Performance Management

Monitoring and Tracking Performance

/ Ken Blanchard

One of the most important aspects of being an SLII® leader is communicating clearly with people regarding their performance. After you’ve made performance standards clear so that each person knows what a good job looks like, you must closely monitor individual performance and provide frequent feedback. Monitoring and tracking performance is a key directive leadership behavior of an SLII® leader.

When you lead people who are working on a task or goal but not yet fully competent, you are there to help them in their development. You not only observe their progress and provide direction, you also listen to their concerns and answer their questions. They need praising when you catch them doing things right and redirecting when you see them beginning to go off track. They also need regular performance check-in meetings with you.

It’s important to schedule these check-in meetings in a frequency based on the individual’s development level on their current task or goal. When a task is brand new to a person, you need to meet often to give specific direction for the first few weeks. After they have a bit of experience behind them, the meetings can be twice a week or so to focus on the goal. As they become more confident and competent, once a week is probably enough and can involve mainly listening on your part. After the person is on top of the task, regular meetings may not even be necessary unless they choose to request your help.

An SLII® leader who works this closely with their team members may find it unnecessary to conduct a yearly performance review with each person. Why? Because performance review should be an ongoing process that happens during open, honest discussions leaders have with their people throughout the year. When check-in meetings are scheduled according to development level, open and honest discussions about performance take place on an ongoing basis, creating mutual understanding and agreement. If these meetings are effective, the year-end performance review would simply be a review of what has already been discussed. There would be no surprises.

The concept of development level-based meetings leads into one of the most important—and mutually fulfilling—parts of SLII® leadership: one-on-one meetings. The purpose of one-on-ones is for managers and direct reports to get to know each other as human beings. These regularly scheduled meetings between manager and individual performer are meant to continue year after year, indefinitely.

At least once every two weeks, managers hold a 15- to 30-minute meeting with each of their people. The manager is responsible for scheduling the meeting but the individual contributor sets the agenda. This is a time for people to talk to their managers about anything on their hearts and minds—it’s their meeting. In the old days, most businesspeople had a traditional military attitude of “Don’t get close to your direct reports. You can’t make hard decisions if you have an emotional attachment to your people.” Yet rival organizations will come after your best people—so knowing them and caring for them, beyond being an enjoyable part of your job as an SLII® leader, is a competitive edge. Too often, talented people report that their executive recruiter knows and cares more about their hopes and dreams than their manager does. Don’t let this be said about you. One-on-one meetings create job satisfaction and genuine, even lifelong, relationships.

There you have it! If you have been a faithful follower of my blog posts, you now know the fourteen all-important SLII® micro skills—seven directive and seven supportive leadership behaviors. These actions not only shape and control what, how, and when things are done, they also develop mutual trust and respect between SLII® leaders and their team members. If you’ve missed a few, please feel free to go back and read my previous posts at any time. And watch this space for many more leadership topics to come!

Coaching—the Most Essential Part of Performance Management

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

Performance management has three elements—planning, day-to-day coaching, and evaluation. When I ask managers which of these elements takes the most time, they almost always say evaluation. Sometimes I hear long statements full of frustration about the forms, activities, and deadlines involved in the evaluation process. It makes me realize that people are putting the emphasis on the process—not the performance. And that is where many managers make the wrong choice.

Effective managers should spend most of their time on day-to-day coaching. Let’s take a closer look.

As a leader, it’s true that you have to spend time up front to set clear goals. Once you’ve completed that part, however, your job is to be there to coach your employees and help them accomplish those goals. I think of it as turning the traditional hierarchical pyramid upside down so that you work for your people. You are there to help them.

If you spend most of your time coaching your people and helping them succeed, what do you think happens when it is time for the evaluation? You get to celebrate accomplishments! When you help your people win, you win, your department wins, and ultimately your organization wins. That’s why I say coaching is the most essential part of performance management.

A Simple Framework to Manage Performance

/ Ken Blanchard

A critical skill for any leader is managing the performance of others. In our book Putting the One Minute Manager to Work, Bob Lorber and I introduce the ABCs of management as a framework to help leaders and their people succeed. It is a simple way to get back to the basics of influencing performance.

A stands for Activators—this refers to things a leader does before performance. All good performance starts with clear goals, so in this phase of the framework leaders must make sure employees understand (1) their areas of responsibility and (2) what good performance looks like in each of those areas. Goal setting is critical because it activates the management process. Once goals are clear, the leader provides the appropriate leadership style—directing, supporting, coaching, or delegating—to help the employee achieve the goals.

B is for Behavior. Here is where the leader observes what employees say and do while working on their goals. Leaders take note of tasks being completed (or not), deadlines being met (or not), and progress being made (or not). Since goals are clearly developed and agreed to in the first step, it is easy to determine whether people’s behaviors are contributing to the accomplishment of the goal or taking away from goal achievement.

What leaders observe in the Behavior stage determines the basis of a response. This leads to the C element in the framework—Consequences. In this phase, leaders manage the behaviors they have observed. If an employee is making progress, the leader praises that progress; if not, they redirect the employee to help them get back on track.

The ABC framework makes managing performance easier for leaders as well as their people. Employees have clear goals and an understanding of performance expectations—and leaders manage consequences in a helpful, respectful way. Give it a try!

Meeting the Challenge of Being a First-Time Manager

/ Ken Blanchard / 1 Comment

Congratulations! You got that promotion you’ve been waiting for. You are a first-time manager!

My guess is that you earned your promotion by being a high achiever—and that’s fabulous. Keep in mind, though, that the skills that helped you succeed as an individual contributor are not necessarily the same ones you will need to achieve success as a manager. That’s why I’m so excited about our First-time Manager program, a new training program I’m working on with Linda Miller and Scott Blanchard that will help new managers master the skills they need to make it through this major transition.

In our research, we have found that first-time managers must deal with three new realities.

The first new reality: First-time managers must shift from being responsible only for their own work to managing the work of others, as well. As a manager, they need to work with their staff to set performance goals and then manage that performance along the way. This can be challenging when dealing with someone who is underperforming.

The second new reality: It can be emotionally challenging to manage a group of former peers who are now direct reports. Some new managers report suddenly being unfollowed on social media or not invited to lunches or other group activities. This can make a new manager feel as if they are alone in their new endeavor.

The third new reality: Managers have a greater level of impact than non-managers. Not only are they responsible for helping their own team succeed, they now play a role in the overall success of the organization. They must manage new relationships, both with their people and with other leaders in the company. And they now serve two groups—their direct reports as well as their own leader.

If this all sounds pretty daunting, it doesn’t have to be. Learning how to communicate effectively will set first-time managers up for success. I believe that leading is something you do with people, not to them. So knowing how to hold conversations that strengthen relationships and build trust will get your management career off to a great start.

Our new program focuses on four critical conversations new managers need to master: Goal Setting, Praising, Redirecting, and Wrapping Up. In the next few weeks, I’ll go into detail about how and why to hold these conversations and I’ll also show you four skills that will further improve the quality of your communication with others. You’ll learn how to Listen to Learn, Inquire for Insight, Tell Your Truth, and Express Confidence in each interaction. These tips will improve your relationships with your team, your colleagues, and your leaders.

In the meantime, celebrate your success in your new role—and be open to learning how you can make a positive and fulfilling transition to being a first-time manager!