Vicki Anderson

Many people say that if you do the right behaviors you will get the right results. This may or may not be true, but how do you know what the right behaviors are? For that matter, how do you know what the right results are?

When you set goals you are looking for specific results, but there are often many ways to achieve those results. By focusing only on one set of behaviors, you may be limiting yourself in achieving the results. On the other hand, there will be behaviors that will keep you from achieving the results.

To achieve your goals I believe it is a combination of the what and the how. The what is the result you are trying to achieve and the how is the behavior that will get the right result. You can not do wrong behaviors and expect right results. You can, however, have multiple behaviors that might be acceptable.

When setting goals, I think it is important to talk about the hows as well as the whats. It’s about setting parameters for the hows, not about proscribing them. Provide examples of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Then offer freedom to create within those parameters to achieve the results.

Great performance comes from having a goal and knowing what it will take to achieve it; then get feedback along the way as to whether you are on the right path or not. As a leader, it is your job to provide this.

Alignment of strategy and focus of effort is important to deliver success, especially today when wasted effort may be the difference between staying in business and going bankrupt. Most organizations do some sort of strategic planning, but many fail to actually follow any plan throughout the organization to ensure that they get any of it done.

Alignment at the senior team level on what is most important is sometimes the problem, while other times it is a lack of follow through and accountability. According to Jon Katzenbach in Teams at the Top, the senior members of a team often have divided loyalties. They are on the senior team running the organization, but they are also heads of their divisions or departments. Because of this, hidden agendas may keep senior teams from functioning as solidly as they might.

However, when a senior team is aligned on a single direction for the organization and each team member ensures that each supporting department is in alignment with its focus of attention, there is a greater chance of success. People will know why they are doing what they are doing and feel they are truly contributing to something worthwhile.

It’s the start of a new year and most of us have new goals at work. In this time of economic insecurity the best thing we can do to protect jobs is to make sure we are working toward achieving the organizational strategic objectives. As leaders we have an obligation to inform and coach our employees so that they know what is expected of them to perform successfully. Therefore, it is very important that you communicate the strategic objectives of your organization and tie all the goals possible to achieving those objectives.

I just returned from a meeting on performance management with a group of consultants who are in the performance improvement business. Wayne Nelsen, of Keyne Insight, coined the term “strexecution” to describe the point at which performance management goes from planning to execution. So often this part is missing. Great strategic plans are made, but then the everyday workings of an organization go along without any alignment to those plans. Keyne Insight  has developed an online product called KeyneLink that directly ties goals to strategic objectives and facilitates communication between manager and direct reports so that regular feedback ensures accomplishment.

I have found so often that people think performance management is synonymous with performance appraisal, but this is far from the truth. Performance management is the act of setting expectations for performance, giving regular feedback to remove obstacles and provide resources, and review outcomes of performance. This must happen more than once per year to be effective.  Good performance management is 4-6 times per year. The communication is far more important to successful performance than any form.

I am passionate about the importance of good performance management. Contact me if you want more information on making your performance management better.