Chapter 5

Performance Management Implementation

# Five Challenges in implementing Performance Management

The performance management challenge in organizations has many dimensions in today’s

business environment and creating focused initiatives to overcome these challenges is not a
silver bullet approach. In many cases remuneration schemes are driving the performance system,
which creates a number on long term consequences in organizational behavior and culture. In
other cases, senior management are so focused on scorecard management to hold people
accountable that the creation of the scorecard is not aligned with business focus areas, but rather
a number of deliverable projects and tasks.

Challenge 1 Lack of Alignment

The first challenge is the lack of alignment due to various organizational processes being created
in isolation. The link between Strategy development, budgeting and operational planning is
developed by different groups of people with different frameworks being used. The performance
management system lacks alignment between individual performance, departmental performance
and organizational delivery and so all systems default back to financial measurements.

Challenge 2 Lack of Measurements

The second challenge happens at various levels of the organization in that poor measures are
developed, in many cases targets are set but no relevant measure is put in place. In other cases,
no data can be collected or is kept as evidence to track performance.

Challenge 3 Leadership and Management commitment

The Leadership and Management challenge has a huge impact on integrating and aligning a
management system to deliver a comprehensive performance management system. The
commitment and understanding of leadership and management of the requirements for achieving
a workable performance system is critical to performance success.

Challenge 4 Managing of the performance system

Managing a performance system in an organization requires a disciplined framework; it requires

the organization to work off one master plan broken down into relevant parts and areas of
responsibility. The management responsibility at various levels needs to understand the
contracting, measurement development and appraisal process very well and apply it consistently.
Secondly management needs to appreciate that performance management is not an event but
something that is managed daily but recorded and reported at certain times through reviews and
appraisals.

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Challenge 5 Managing poor performance

The management of poor performance is normally a reactive action, but in many cases it is
delayed and therefore turns into a discussion that is difficult to make relevant. Another reason
poor performance is not managed on time is the lack of valid measurements and the collection of
required evidence and measurement data.

The solutions for these challenges are embedded in a comprehensive approach ensuring
alignment or planning, management and performance systems

# Strategies for Effective Performance Management

A large part of working in Human Resources (HR) is regulating performance management.

Creating a space where you and your employees can produce excellent work and perform to the
best of your abilities is no easy task, but with the right strategies, you can make it work.

Of course, effective performance management is more than just creating a work environment that
works: Effective performance management is about leadership, interpersonal relationships,
constructive feedback, and teamwork. Even when it comes to the difficult HR tasks of managing
a process your employees don’t care for or find value in, managing a paper process, aggregating
data, and keeping other managers motivated to provide employees with useful feedback, there
are strategies available that make these tasks more doable.

Whatever obstacles you may be facing, we have some tips to make things run more smoothly
and efficiently in the workplace. Consider the following six strategies for effective performance
management.

A Wide Scope of Resources

Before we jump into the six strategies for effective performance management, it is important to
note all that falls under the umbrella of performance management:

• Setting expectations for work performance and planning ways to meet these
expectations
• Monitoring employee performance with check-ins and meetings
• Offering rewards and praise for good performance and addressing poor performance
• Regularly rating performance through summaries and reviews
• Continually developing a capacity for optimal performance

Also known as “performance appraisal,” these criteria ensure that an organization is working at
its best and providing optimal services and output. In time, effective performance management
should lead to organization growth and success.

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Try These 6 Performance Management Strategies
1. Define and Communicate Company Goals and Performance Objectives

Your employees cannot meet your performance expectations or company goals if they are not
clearly outlined, making this our first step toward effective performance management.
Sometimes employers are not as clear as they could be when outlining their goals or company
objectives, and often, employees do not come forward to ask follow-up questions when they are
confused or unclear about something. Preempt this pitfall by being as clear and communicative
as you can possibly be.

You can define and outline goals by using a goal-tracking software, creating a chart within the
office, by sending out an e-mail, distributing a flyer throughout the office, holding meetings, or
doing each of these things in turn. When you are outlining goals and objectives, repeat the
message so that it sinks in, offer visuals (such as an office chart and e-mail) so that employees
have a reference, and most importantly, hold meetings to check in on progress.

2. Utilize Performance Management Software

If you are not already using a performance management software, it may be time to consider
trying it out. If you do already use one and it’s not saving you any time, your team complains
about it, or it has low employee engagement, it may be obsolete and in need of an upgrade.
Performance management software can really streamline your performance management
strategies, making it imperative that you either begin using one or at least begin looking to
upgrade.

A good performance management software system is one that both offers traditional reviews and
360s, is employee-friendly, has an easy-to-use dashboard interface, allows for quick and
actionable reporting and, of course, fosters employee development. The software will help both
you and your employees stay on top of things so that your company is running smoothly and
efficiently at all times. Some useful examples of more modern performance management
software can be found here.

3. Offer Frequent Performance Feedback

While clearly communicating company and individual goals is an essential step for any business,
communication alone is not going to get you all that far. Your managers will also need to check
in with teams and employees periodically not only to gauge progress but also to provide
feedback.

Good performance feedback reinforces strong skill sets and positive behaviors while showing
opportunity areas with a clear path for improvement. This type of feedback cannot wait until HR
kicks off an annual review cycle. Instead, it should be given in real time and integrated into
company culture (it should also start during the interview process, but that is another post for
another time).

