Myth: People need their performance managed

A huge industry focuses on products that will help organizations manage employee performance. We’ve all been told that we need to manage the performance of our employees.

This belief assumes that employees can’t perform their jobs without someone “managing” how they do it. I’ve never met a person who believes that their success in doing their job is because of the performance management process of their organization.

Employees don’t need their performance managed. They need support to optimize their performance in the context of their role and the organizational expectations.

Employees Succeed When There’s Alignment

Success happens almost magically when clear performance expectations are aligned with performance measures. Your team member knows exactly what good or great looks like and how you’ll assess that outcome.

Organizations spend thousands of hours of employee and leadership time managing performance through tools and meetings to talk about people. Many large organizations like Deloitte and Accenture realized years ago that their processes weren’t giving them the ROI for the effort, so they shifted their focus. They put the focus on ensuring clear performance expectations, clarity on priorities, and regular actionable feedback about those goals and priorities. They focused on guiding career trajectories.

Individuals don’t want or need to have their performance managed.

Employees benefit from targeted attention

If you want to get the best from your team members, it’s not about an annual or semi-annual process or the tools you use to measure performance.

The focus for any people leader is facilitating the employee to be better tomorrow than they are today (credit to Marcus Buckingham).

Here are the three tips I recommend for any people leader to optimize the opportunity for employees to perform at their highest levels of capability.

Tip #1: Provide clear performance expectations. As Brene Brown explains, you need to “paint done.” You must ensure you both leave the discussion in alignment around what good and great look like.

Tip #2: Provide regular insights on your view of their performance. Provide in-the-moment feedback on what you observed went well or what didn’t appear to have the intended impact. The primary focus should be on what’s working and how they can do more of that.

Tip #3: Coach the individual. No two people have the same backgrounds, motivations, experiences, and priorities. This challenge means you have to adapt your coaching style to meet the needs of each person on your team. Tailor your approach, and you’ll see significant benefits.

If you believe your team members need their performance managed, you’re not understanding your role and are likely to see them perform to their highest level of capability.

Your opportunity…give each person the attention they need to optimize their performance.

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