Three Areas of Influence over Employee Performance

1. The first is the person’s capability profile which is composed of
a) knowledge, skills and experience,
b) values, temperament and inhibitors, as well as
c) current cognitive capacity.

2. The second is the employee’s manager’s capability profile, composed of the aforementioned items.

3. The third is the system!? i.e. Organizational processes, policies, structure or lack thereof.

Measuring Performance Only Tells a Piece of the Story
This is why we must judge employee effectiveness in light of circumstances.? Measuring performance only is patently unfair, as it never tells the whole story.? When you measure performance, you are also measuring the system within which the employee is working.? Designing the system is executive level work.?

Engage the System to Engage the Employees
Don’t forget.? Without fairness, you will not have engagement.? If you want engagement, stop trying fix your employees and take a look at your system.

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.

Mismatch to Role

What to Do?
We all mature in cognitive, problem solving capability over our lifetimes. Eventually this employee might mature into being capable of a higher level role, but it will not be training that gets him there.? In the meantime, when this situation is encountered, it is in every one’s best interest to reassign the person to a role that matches their current capability.

This post is number three in a series of four. The series titles and links are listed below.

1. Possible Negative Manifest Behaviors of an Underutilized Employee
2. Possible Positive Manifest Behaviors of an Underutilized Employee
3. Today’s Post – Possible Negative Manifest Behaviors of an Over committed Employee (not yet cognitively capable of the work level required of the role)
4. Possible Positive Manifest Behaviors of an Over committed Employee

No Need to Fire, No Need to Label
When a employee is over committed, it does not mean they cannot contribute.? It means they cannot contribute as needed in their current role.? When managers see this type of behavior, it’s time to consider redeploying the employee into a position where they can shine.

• Doesn?t get started on assignments in due time
• Needs excessive hand holding or detailed assignments
• Doesn?t connect the dots like peers
• Relies on peers to get work done
• Doesn?t take into consideration everything you would like him to
• Doesn?t understand what you want from him
• Spends time on less important tasks; ignores or procrastinates on more complex tasks
• Focuses too closely upon detail
• Turns in sub-standard work believing it to be acceptable
• Gets less work done than peers (despite long hours and commitment)
• Takes more time than peers
• Is in a different class than peers?(they ridicule/reject or pity and protect him)
• Doesn?t respond to training

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.

May God bless those who have been put on this earth to teach and to those who generously impart their gifts without concern toward personal gain or status. I live in the prosperous shadow of such people and am honored to be counted among their students. Thank you.

Now, on to my Thanksgiving Post…

What Are Your Employees Thankful For?? Keeping Employees Engaged is Simple
Organizations diligently work to keep their employees engaged and productive.? Gifts and perks are great, but my list of the minimum criteria for engagement is short and clear.? If your employees cannot be thankful for the following items, skip the fruit basket this year and get to work on your making managerial leadership system requisite.

-A clear picture of their role, and clear assignments.

-A role matched to their current cognitive capability level.

-Accountability matched with requisite authority.

-A manager who adds value to their thinking. (aka has cognitive capacity one level higher than the employee)

-Explicitly defined role relationships with others as arranged by their manager. Employees shouldn’t be left to beg or manipulate others to get their work done. (For example, if A and B disagree, who decides? If A needs services from B, what is B’s obligation to A? If A recommends something to B, must B do it or can B choose to decline idea?)

-Felt fair pay.

I’m OK. You’re OK. Let’s fix the system.

Thank you for your continued?support and readership.? Please send a link to a friend!

Here were the most-read posts published this year:

• Managerial Accountability is not MISSING it’s just MISPLACED
• If You Want Accountability, You Must Grant Authority
• Job Analysis Via Time Span of Discretion – A Universal Level of Work Measure
• Employee Engagement Kiss of Death – Ignoring Performance Issues
• Young High Potential Leaders -?Use Wait Time to Build Character

And our all time most-read posts:

• I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money – Why You Should Deliver Sensitive Messages in Person
• Exceptional Customer Service Flows from Sound Organizational Design
• Innovation Snobbery is Not Serving Organizations
• Where Jack Welch Got It Wrong – The Mandatory Annual Low-Performer Cut
• Not All Work is Equal – Exploring Work Levels 1 – 4

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s keep contending for fixing the system!

Be INTENTIONAL Please
Systems drive behavior so the systemic implications for the way the performance review is designed, and its stated strategic intent are HUGE.

Geary Rummler sums up the situation brilliantly when he says:? “Pit the most motivated employee against a poor system, and my money is?on the system every time.”