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Timely performance feedback is the best way to affirm your employees and their work while
also shaping their work effectively. If you have a performance software now, it should be able to
help you collect frequent feedback. If not, free tools like Google forms, survey monkey, or even
just a basic e-mail request will get you pretty far.

4. Use Peer Reviews

Another great way to foster effective performance management is to utilize peer reviews, also
known as 360-degree reviews. Again, this is a feature that can be found on most performance
management software programs. Peer reviews are useful because they allow coworkers to praise
other coworkers and highlight positive aspects of their performance, as well as point out where
improvements can be made.

This exercise helps employees to work together, build better communication, and assess where
they can improve themselves while watching their colleagues. There does need to be some
manager or HR oversight into this process, and all peer reviews should be read to ensure that no
claims, concerns, praises, or other comments go unnoticed or unaddressed.

5. Preemptive Management and Recognition

One way to guarantee results in the workplace is to implement rewards and practice preemptive
management. This simply means that your employees always know what is expected of them so
there is never any guesswork or need for consequences in the workplace.

This starts everyone on the same footing, making a fair playing field where expectations are set
and goals are known. Rewards, or incentives, are also an effective way to show employees that
you care, that you see their efforts and are pleased with their performance, and that you want
them to keep up the good work.

In the same way, having a strong “HR Toolbox” in play that helps managers catch slipping
employees early on and provide appropriate feedback helps to catch a problem before it even
starts. In this way, “Preemptive Management” is all about communicating with your employees
and letting them know what is expected, what is not, and how to meet the goals that have been
set.

6. Set Regular Meetings to Discuss Outcomes and Results

Also known as progress reports or progress meetings, setting aside time to meet with your team
and seeing how things are going with your set goals and objectives are important for meeting
those goals and objectives.

These meetings can be held weekly, monthly, or as often as you see fit. Ensure that your team
knows that attendance is mandatory. This makes the progress feedback more accurate and allows
you to make plans for moving forward.

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When holding these meetings, be sure to have a clear idea of what you want to cover. Some
objectives should include:

• Following Up on Peer Reviews

• Discussing Praises and Areas that Need Work with the Team
• Recognizing Those Team Members Actively Meeting their Goals and Objectives with
Rewards or Incentives
• Discussing Plans for The Next Phase of Projects
• Discussing Company Data: Revenue, Customer Involvement, Marketing and Campaign
Success, Etc.

You should never meet just for meeting’s sake. You want to have something relevant to address
and something worthwhile to talk about. If you feel things are going smoothly, employees are
receiving performance feedback and acting accordingly, and the company overall is on a positive
road, meetings may be held less frequently and treated as checkpoints throughout the year.

If there are issues, concerns, questions, or ideas you want to discuss, have meetings sooner rather
than later. Keeping your team involved, up to date, and in the loop are important for ensuring the
machine that is your organization runs smoothly.

These six strategies for effective performance management may seem simple, but they can work
wonders when implemented into your company’s day-to-day life. Companies should be about
the people involved. Making the most of their abilities, recognizing where they shine,
encouraging them where they need work, and seeing them as full employees, not just cogs, are
really how you can create the right work environment for success.

# Organizing change through Performance Management

Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most
of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration
(it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the
rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.

Many senior executives know this and worry about it. When asked what keeps them up at night,
CEOs involved in transformation often say they are concerned about how the work force will
react, how they can get their team to work together, and how they will be able to lead their
people. They also worry about retaining their company’s unique values and sense of identity and
about creating a culture of commitment and performance. Leadership teams that fail to plan for
the human side of change often find themselves wondering why their best-laid plans have gone
awry.

No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques
that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a “Top 10” list of guiding
principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework,
executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to
engage the entire organization in the process.

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1. Address the “human side” systematically. Any significant transformation creates “people
issues.” New leaders will be asked to step up, jobs will be changed, new skills and capabilities
must be developed, and employees will be uncertain and resistant. Dealing with these issues on a
reactive, case-by-case basis puts speed, morale, and results at risk. A formal approach for
managing change — beginning with the leadership team and then engaging key stakeholders and
leaders — should be developed early, and adapted often as change moves through the
organization. This demands as much data collection and analysis, planning, and implementation
discipline as does a redesign of strategy, systems, or processes. The change-management
approach should be fully integrated into program design and decision making, both informing
and enabling strategic direction. It should be based on a realistic assessment of the organization’s
history, readiness, and capacity to change.

2. Start at the top. Because change is inherently unsettling for people at all levels of an
organization, when it is on the horizon, all eyes will turn to the CEO and the leadership team for
strength, support, and direction. The leaders themselves must embrace the new approaches first,
both to challenge and to motivate the rest of the institution. They must speak with one voice and
model the desired behaviors. The executive team also needs to understand that, although its
public face may be one of unity, it, too, is composed of individuals who are going through
stressful times and need to be supported.

Executive teams that work well together are best positioned for success. They are aligned and
committed to the direction of change, understand the culture and behaviors the changes intend to
introduce, and can model those changes themselves. At one large transportation company, the
senior team rolled out an initiative to improve the efficiency and performance of its corporate
and field staff before addressing change issues at the officer level. The initiative realized initial
cost savings but stalled as employees began to question the leadership team’s vision and
commitment. Only after the leadership team went through the process of aligning and
committing to the change initiative was the work force able to deliver downstream results.

