of your non-performers.

And those who can't improve with all possible efforts from organization's part, must be moved to some other department or be graciously asked to look opportunities outside. As no organization can afford to carry dead wood!





Performance Driven Culture Key to Organizational Success - To learn more about this author, visit Gireesh Sharma's Website.

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Dianne Crampton

Dianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here.

Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009.  Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010.  To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here.

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Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website

Linda Richardson
Linda 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

George Ludwig
George 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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Gireesh Sharma
(Visit Gireesh's Website) I have been into too many business functions. To begin with I started as a Missile Technician, worked as a Computer Administrator, then worked in Customer Service industry for 6 years into various roles including quality, training and knowledge base development. Also learned a bit of finance, computer technology etc. Presently working as a HR analyst, content writer, touching some part of Search Engine Marketing. All this helps me to quickly understand various functions of business. One size fits all type.. I have written two books - 1. Win Office Politics 2. Heart of your Wife. My current Specialties: Talent Management System, Performance Management System, Technology and best practices in Human Resource Management

Gireesh Sharma is a Silver author on EvanCarmichael.com
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