I know you might be unconvinced by the title, but please don’t stop reading….
I know that for those of us stuck in the hell of annual 3c/ satisfactory/ good-good/ meets expectations that sounds ridiculous. I’ve had my fair share of year-end reviews and ratings that leave you a little bit dead inside, and I’ve delivered those messages like “you’re at the top end of the good category” or “you’re trending towards a 4”.
However… there are much, much better approaches.
I’ve worked with quite a few organisations recently on performance transformation, and we’ve really gone after measurement as a means of driving the right outcomes. Each organisation has taken a different approach depending on their context, direction of travel and culture.
The sheer variety of solutions struck me, so thought it might be good to get them out of my brain and out into the wonderful world. I’m hoping the ideas are of interest and maybe of use! I’m keeping it brief here, but please do reach out if you’d like to discuss more.
As a starting point I should say – none of the organisations wanted to remove measurement altogether, and all were adopting quarterly check-ins. Those are subjects for another time! Now let’s take a look at five different approaches:
Measure Improvement
I’d argue the goal of performance management is to improve performance, not measure it. How do we measure that rate of improvement?
One approach I’ve taken is with a “pace” rating. In this approach we asked colleagues to have two improvement goals per quarter, and we’d assess their pace of development – i.e. were they setting the pace of improvement, keeping pace, or needing to build pace.
The aim here was to move from a fixed-mindset culture to a growth-mindset one, placing incremental improvement at the heart of performance.
Rate the quarter, not the person
One organisation was aiming to encourage teamwork, accountability and initiative, but they were in a business hugely impacted by external factors (particularly weather).
To reflect this we moved to rate the quarter, rather than performance. Teams and individuals would agree whether it had been a great quarter, good quarter or tough quarter.
Rating the quarter stripped away defensiveness and would allow people to talk more comfortably about things that hadn’t been delivered. It let to constructive conversations about the reasons, the learning and what to do next time.
Performance versus contribution
Another organisation wrestled with siloed performance and was wanting to generate more alignment across all areas behind the changing mission of the business.
The old approach was to consider what and how ratings (but the what was always prioritised). The new approach was to rate contribution to team and organisational success.
This created conversations about how people thought beyond their immediate tasks, and saw delivery as wider than their own objectives. It started to create a sense of “we all win together”.
Multiple performance measures
In another approach we spent a while trying to consider what great performance really looks like. Ultimately, we settled on four things. We were stuck for a while with trying to reduce to one or two measures, but ultimately decided to measure all four to get a really rounded view of performance – those four were teamwork, behaviours, taskwork and improvement. Each one is rated on a three-point scale each quarter.
The thing I love with this approach is that it is so multidimensional – it allows you to recognise people who are great at tasks but struggle in the team, and equally those who help others but sacrifice their own delivery. It probably takes a manager one minute to capture the ratings, but gives a much richer picture of performance and track record.
Measuring management and leadership
Finally, one of the great things with progressive performance management is the sheer volume of data you get. Lift that data up a level and you can measure manager effectiveness. Lift it up again and you can manager leadership impact.
At Virgin Money we created what we called “five-star” check-ins – measuring 5 different elements and recording whether managers did them or not. We were able to roll these up to determine whether leaders where creating an environment where performance mattered. That allowed us to support and develop managers and leaders to create more of a performance culture.
I could go on, but you’ve probably read more than you ever planned to about performance ratings…
I guess my summary would be, good performance ratings:
- Support your organisational ambition and context
- Are tools for good conversations
- Increase psychological safety and remove threat – i.e. create openness to think and learn
- Are a lever for your culture