3. Involve every layer. As transformation programs progress from defining strategy and setting
targets to design and implementation, they affect different levels of the organization. Change
efforts must include plans for identifying leaders throughout the company and pushing
responsibility for design and implementation down, so that change “cascades” through the
organization. At each layer of the organization, the leaders who are identified and trained must
be aligned to the company’s vision, equipped to execute their specific mission, and motivated to
make change happen.

A major multiline insurer with consistently flat earnings decided to change performance and
behavior in preparation for going public. The company followed this “cascading leadership”
methodology, training and supporting teams at each stage. First, 10 officers set the strategy,
vision, and targets. Next, more than 60 senior executives and managers designed the core of the
change initiative. Then 500 leaders from the field drove implementation. The structure remained
in place throughout the change program, which doubled the company’s earnings far ahead of
schedule. This approach is also a superb way for a company to identify its next generation of
leadership.

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4. Make the formal case. Individuals are inherently rational and will question to what extent
change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to
commit personally to making change happen. They will look to the leadership for answers. The
articulation of a formal case for change and the creation of a written vision statement are
invaluable opportunities to create or compel leadership-team alignment.

Three steps should be followed in developing the case: First, confront reality and articulate a
convincing need for change. Second, demonstrate faith that the company has a viable future and
the leadership to get there. Finally, provide a road map to guide behavior and decision making.
Leaders must then customize this message for various internal audiences, describing the pending
change in terms that matter to the individuals.

A consumer packaged-goods company experiencing years of steadily declining earnings

determined that it needed to significantly restructure its operations — instituting, among other
things, a 30 percent work force reduction — to remain competitive. In a series of offsite
meetings, the executive team built a brutally honest business case that downsizing was the only
way to keep the business viable, and drew on the company’s proud heritage to craft a compelling
vision to lead the company forward. By confronting reality and helping employees understand
the necessity for change, leaders were able to motivate the organization to follow the new
direction in the midst of the largest downsizing in the company’s history. Instead of being shell-
shocked and demoralized, those who stayed felt a renewed resolve to help the enterprise
advance.

5. Create ownership. Leaders of large change programs must overperform during the
transformation and be the zealots who create a critical mass among the work force in favor of
change. This requires more than mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is
acceptable. It demands ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change
happen in all of the areas they influence or control. Ownership is often best created by involving
people in identifying problems and crafting solutions. It is reinforced by incentives and rewards.
These can be tangible (for example, financial compensation) or psychological (for example,
camaraderie and a sense of shared destiny).

At a large health-care organization that was moving to a shared-services model for

administrative support, the first department to create detailed designs for the new organization
was human resources. Its personnel worked with advisors in cross-functional teams for more
than six months. But as the designs were being finalized, top departmental executives began to
resist the move to implementation. While agreeing that the work was top-notch, the executives
realized they hadn’t invested enough individual time in the design process to feel the ownership
required to begin implementation. On the basis of their feedback, the process was modified to
include a “deep dive.” The departmental executives worked with the design teams to learn more,
and get further exposure to changes that would occur. This was the turning point; the transition
then happened quickly. It also created a forum for top executives to work as a team, creating a
sense of alignment and unity that the group hadn’t felt before.

6. Communicate the message. Too often, change leaders make the mistake of believing that
others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as clearly as they

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do. The best change programs reinforce core messages through regular, timely advice that is both
inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and
are targeted to provide employees the right information at the right time and to solicit their input
and feedback. Often this will require overcommunication through multiple, redundant channels.

In the late 1990s, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Charles O. Rossotti, had a
vision: The IRS could treat taxpayers as customers and turn a feared bureaucracy into a world-
class service organization. Getting more than 100,000 employees to think and act differently
required more than just systems redesign and process change. IRS leadership designed and
executed an ambitious communications program including daily voice mails from the
commissioner and his top staff, training sessions, videotapes, newsletters, and town hall meetings
that continued through the transformation. Timely, constant, practical communication was at the
heart of the program, which brought the IRS’s customer ratings from the lowest in various
surveys to its current ranking above the likes of McDonald’s and most airlines.

7. Assess the cultural landscape. Successful change programs pick up speed and intensity as
they cascade down, making it critically important that leaders understand and account for culture
and behaviors at each level of the organization. Companies often make the mistake of assessing
culture either too late or not at all. Thorough cultural diagnostics can assess organizational
readiness to change, bring major problems to the surface, identify conflicts, and define factors
that can recognize and influence sources of leadership and resistance. These diagnostics identify
the core values, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions that must be taken into account for successful
change to occur. They serve as the common baseline for designing essential change elements,
such as the new corporate vision, and building the infrastructure and programs needed to drive
change.

8. Address culture explicitly. Once the culture is understood, it should be addressed as

thoroughly as any other area in a change program. Leaders should be explicit about the culture
and underlying behaviors that will best support the new way of doing business, and find
opportunities to model and reward those behaviors. This requires developing a baseline, defining
an explicit end-state or desired culture, and devising detailed plans to make the transition.

Company culture is an amalgam of shared history, explicit values and beliefs, and common
attitudes and behaviors. Change programs can involve creating a culture (in new companies or
those built through multiple acquisitions), combining cultures (in mergers or acquisitions of large
companies), or reinforcing cultures (in, say, long-established consumer goods or manufacturing
companies). Understanding that all companies have a cultural center — the locus of thought,
activity, influence, or personal identification — is often an effective way to jump-start culture
change.