Best Intentions Don’t Always Lead to Best Practices
Elliott Jaques didn’t use the term performance review because it lends itself to measuring outputs.? What managers really need to be doing is judging employee effectiveness.? Reviewing outputs should be one consideration in judging employee effectiveness, but trying to make employee reviews 100% objective by measuring outputs a noble intention with dangerous unintended consequences.

If I am only accountable for what I have done, but not how I went about doing it – um, trouble ahead.? And if you’ve designed your performance management system to induce managers to be singly focused upon results rather than effectiveness, you’ve closed the loop on this vicious cycle.

Work is the exercising of judgment and discretion to solve problems.? We pay people to think not compute, machines do that.? Judging employee effectiveness with always involve judgment, it cannot be objective.? This makes most HR people squirm because the attorneys loom large, but the threat of lawsuits has created an unjust situation at work.? Remember, if I don’t trust the systems of an organization are fair, engagement is unlikely.

Systems Drive Behavior – The Craziness at GE Fueled By Jack Welch
My second most popular post at Mission MInded Management is my ranting about the craziness induced by GE Jack Welch’s cut the bottom 10 percent talent management system.

Performance Review or Effectiveness Appraisal?
This is why Elliott Jaques used the term, Personal Effectiveness Appraisal, rather than Performance Appraisal.? It looks at your effectiveness relative to the work of your role.? It does not involve pitting you against others in an effort to get a bell curve.

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.

Unfair Workplaces
Have you ever “made your numbers’ while slacking off?? Have you ever missed your numbers but performed extremely effectively in light of the circumstances – loss of a large client, economic downturn?? Did your managers recognize only outputs or did s/he recognize your effectiveness?

Subodinating the Moment for the Greater Goal

Managerial Leadership Requires Courage
I’ve said 100 times that trust and fairness are precursors to employee engagement.? If managers turn their backs on issues, EVERYTHING breaks down.

What managers are saying by this abdication of their performance management leadership duty is:

-The rules apply only some times.
-The rules apply to only some people.

Try gaining accountability in an arbitrary environment like that.

Try gaining consistency in an arbitrary environment like that.

Try gaining quality in an arbitrary environment like that.

Try gaining engagement in an arbitrary enviroment like that.

Ever worked in an enviroment like that?

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.

On Engagement
“The really good marketers will become much more clever about what they do, and engage with people more effectively.? Conventional media will lose a lot of those marketers, because the marketers don?t need the media as much anymore.? Coca-Cola used to need Time magazine or television to reach consumers.? Now Coca-Cola can sponsor contests and get people to put Coke badges and links on their own Web sites.”

Why the War for Talent
On the War for Talent issue, I’ve said that high potentials no longer need hierarchical organizations to find employment.? They can work for themselves.?

Organizations, by their ignorance surrounding requisite work levels and human capability,?often force their high potentials out the door by not providing them with leadership aligned with their capability?or?work appropriate to their capability.?

Tweaking?Ms. Dyson’s quote for My Purposes
Organizations will need to become much more clever about what they do, and engage employees more effectively.? And by clever, I mean, designing work-enabling, trust inducing people systems.

What Doesn’t Lead to Lasting Engagement
What’s NOT effective when it comes to engagement?? Compensatory techniques e.g. perks, teambuilding exercises, bonuses.

We Don’t Need to Motivate, We Need to Provide an Appropriate Work Environment
Remember, I’ve said people are wired to work.? They do not need to be coerced.? They only need (1) work suited to their level of capability and interests?and (2)?as leadership suited to their level of capability.

Here is what Ms. Dyson has to say:

“Many people work much harder on a World of Warcraft role-playing team than they ever work in a paid job. They are very skilled and they do painstaking work, usually for only brownie points and recognition, because that work gives them a feeling of control and camaraderie.”

“It?s a mystery, and as an investor and as someone who?d like a better-run world, I?d like to solve it. Whatever makes work unpleasant, it?s often not really the nature of the task itself; it?s the involuntariness, and the fact that you can be punished by the person running the game.”

Ms. Dyson – it’s the system!!!!? We put employees in impossible situations every day and then blame them when things don’t go well.

All of the Accountability with None of the Authority
One of the things we do to induce dysfunction is we mismatch accountabilities and authorities.? We ask employees to be accountable for things for which they have no control.? This is fundamentally unfair, and fairness is necessary for engagement.? Ms. Dyson, you referred to it as “involuntariness”.

Ms. Dyson, you provided an example here when you were discussing Internet security and the ISP’s role:

“Until the costs of abuse are assigned to entities capable of stopping the abuse, it?s not going to get much better.”

