Enabling Performance through Answering Five Key Questions

There is increasing sense of disillusionment among the managers about the average performances delivered by their staff despite repeated goading and pleading for better performances. Do it better next time(boss); Sure, I shall try my best(staff) are the games being played with surprising frequency across the working world. But it seldom works!

Often following five questions answered honestly help identify the appropriate intervention that will push the performance up, without heroic magic required from either the worker or the manager.

What additional information, if shared will help? How often you realize that the information used by staff is outdated or incomplete and hence the outcome suboptimal? If besides sharing the technical qualifications required for sourcing candidates, key success factors for being effective in open position are also shared with the recruiter, the outcome will be better and process much faster and efficient.

What additional specific skill, if developed will help? Your expectations for creative solutions are not met, despite best efforts on the part of the staff; helping them learn formal approach to creative thinking may be useful. Often training is seen as the panacea for all under-performances, in reality it seldom works as effectively. Poor skill gap analysis and reliance on generic broad base training are to blame. It requires keen observation to identify exact work component where skill enhancement shall have material impact on performance, followed by specific coaching and deep practice.

What resources/ additional capacity, if provided will help? Often, we discover later in the day that the staff did not have adequate capacity or resources to deliver the performance standards expected. One of the resource, we often tend to ignore is the time availability with the staff, to address to the new requirement, after addressing other competing commitments and daily unavoidable chores. Estimating upfront the resources required and ensuring availability by freeing resources through re-prioritization and re-apportionment helps.

What additional power/ authority, if delegated will help? Here best is to ask staff, what decision making powers if provided will help improve performance, instead of making well meaning guess. Often, staff is equally fair in suggesting ways to control the misuse of power and ensure accountability, when seeking additional powers. Well defined policies and processes limit the scope for wrongful discretionary use of powers and hence inhibition to delegate authority is mostly from within the Manager then real need of the set-up.

What set of incentives, if provided will help? Managers often fault at extremes in response to this requirement- by either providing too much incentive (even for delivering regular performance) or none (where voluntary stretch is warranted and deserves recognition). Before structuring the incentives, it is important to first identify disincentives (conflicting goals) that deters staff put in their best- from head and soul, and resolve the misalignment. If better performances have to become new habit, appeal has to go beyond material incentives to professional pride of delivering high standards bearing their signatures.

Next time before labeling staff as incompetent, non-serious etc etc, examine to what extent have you considered these five questions and made enabling interventions.

Set the staff for success, and they shall not disappoint!

Reflect!!!

Two steps to Effective Decisionning

We all make decisions and often later realize (even if not acknowledge) that the outcomes are not as per expectations. Despite right intent and use of right techniques, the real decision making gets influenced by contextual variables and our embedded thinking patterns. For example, our decisions are sometimes affected by the anticipated difficulty in communicating tough decision to the affected party. We sometimes regret that we took decision too early – buying time would have been better.

Knowing how important effective decisionning is for us, I developed a simple two step process that has significantly improved outcomes for me- and hence will invite you to try as well!

Effective decisionning involves taking two steps in strictly sequential manner:

(1) Making Decision, (2) Communicating Decision.

Making Decision:

It is about making sure we know WHAT is at stake, WHO all are the stakeholders and by WHEN decision has to be taken. Specific efforts have to be made to ensure that these three elements are well considered. Stakes assessment has to include organizational and personnel, financial and social, long and short term. Stakeholders include both the affected and affecting parties. WHEN brings out the need to take decision at right time, otherwise preferred style prevails (some believe in quick decision taking while some by habit never seem to decide!), which may not be in the overall best interests.

Communicating Decision:

Once the decision is taken, avoid rushing to communicate the decision. Often there is time-lag between the futuristic decisions taken and the need for retaining the present arrangement. Right TIMING assumes that impact assessment and contingency readiness has been ascertained, and delaying communicating further will hamper the affected parties’ ability to manage the situation. Buying time to avoid difficult conversation or in the hope things will change on their own, actually make things worse for the affected parties. Prepared TEXT helps ensure that decision is left to minimal misinterpretation and you do not say stuff you regret later. TONE can help convey feelings while staying within the professional environment.

We do tend to cover the above six elements intuitively but doing so consciously and in structured manner not only help in effective decisionning but also help understand the reason why others may not agree with your decision- it is difference in perspective around any of these six elements that may be the real cause behind the disagreement.

Try and share your experiences!