A consumer goods company with a suite of premium brands determined that business realities
demanded a greater focus on profitability and bottom-line accountability. In addition to
redesigning metrics and incentives, it developed a plan to systematically change the company’s
culture, beginning with marketing, the company’s historical center. It brought the marketing staff
into the process early to create enthusiasts for the new philosophy who adapted marketing

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campaigns, spending plans, and incentive programs to be more accountable. Seeing these culture
leaders grab onto the new program, the rest of the company quickly fell in line.

9. Prepare for the unexpected. No change program goes completely according to plan. People
react in unexpected ways; areas of anticipated resistance fall away; and the external environment
shifts. Effectively managing change requires continual reassessment of its impact and the
organization’s willingness and ability to adopt the next wave of transformation. Fed by real data
from the field and supported by information and solid decision-making processes, change leaders
can then make the adjustments necessary to maintain momentum and drive results.

A leading U.S. health-care company was facing competitive and financial pressures from its
inability to react to changes in the marketplace. A diagnosis revealed shortcomings in its
organizational structure and governance, and the company decided to implement a new operating
model. In the midst of detailed design, a new CEO and leadership team took over. The new team
was initially skeptical, but was ultimately convinced that a solid case for change, grounded in
facts and supported by the organization at large, existed. Some adjustments were made to the
speed and sequence of implementation, but the fundamentals of the new operating model
remained unchanged.

10. Speak to the individual. Change is both an institutional journey and a very personal one.
People spend many hours each week at work; many think of their colleagues as a second family.
Individuals (or teams of individuals) need to know how their work will change, what is expected
of them during and after the change program, how they will be measured, and what success or
failure will mean for them and those around them. Team leaders should be as honest and explicit
as possible. People will react to what they see and hear around them, and need to be involved in
the change process. Highly visible rewards, such as promotion, recognition, and bonuses, should
be provided as dramatic reinforcement for embracing change. Sanction or removal of people
standing in the way of change will reinforce the institution’s commitment.

Most leaders contemplating change know that people matter. It is all too tempting, however, to
dwell on the plans and processes, which don’t talk back and don’t respond emotionally, rather
than face up to the more difficult and more critical human issues. But mastering the “soft” side of
change management needn’t be a mystery.

# High Performance Team

A high-performance team can be defined as a group of people with specific roles and
complementary talents and skills, aligned with and committed to a common purpose, who
consistently show high levels of collaboration and innovation, produce superior results, and
extinguish radical or extreme opinions that could be damaging. The high-performance team is
regarded as tight-knit, focused on their goal and have supportive processes that will enable any
team member to surmount any barriers in achieving the team's goals.

Within the high-performance team, people are highly skilled and are able to interchange their
roles. Also, leadership within the team is not vested in a single individual. Instead the leadership
role is taken up by various team members, according to the need at that moment in time. High-

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performance teams have robust methods of resolving conflict efficiently, so that conflict does not
become a roadblock to achieving the team's goals. There is a sense of clear focus and intense
energy within a high-performance team. Collectively, the team has its own consciousness,
indicating shared norms and values within the team. The team feels a strong sense of
accountability for achieving their goals. Team members display high levels of mutual trust
towards each other.

# Characteristics of High-Performing Teams

Different characteristics have been used to describe high-performance teams. Despite varying
approaches to describing high-performance teams there is a set of common characteristics that
are recognised to lead to success

• Participative leadership – using a democratic leadership style that involves and engages
team members
• Effective decision-making – using a blend of rational and intuitive decision making
methods, depending on that nature of the decision task
• Open and clear communication – ensuring that the team mutually constructs shared
meaning, using effective communication methods and channels
• Valued diversity – valuing a diversity of experience and background in team,
contributing to a diversity of viewpoints, leading to better decision making and solutions
• Mutual trust – trusting in other team members and trusting in the team as an entity
• Managing conflict – dealing with conflict openly and transparently and not allowing
grudges to build up and destroy team morale
• Clear goals – goals that are developed using SMART criteria; also each goal must have
personal meaning and resonance for each team member, building commitment and
engagement
• Defined roles and responsibilities – each team member understands what they must do
(and what they must not do) to demonstrate their commitment to the team and to support
team success
• Coordinative relationship – the bonds between the team members allow them to
seamlessly coordinate their work to achieve both efficiency and effectiveness
• Positive atmosphere – an overall team culture that is open, transparent, positive, future-
focused and able to deliver success

# Salient Characteristics of a High-Performing Team

1. They focus relentlessly on the future

Top teams are aligned around a common purpose. They develop a clear vision of where they
want to go and what they are trying to accomplish. Strategic objectives are clear, so are roles and
responsibilities.

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2. They have each other’s back

It’s critical that each team member trust the intention of the others. This fosters collaboration,
information sharing and creativity. The resulting camaraderie, transparency and bond is
rewarding, not only in terms of output, but also in enjoyment.

3. They value and integrate differences

Great teams are well-rounded, precisely because each great team member is not. Each team
member offers their individual strengths and talents which are valued by others.

4. They decide collectively and execute efficiently

Top teams are very productive in making decisions; each member is engaged in the decision-
making process in various ways and committed to the outcome.

