Help your client improve “employee performance”
Posted by richard on 01 May 2007 at 11:06 pm | Tagged as: "How to" coach tips
While clients do not often ask directly for help to improve employees’ performance, they do need it. Since performance reviews continue to be a problem with employees and executives, you may want to be pro-active in suggesting this approach.
The mind set required is that the manager and employee will be working together toward achieving the employee’s success. While the employee takes 90% of the responsibility for results, the manager will be committed to providing all the support needed, when requested.
Here are the 4 steps which make up this approach:
1. Employee and manager first reach agreement on specific performance goals for the coming 90 days. Be sure that the focus is on outputs.
2. The employee and manager must be on the same page as to how the goals will be achieved (no micro-management allowed).
3. The employee is asked to monitor their own progress and determine if mid-course corrections are necessary. Asking for assistance or advice, anytime, is encouraged.
4. Both parties will be expected to monitor results and make necessary adjustments through weekly 15-minute meetings. These meetings should be collaborative, constructed and forward moving in nature rather than a manager-driven review.
Once underway, goals and methods are agreed-on and the employee is progressing, sustaining the process is a matter of the manager asking these type of questions at the weekly meeting:
1. What has happened since our last meeting?
2. What did you expect to have happened by now?
3. If there is a short fall, do you have a recovery plan?
4. Do you need any ideas from me?
5. What do you expect to accomplish by our next meeting?
Action item for you: To personalize this information, put yourself in the shoes of the employee who would welcome support and guidance from the manager. With that in mind, edit the above 5 questions to be more in line with you would want yourself.
Hope this is useful,
Richard
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Excellent entry Richard.
Few small companies conduct reviews with staff because they do not want to confront them or appear to be overly demanding. They don’t realize that, by not conducting reviews in the non-confrontational manner you suggest in this entry, that they are doing a disservice to the employee, the company, and themselves. Often the reasons given for not conducting reviews are smokescreens hiding their lack of confidence or courage. This method of review should help the employer get past their confidence issues and, with the help of the employee, build a more productive, forward moving environment.
Larry Galler
HI Larry,
Thanks for the above. You are right on — in my experience the lack of know how leads to a lack of courage, and so on
The other factor that is overlooked is that reviewing another = judging and that is always a weird/counterproductive dynamic.
Great topic to coach –however!
RICHARD
I find the same situation regarding the inability or unwillingness to confront performance gaps to be present in large companies as well. In my opinion, it’s a problem of people not wanting to confront other people! And who blames us? When we do it, we usually aren’t very skillful and get hammered. We’ve also learned the strategy of shutting up and putting up to work quite well. I agree, it’s a great area to coach on…it takes courage, intent and a good deal of skill-building. It’s also transformational for both coach and client.
Barbara
Thanks for the input.
I imagine the ideal will be to have employees take responsibility for their own job success…self set goals and self evaluation— with a collaborative role (with edit authority) from the leader…
Maybe we need to coach on “job success, growth and self-set goals” Sound right?
rr