 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
To download a pdf of
this article click here
|
Ouch! It Hurts To Think This Much! (Communicating Performance Targets)
By Ian Cook
Are your employees clear about what you
expect from their performance this year?
I should be able to come in as a con-sultant, sit down one-on-one with
any individual who reports to you and
ask him or her, “What will constitute
‘fully satisfactory’ and ‘outstanding’
performance by you over the current
year? Please describe it for me.” When I
then meet with you and ask the same
question about the individual, your
answer and theirs should pretty well
match.
In working with organizations large and
small, I am repeatedly amazed at how few
people really know what their priorities
are and what performance standards
their boss expects them to meet. As a
result they assume certain standards or,
more typically, they just keep working
from day to day until at year-end they
receive a surprise “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” in their performance
review. |
 |
But why don’t more managers worldwide
do this well? Why don’t they identify
what they expect from their direct re-ports? Why do they leave such a vital
item as expected results so fuzzy? I mean,
WHAT COULD BE MORE IMPORTANT?
Let me suggest a couple of reasons. See if
these apply to you.
Sometimes the manager truly does not
know. Maybe he (or ‘she’ with this
pronoun) has not received clear priorities
and expected deliverables for his unit
from his own boss. If this is true for you,
then obviously you need to have that
conversation with your boss about his
expectations.
Often, the manager is unable to find the
time to articulate performance expec-tations for each employee. Hey, mana-gers are super busy today. They have more people reporting to them than ever before and they face immediate pressures, fires to fight, sixty-five e-mails to answer and just generally “doing more with less.”
But there is a number one reason they
don’t communicate expectations. Let’s
face it, it is hard mental work for any of us to decide what we truly want from our
employees. We have to think of the
various areas of each person’s job and
determine what level of output is fair to
expect and what standards we will
measure it against. Besides, frequently we
don’t know that much about a particular
job. We may never have performed it
ourselves.
Here is my advice. Take the time! Map it
out. Have your employees themselves
identify key result areas for their job and
suggest the numerical indicators or
observable behaviors to be reviewed
during the year and at review time. This
will enable your people to plan their
activity, commit to results and self-monitor their progress towards goal
achievement.
Communicating performance targets is
not some extra task that keeps you from
“the real work.” It is at the very core of
being a professional leader/manager.
|
©2009 Ian Cook
Ian Cook, presenter and consultant, is an expert in assisting executives and managers build strong teams and get more from their employees through modern leadership approaches.
To book Ian for a training seminar, team facilitation or keynote presentation, call toll-free at: 1-866-855-8631 or e-mail: Contact Us
For more articles and book reviews of interest to managers please go to: www.enduringedge.com/resources
Leadership: The Enduring Edge hereby grants you permission to reprint this aarticle, provided that you:
- publish the author's byline and contact information exactly as they appear at the end of the article and
- You inform us of your intended use of the piece. Contact us toll-free at 1-866-855-8631 or E-mail: Contact Us
We invite you to pass along this article to others who you think will benefit from the ideas and information it contains.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