5. They support and hold each other accountable for results and behaviors

Individuals hold each other accountable for the agreements and actions. There is a clear set of
behavioral norms and guidelines. It’s not as much about expectations as it is about clear
objectives and attributions. Who is supposed to contribute what, in a given timeframe allows to
keep the projects on track and heightens the sense of responsibility.

#The Five Secrets of High-Performance Teams

While a dozen experts might give you a dozen different recipes for creating a high-performance,
authentizotic team, they would all agree that such teams don’t just happen by accident. At the
very least, they require careful selection of the ideal talent, as well as skilled management.

Beyond that, I expect the list would boil down to the following five success factors (or
something very similar) for most of us. Like authenteekos and zoteekos, they interlace at a very
basic level to achieve the kind of synergy that results in remarkable productivity.

• Factor 1: Purposeful Goal Setting — Setting and working toward clearly defined goals
may represent the most important of these secrets; indeed, it’s often the glue that binds a
team together. You can’t hit what you don’t aim for, and you certainly can’t correct your
aim without measuring your progress along the way. All your teammates require a
transparent understanding of the team’s goals, both in general and particular. They need
to understand how and why their participation in both goal setting and achievement is
crucial to team success.

• Factor 2: Full Engagement — Employee engagement is essential to achieving high

performance. The 31 percent of workers fully engaged with their jobs (according to the
most recent Gallup poll on the subject) form the core of high-performance teams, and it

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 wouldn’t surprise me to learn that all or nearly all the members of these teams fall into
the engaged category.

• Factor 3: Clearly Established Roles and Interdependencies — Members of top-notch

teams know their roles within the team, and fit into them as snugly as a nut and bolt or
two integral cogs tie together. They remain constantly aware of what their teammates
expect of them and vice-versa, as well as how they all depend on each other, and do their
best to stay at the top of their games. Each teammate does his or her part in a smooth,
timely, and above allprofessional fashion.

• Factor 4: Trust and Respect — You don’t necessarily have to like your teammates to
trust and respect them, though amiability helps. Trust matters because everyone expects
fellow teammates to be accountable to the roles and interdependencies that keep a team
working together smoothly. Trust means you can rely on others to do what they say they
will do. Respect matters because when you respect your coworkers as professionals, it’s
easier to trust them to do their jobs, just as they respect and trust you to do yours. All
work flows more easily with trust and bottlenecks without it. When you respect others,
you simply don’t want to let them down.

• Factor 5: Long-Term Association — The longer you work together, the better you
understand the mannerisms, tendencies, and special talents of your teammates. When
someone’s in a bad mood, you don’t take it personally. After a while, doing your job
eventually becomes almost second nature, and people don’t have to “think” about the
next step in the process. You know you can count on your teammates, and you also learn
how to work around kinks in the system when a teammate takes a sick day, goes on
vacation, or visits another office. Longevity breeds familiarity, which increases speed,
flexibility, and efficiency, inevitably increasing productivity. So it helps when the team
sticks together for a time

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# Ingredients to build a high-performing team,
Common goals.

Trust.

Respect.

Collective effort.

Accountability.

Those are the ingredients to build a high-performing team, which naturally lead to
superior growth and efficiency.

# Critical factors for Leading High Performing Teams

1. Give Productive Feedback

Feedback is the life’s blood of improvement. Productive feedback allows your employee
to understand what was expected, see their successes and misses, and grow from the
experience. Bad feedback does none of that. One of my bosses in another career and
lifetime would always tell me “Oh, you did great.” When pressed for more information
on how I could improve, he would say, “I can’t think of anything.” This isn’t feedback,
it’s filler and it’s patently unhelpful.

Without positive your team members are left wondering if they met expectations. With
bad feedback, they may just be left wondering. Uncertainty is a drain on people and time.
Instead of leaving your team members in limbo give them productive feedback and focus
on what they did well and where they can improve.

2. Get to know team members (individually)

It can be easy to get lost in the hectic pace of meetings, meetings, and more meetings. No
seriously, I get it. But there is a lot of value in getting to know your team members as
individuals. It goes back to rapport. When you know them and they know you believe in them
your employees will want to excel.

Since you lead individuals that comprise a team it’s imperative that you get to know them. Only
then will you understand their needs, motivations, and ambitions. Knowing those things will
allow you to implement the right motivational strategies that resonate with your employees.

3. communicate expectations clearly

Communication shows up in almost ever list of high performance requirements. Like giving
feedback, it’s so simple and obvious it can be easily missed. There is no faster route to mistakes,
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misunderstandings and missed deadlines than unclear directions. It’s often because you think that
you can be brief because they “already understand” or “they get it”. Unfortunately, that’s not the
case.

I’ve sat in boardrooms and in meetings and watched intelligent leaders under-communicate
expectations, parameters, and completion states. When I point it out, the leaders often feel that
they were being clear and the “shorthand” should have been understood. For a more complete
treatment of this topic you can read my post on 4 Ways to Set Clear Expectations.

4. handle team conflict

I talk about conflict a lot because there’s a lot of unresolved conflict. Conflict doesn’t have to be
toxic. Toxicity is a byproduct of negligent leadership. Most leaders are conflict-adverse, but they
should anticipate conflict and create cultures where it is welcomed because it can’t be denied.

