Managing for High Performance

—Mary Kay Ash Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics

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“ My experience with people is that they generally do what you expect them to do.”

Excellence in Supervision : Essential Skills for the New Supervisor, edited by Debbie Woodbury, et al., Course Technology Crisp, 2001. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=3116904. Created from apus on 2019-10-15 12:21:34.

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Performance Management

“How do I motivate people?” This is the question that supervisors and managers ask most commonly. The answer is the key to managing for high performance.

A mid-sized company was confronted with new competition. A number of its customers defected to competitors. Sales management set new standards for sales performance, conducted additional sales training, and created better incentives for success. The company’s growth rate improved. Notice the strategies—goals, training, and recognition.

All people are motivated. It’s just that some people aren’t motivated to do what you want them to do. Practical experience and research give clues to key performance- management skills.

Key Skills for Managing Performance

Set clear expectations and goals

Give positive feedback

Handle performance problems effectively

Supervise with flexibility

Let’s dig into the details of these practices so you can “get into action!”

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THE BENEFITS OF MANAGING PERFORMANCE Think of the supervisors you have worked with. Have they all set goals, given lots of feedback, handled problems positively, and supervised people with flexibility? Probably not.

Why don’t more supervisors use these skills? Compare some of the benefits of using them to the obstacles that keep supervisors from exercising them. Add any additional benefits and obstacles you can think of.

Benefits Obstacles

Why use these skills? Why aren’t they used more?

Builds confidence in employees Don’t know how

Clarifies goals and expectations Don’t think the skills work

Generates pride in a job Don’t want to change

Increases job satisfaction Don’t have enough time

Creates willingness to go the extra mile Have tried and it didn’t work

Relieves job boredom or routine Laziness or apathy

Increases productivity Accept mediocre results

Other: Other:

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Setting Expectations and Goals All good performance begins with clear expectations and goals. Without these, employees seldom reach their potential. Unfortunately, nearly seven out of 10 supervisors and managers fail at it. Excellent supervisors do it well, and so can you.

A customer-service supervisor had poor customer-survey results in his department. After attending a seminar, he refocused his performance-management skills. With employee input, he set customer-satisfaction goals and a recognition plan for making progress and for accomplishing the goals. After six months, the department’s customer-service ratings were better, and employee morale was extremely positive.

Supervisors must establish standards for performance. This way, employees will know what good performance looks like. Then you’ll be able to evaluate more readily whether performance meets or exceeds expectations. Standards are most often written in terms of the goals to which they relate: quantity, quality, accuracy, timeliness, service, and relationships.

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How to Establish Clear Expectations Establish clear expectations by meeting with employees one-on-one. How frequently you do this will depend on the employee’s experience level. Set up monthly or quarterly one-on-one meetings with experienced employees. Meet with inexperienced employees one-on-one during job training and in weekly or monthly sessions. The meetings should address the following issues:

Explain the job during the hiring process. Make sure you are involved in the hiring of your employees or at least have some input. Go over the job description during the interview.

During the initial meeting, create a job description or job-duties list for the employee. If the person is experienced, write the job-duties list together. If the person is inexperienced, you make the list. See the sample on page 24.

Plan to review the job duties and goals regularly together. Focusing on priorities and goals, ask experienced employees for their input. Also ask them what they do well and what they can improve. Put the resulting decisions and agreements in writing so the two of you can review for progress later.

With new employees, review the first day on the job and at the end of the first week. While this requires time, it will help the employee understand the job and succeed.

In addition to the one-on-one meetings:

Focus on key job duties, goals, and results during monthly departmental or work-group meetings and in special training sessions you may conduct.

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How to Set Goals In each of the one-on-one meetings, you’ll also discuss the performance goals or “standards” of the job. For most jobs, you determine three to five goals related to the priorities of the job. A goal needs to be SMART. This means:

Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time-bound

Effective goal setting increases performance and productivity. Examples of goals are on page 25. (Just a note: some supervisors have 40 to 100 employees. This is unfortunate. The best range is seven to 10. It is nearly impossible to meet one-on-one with 20 or more people, so if you do supervise a large work group, team people up by job function. Identify team leaders to help you with the expectation-and-goals process.)

The biggest obstacle supervisors face in goal setting is finding adequate time to do it. Remember these two points:

Lack of clear expectations and goals relates to 80% of performance problems

Research shows that goal setting can improve performance 25% in areas where it hasn’t been applied

Now, let’s apply the material we’ve been talking about:

Step 1: Review the sample job description on the next page

Step 2: Review the sample goals on page 25

Step 3: Complete “Establishing Clear Expectations and Goals” on page 26

First, apply it to an employee you will work with. Then continue this process with all of your employees. Do this regularly, and people will perform better.

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