Organizational Systems and Structure are an (Unenforced) Executive Leadership Accountability
What have I been saying for years here at Mission Minded:? Until executive leadership is assigned accountability for designing and implementing work-enabling, trust inducing people systems, it’s not going to get much better.

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system!

A few weeks back I wrote a post called, Is the Story You are Telling Yourself Helpful?,? and I’ve since?found?a video clip that powerfully illustrates?one?point I was making in that post.?

Sometimes we see what we expect, not what really is.? There is power in what we expect or know to be ?true?, and we must be mindful of the ?stories? we tell ourselves.? Some are so powerful, we cannot override them.

Are the stories you are telling yourself about your work world helpful?

The following is part two of a three-part post on Felt Fair Compensation.??See Part 1 here.

This Felt Fair Pay series was authored by my colleague, Barry Deane of PeopleFit Australasia. My hat is off to him for addressing the topic so thoroughly and for backing it with historical data and research citations.

Over 60 Years of Research
Lord Wilfred Brown and Dr. Elliott Jaques investigated this matter (among other organisational and leadership matters) as part of an extensive piece of workplace-based research known as the Glacier Project (UK 1948 to circa 1976). The following quotation is instructive, especially since it was written over 30 years ago:

?If the problem of differential payment is as critical an issue as experience would suggest, what then is to be done? A possible lead has been provided by the curious finding which first suggested that level of work might be measurable in terms of time-span of discretion; namely, that for each time-span level there is a corresponding level of pay felt by employed persons to be fair.

In work over a period of some twenty years in the Glacier Metal Company a correlation of about 0.90 has been found between time-span and felt-fair pay, for all types of work ? manual, technical, managerial, research, sales, finance, etc. In a study at the headquarters of Honeywell Corporation in Minneapolis, U.S.A., Richardson found a correlation of 0.86 for managerial and staff personnel in manufacturing, sales and research. He further found by means of regression analysis that time-span explained some 75% of the variation in felt-fair pay, as compared with actual pay (10%), and 28 other variables, none of which accounted for more than 1.5% of the variation. There is further support for the validity and reliability of these studies in work in Holland and in Canada, and in less systemic and unpublished testing in a number of other countries besides.?

-Elliott Jaques (1976, ?77, ?81, ?83) A General Theory of Bureaucracy, Heinemann UK

The ?time-span levels? referred to above concerns the recognition/discovery of levels of complexity of work, a necessary construct informing the layering of organisations i.e. what is the nature of the work to be done by the organisation and how many levels of management should there be to achieve the work.

The Glacier project is well documented.? Felt-fair pay is also well documented.

Requisite Organization – The Meta Model
The whole body of work of which felt-fair pay is a component is now known as Requisite Organization (RO). This body of work was introduced into Australia late in the 1970s by Sir Roderick Carnegie, then CEO of CRA Ltd (now Rio Tinto).

Requisite Organization Library
There is a large amount of academic and other professional documentation of the CRA experience (and others) and RO, much of which is listed in an extensive bibliography published by the Global Organization Design Society, a not-for-profit organisation based in Toronto Canada. You can download this bibliography free from GO?s website.

More tomorrow…

Stop by tomorrow for the third post in this guest series on Requisite Felt Fair Compensation by Barry Deane.

Instead of Measuring Outputs, Let’s Judge Effectiveness
Instead, managers must judge the effectiveness of their employees.??This is?a?huge part of?what we pay managers to do.??Try as we might, we cannot measure effectiveness.? It must be a judgment.? One piece of this judgment?should be?performance, but “performance” never tells the whole story.? One must assess performance in light of circumstances.

Pay for Performance in Medicine Does Not Drive Quality – Ripped from the Headlines
CHICAGO (Reuters) ? “Dangling a financial carrot in front of doctors as a way to improve health quality has changed the way some doctors practice medicine, but has yet to significantly improve quality and may be interfering with doctor-patient relationships, researchers said on Tuesday.”

“Physician groups are responding to pay-for-performance programs by making practice changes and altering how they compensate physicians to reward quality, but health plans and purchasers say that those investments are not yet translating into substantial gains in quality,” said Cheryl Damberg, a senior policy researcher at RAND, whose study appears in the journal Health Affairs.

Do We As Patients Want This?
Within a pay for performance medical system,?we?can all predict that there will be times and places where a physician’s doing the right thing for us as a patient will mean their taking a financial hit.? I hope and pray their personal character will overrule their desire for money, but shame on this system for making them choose!

I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.