Conflict is one of those parts of the human experience and therefore the team experience that can
be planned for. It’s naive to believe that it won’t affect your team. The best plan of action is to
anticipate conflict and shape your team culture to deal with it productively. I discuss healthy
conflict in this post.

5. listen

You have two ears and one mouth and you know the rest. You don’t have to have all the
answers as the leader. You should have great questions that stimulate your team members to
think and come up with their own solutions. Listening is a leadership super skill. I mention it
as one of 7 Leadership Skills that will make you a better leader.

You can fall into the “answers rut” when you believe that your answers are how you provide
value to the organization. What I have witnessed, and if I’m honest also done, is feel that I have
to have a great answer for every question. This can stunt your team’s ability to solve their own
problems over time.

6. take the blame and share the credit

Have you heard the term “top cover”? I learned the term when I was conducting leadership
training with the military. In our context it’s the idea that good leaders handle the heat from their
supervisors without throwing members of their team under the bus. This one is difficult for a
number of reasons, but necessary for the team to be emboldened to try new things and take risks.
High-performance teams often need to take risks and try new solutions and they need to know
they won’t be in jeopardy if things don’t go to plan.

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 7. Leverage accountability

From my experience, accountability is a high-performance litmus test. It is a leading indicator for

high-performance. When there is consistent, positive accountability performance is high. When
there is negative or no accountability performance is mediocre at best.

As the leader, you set the tone and your team will follow. When you increase accountability
consistently across all of your direct reports, you will see a few things occur: some will balk,
some will step up, some will leave. When done correctly, accountability shines a bright spotlight
that no one, including yourself, can hide from.

8. Celebrate Victories

There’s a reason that sports have scoring systems and clear paths to victory: touchdowns,
baskets, goals, etc. There’s a reason that game shows tell you the rules. That reason is that people
like, no love to win. Wins should be followed by celebrations. National championships and
hometown heroes are met with parades and fanfare.

I’m not saying you need to have a parade when you finish your project but I am saying that you
should celebrate the milestones. Use those small victories to motivate your team to keep pushing
toward the big victories.

# Difference Between a Team and a High-Performance Team

A team comprises of two or more than two people grouped to achieve a common objective or a
goal. On the other hand, High-Performance Teams are objectively more focused in approach and
better than the usual work teams. The members of a High-Performance Teamwork towards the
achievement of synergies in business outcomes and attainment of measurable results by aligning
all the resources.

High Performing Teams are an extension of the regular teams having a higher sense of
commitment towards the objectives or mutual purpose which defines the existence of a group. In
a High-Performance Team, each member of the team plays the role of a partner in achieving
outstanding and measurable outcomes. High Performance Teams serve more significant benefits
than the usual teams, as the focus is on mutual accountabilities, role expectations are clearly
defined and the members can share ideas creatively. Some of the crucial qualities of a high-
performance team which differentiates them from a regular team are:

1. A greater sense of commitment towards the purpose or goals. High-performance

teams have a clearly defined mission which is then broken into achievable performance
goals for each team member which they are required to pursue. High-Performance teams
aim for realising extraordinary goals and are more committed towards the vision.

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2. High-Performance Teams establish relatively more aggressive and ambitious
performance goals for the team members as compared to the usual teams. All the
team members are motivated for delivering excellence in performance by meeting the
challenging goals and have a more profound passion for the achievement of the mission
collectively.
3. The members of a High-Performance Team work collaboratively to discover newer
work approaches, principles and practices for realising superior performance
benchmarks at work. The work approaches provide clarity on the following pointers:
▪ Rules of Decision-Making within the team.
▪ Approaches to Creative Problem-Solving within the group.
▪ Defining the work standards and regulations which comply with the industry
standards.
▪ Highlighting the methods of conducting team meetings and communication for
ensuring a healthy dialogue and coordination amongst the team members.
▪ Establishing the processes from the beginning stage till the end for completing the
tasks.
4. In High-Performance Teams, all the members of the team are individually and jointly
accountable for the fulfilment of the common goal or the purpose. Apart from being
focused towards the individual roles & accountabilities, the team members acknowledge
collective responsibility for the team outcomes whether success or failures.
5. High-Performance Teams have a Transparent and more open kind of a
communication framework. The members engage in a frequent communication for
discovering newer or improved ways of reaching the goals, resolving differences by
participating in collaborative problem-solving and sharing experiences informally.
6. High-Performance Teams resolve conflicts amicably and constructively. The team
members focus on deriving value addition from the differences and arriving at better
decisions. They transform conflicts into opportunities by shifting their focus from the
points of variations to the possibilities, which can be tapped by building on the
collaborative competencies and resolving the differences.
7. The members of the High-Performance Teams share a very high sense of Camaraderie
and Mutual Respect for each other.
8. The Team Members of High-Performance Teams share complementary skill sets for
meeting the task related challenges and demands efficiently. With compatible or
collaborative competencies, the team members achieve greater performance benchmarks
at work and deliver outstanding as well as measurable outcomes. In case of Average
teams, the scope of the job for each team member is narrowly defined and importance is
given to specialised skills or competencies. But, the members of the High-Performance
Teams usually have multiple and complementary skills with a focus on broader
objectives or goals which affect the organisational growth and profitability.
9. Shared leadership is another vital quality of a high-performance team. Shared
leadership invigorates the team members to deliver exceptional outcomes in the
workplace and achieve synergies in the results by working collaboratively along with the
team members.
10. Performance Orientation or Personal Initiative is the primary focus of High-
Performance Teams. Each member of the team works towards delivering the best by
demonstrating exceptional performance at work which in turn will help in the realisation

