Pain-Free Performance Management

Most people, leaders included, hate annual evaluations, and we have recently seen a lot of organizations (GE, Deloitte, and Accenture for example) move away from an annual performance evaluation process to something much more nimble. Whether you use this approach or a more traditional annual approach, you can make performance management much less painful and much more effective by approaching it as if you are the GPS (global positioning system) for your employees.

Start by imagining you are taking a trip... You begin by telling your GPS where you want to go. You can provide a general location and end up close to, but not exactly, where you want to go, or you can provide a specific location and end up exactly where you planned.

Once you are on your way, the GPS constantly monitors your progress to make sure you are staying on track. The system continues guiding you towards your destination if you are on track; if you take a wrong turn, it gives fairly immediate feedback to help you get back on track as soon as possible. When you arrive, the system lets you know that you have succeeded and are at your destination.

Just as with a GPS, leaders significantly increase the likelihood that their team members will succeed by agreeing clear, specific, achievable goals. Vague goals make it difficult to know when the team member has succeeded and lead to disagreement, conflict, and even disengagement. Our team members think they have arrived at the destination only to find out that, from our perspective, they still have a way to go.

Once our team members have clear goals, we need to monitor their progress towards those goals, encourage them to stay on track as they make progress, and provide timely feedback if they are off track. "Make a U turn as soon as possible."

And just like a GPS, we need to recognize our team members' success when they achieve goals. When they succeed, we need to pause and recognize their success. "You have arrived at your destination."

Over the next few weeks, I'll provide more detail on each of these steps to help you on your journey to pain-free performance management. I hope you enjoy!