Why are so many experienced professionals saying that the business climate today is more unforgiving than ever? It is faster paced, with shorter turnaround times, combined with demands to address relentless change. In addition, the level and quality of competition is greater than ever. The pressure to perform is extraordinary!
So how do you respond to this reality?
Enlightened leaders understand that the foundation for higher performance and achieving goals today, in any organization, is clarity. Clarity of purpose and clarity of expectations. Simply put, increased clarity almost always leads to better outcomes.
Ask yourself the following. How clear is every single person in your organization about each of the following?
● Your corporate values.
● Your market niche and strategy for owning that niche.
● Current goals that are important to the strategy.
● Your specific role and what you are responsible to accomplish.
● How your performance will be evaluated
● Your opportunities for growth at the company.
Can you see how more clarity will grease the wheels for more productivity and professionalism – and better results?
I submit that the best tool for improving clarity across the entire organization is a well-designed performance management strategy. A strategy that defines our objectives for the future but also supports our need for agility.
A performance management strategy ties together high level corporate decisions such as values and mission with tactical events like hiring, on-boarding, setting goals, annual reviews and even informal coaching interactions. The best plans are developed in a facilitated collaboration of the existing management team and other key stakeholders in the organization. It brings together a lot of disconnected institutional information and combines it with known best practices – but it needs to work for your industry, and it needs to work for your organization. When done right, the resulting plan may be the most important tool in your company’s management toolbox!
Implementing a performance management plan will have a cultural impact; it engages and develops mid-level managers to engage and develop their staff with more clarity and in a more purposeful way. While the timing of success will depend upon number of locations, types of tools currently in place and overall willingness to adopt a new strategy; realizing the commitment, knowledge, skill, and recognition of a new performance management plan can permeate a small to mid-size organization in as little as 90 to 120 days.
The well designed performance management plan, properly implemented, can be fully expected to deliver:
● Immediate productivity improvements of managers and their staff.
● A more engaged, and professional, workforce with higher rates of job satisfaction
● A heightened sense of URGENCY about meeting goals and team development.
Bring urgency to clarity in your company with an enlightened and updated Performance Management Plan.
Kathryn Weber is a Professional in Human Resources at Strategic Solutions in Performance Management LLC in Muskego.