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 of the team mission or the organisational goals. The team members are empowered and
motivated to take individual initiatives within the pre-defined team rules.
11. High-Performance Teams function best in a Consultative and a Supportive
environment. There is a very high level of initiative, sharing of ideas and cohesiveness
amongst the team members. The members of a High Performing Team play the act as
business partners and they enjoy a higher degree of flexibility to achieve the work goals.
The entire planning and coordination are done by the team members collectively instead
of being undertaken by a leader exclusively. But in case of average teams, the
responsibility of planning and coordination lies solely with the leader and the team
members act as per the instructions and guidelines of the leader. The leader establishes
the vision and the strategic road-map for the team members in case of average teams.
12. Regular Teams are entirely internally focused whereas the High-Performance teams
focus more on the broader objectives or goals of the organisation. The objectives are
solely not department-centric but are organisation centric.

Building High-Performance Teams with all the qualities mentioned above is not an easy job.
The following steps are required to be followed for establishing a high-performance work culture
and developing high-performance teams:

▪ Creating motivating and challenging performance related goals for the team members,
especially when the members are high on achievement motivation.
▪ Develop personal leadership competencies and encouraging individual initiative.
▪ Hiring the right blend of talent having the crucial mix of skills and abilities.
▪ Giving importance to the training and development requirements of the team members so
that they may discover innovative methods and newer work approaches for achieving the
goals of the team.

# Building and Leading High Performance Teams

An important leadership competency for any size organization, the ability to build and lead high
performing teams is especially critical in small-to-midsize businesses. Here, people must work
closely together, wear many hats and work effectively across the organization to get tasks
accomplished quickly enough to remain competitive.

In order to understand the competencies needed to build and lead high performance teams, it is
helpful to first define a team. Here is a simple but effective description from The Wisdom of
Teams (Harvard Business School Press, 1993.)

"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually
accountable."

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Using this definition, we can outline three important competencies for the effective team builder
and leader.

• Promoting understanding of why a group of people need to be a team. The team needs to
understand its shared goals and what each team member brings to the team that is relevant and
crucial to its overall successes.
• Ensuring the team has adequate knowledge to accomplish its task. This includes information
relevant to the team's goals and individual job competencies.
• Facilitating effective interaction in such as way as to ensure good problem solving, decision
making and coordination of effort.

# The Roles of the Effective Team Leader

In order to encourage this level of collaboration and interdependency, the team leader must
provide the necessary support and structure for the team, starting with putting together the right
people. Team members should be selected and their tasks assigned with their natural skills in
mind. Not every person is capable of doing every job.

The team must also have the resources and training required to develop the skills needed to do
their jobs. This includes cross-training. Cross-training gives team members a greater awareness
of how their jobs are interdependent, increasing the team's flexibility and improving response
time.

The quality of the team's response is highly dependent on the timeliness of the feedback received
from the team's leader, other team members and customers. Receiving timely feedback is crucial
to the effectiveness of the team. The effective team leader ensures that feedback reaches the
entire team on its goals and metrics, as well as feedback to each individual team member. This
feedback must be received in time to make adjustments and corrections. Often, feedback is
received too late to have any practical value in the moment, and consequently, it feels like
criticism. While it might be useful for future planning, it does not promote immediate corrections
in performance.

Feedback is a form of cconstructive communication, another necessary tool in the effective team
leader's tool chest. No matter how traditional or innovative the work design, consistent and
constructive communication throughout the team is essential. The act of constructive
communication can do more than anything else to improve quality and productivity.Timely and
appropriately delivered feedback can make the difference between a team that hides mistakes
and a team that sees mistakes as opportunities.

When a team views mistakes as opportunities for improving the team's process and results, it's a
sign that the team leader has successfully created an environment that promotes problem-solving.
People are problem solvers by nature. When they are allowed to create their own solutions
(rather than having expert solutions imposed upon them) team members are more proactive and
engaged. Teams also have greater ownership of solutions they discover for themselves.

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Creating an environment that promotes problem-solving is part of creating an effective team
structure. Poor team structure can actually create negative, ineffective behaviors in individuals
and impede communication. The responsibility for poor performance is usually a function of the
team structure rather than individual incompetence; yet, it is individuals who are sent to human
resources or training programs for fixing. If team members feel like they are pitted against one
another to compete for rewards and recognition, they will withhold information that might be
useful to the greater team. When a team has problems, the effective team leader will focus on the
team's structure before focusing on individuals.

It is to note that only "willingness" to participate collaboratively as a team member does not
guarantee the desired outcome. People thrown into a collaborative situation, especially those
without experience operating in this mode, need assistance to guarantee success. Managers who
are skeptical of team participation to begin with often throw their people into an unplanned,
unstructured decision-making process, responding with "I told you so" as they watch their team
flounder.

By contrast, managers who focus on promoting good understanding, ensuring adequate

knowledge and facilitating effective interaction, will watch the transformation of their job from
one that required constant supervision, fire-fighting, and oversight, to one that allows the leader
to focus on serving the needs of the team and each individual team member.

# Organizational Culture & Employee Performance

Organizational Culture

The organizational culture, often referred to as corporate culture, is the atmosphere of shared
beliefs and practices in a company. A positive corporate culture has shared beliefs that align with
the organization's mission, whereas a bad or toxic culture often has a large group of unhappy or
self-serving employees.

A great example of a positive corporate culture is Salesforce, the Silicon Valley company that is
routinely ranked as one of the best firms to work for. Salesforce embraces the spirit of Ohana,
the Hawaiian word for family. Employees are actively encouraged to become involved in
community philanthropy and are given paid time to pursue their chosen mission. Salaries,
bonuses, opportunities for advancement and employee benefits are all considered quite generous,
even by high-tech industry standards.

The Relationship to Employee Performance

It's easy to compare employee performance to student performance. Students who love to learn
tend to look for learning opportunities inside and outside of school. They don't miss class and
they engage with teachers to expand their knowledge and ideas. Employees who love being at
their job call in sick less frequently, perform better when they're on the job and are more likely to
collaborate with other team members or superiors.

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When employees feel that bosses and managers care about their personal happiness – and not
only the company's net revenues – loyalty develops. This helps build employee buy-in to the
vision of the company, and to set higher goals that have a wave of positive energy behind it.

Building a Positive Culture

Building a positive company culture doesn't simply happen. Business leaders need to implement
plans to achieve it, sometimes taking time and energy away from short-term revenue and sales
goals. Those who do make the effort will reap the rewards of employee engagement. One
strategy is to review the human resources policy for work hours so that the company can become
more flexible without losing employee coverage.

Another strategy to consider is to redesign an office of cubicles to become an open floor plan,
perhaps with a coffee bar, instead of a break room, in which team members are encouraged to
socialize, collaborate and feel more relaxed. Looking at kid-friendly and pet-friendly solutions is
another way to make it easier for employees to be at work and to focus the job, rather than worry
about being late for loved ones. Team building and company events outside the workday are
other ways to improve corporate culture to engage employees.

# Using Performance Management to Create a Culture of Excellence

Have you ever attended a meeting where people promised important deliverables but never
followed through? Conversely, have you ever committed to a deadline knowing full well that
you couldn’t meet it but that no one would hold you accountable for it?

According to recent research, 78% of all company leaders identify “getting the right things done”
as a significant problem in their companies. It’s not surprising, then, that accountability has
become a critical competency missing in many companies.

Some of this is due to the fast-paced nature of today’s business environment. With so many
demands on our time and attention, we can barely keep up with the never-ending crises of the
day; much less accomplish everything we have committed to doing. But a lack of accountability
also stems from the absence of a (formal and informal) performance management system.
Without such a system in place, clearly connected to strategic goals and objectives, it can be
difficult, if not impossible, to engage people in following through on doing the right things in a
timely manner.

A structured performance management process can strongly support ongoing efforts to build
accountability into the organizational culture. It helps to keep everyone aligned with the strategic
goals, and it focuses people’s attention on what needs to get done, by when. Without it,
management can easily get off track and forget to measure and reward what we have told
everyone is important.

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Specifically, an effective performance management system:

• Communicates how individuals contribute to business success and how they will be
evaluated.
• Aligns individual goals with key business priorities, resulting in greater focus, more
efficient use of resources, and less time wasted on non-value added activities.
• Provides a comprehensive system for recognizing what gets done and reinforcing how it
is achieved.
• Creates a discipline of measuring progress against specific goals and making adjustments
as necessary.

In most companies, performance management consists of a once-a-year performance review

session that is dreaded by manager and employee alike. To achieve the desired results (i.e.,
improved accountability), performance management needs to be an ongoing activity, not a one-
time event. It requires two-way conversations between manager and employee so that both are
working from the same page in terms of what is being managed and how it is being managed.

A good performance management process involves five key steps:

1. Establish Goals. Start by linking what needs to get done to the strategic planning
framework. Align the competencies, skills and knowledge of the employee to create
specific action items that will guide the employee’s behavior going forward.
2. Plan Development. Discuss short- and long-term development needs, including
agreement on how and when development will occur, as well as prioritization of
development to support more immediate business needs. Create a plan to accomplish the
required and the desired learning and growth.
3. Take Action. Provide ongoing and frequent direction and support while the employee
applies energy and focus toward accomplishing the goals.
4. Assess Performance. Evaluate the progress being made toward the goals and provide
ongoing feedback to the employee on a formal and informal basis.
5. Provide Reward. Acknowledge and reward employees through organizational programs,
local recognition, and other approaches tailored to individual employees. This may also
involve consequences and disciplinary action for poor performance.

Who has time to do all this on a regular basis?

Consider the consequences of not doing it: Lack of trust between employees and management;
declining productivity and lost business due to missed deadlines and broken commitments; lower
employee morale and higher turnover. These are just some of the more obvious consequences of
a poorly implemented performance management system.

Perhaps the most overlooked, and costliest, of consequences is the loss of top performers. When
superstars see poor performers getting a free ride because no one holds them accountable, they
start looking for another place to work. And make no mistake, even in a bad economy, top
performers can almost always find a job elsewhere.

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Performance management is a joint effort. Leaders, managers and employees all have a role to
play in creating performance excellence. Having an effective process in place, coupled with the
skills and abilities to conduct it effectively, to manage performance makes it easier for everyone
to perform well in their roles and to achieve your organization’s strategic goals.

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