Hi there…Great to have you back, so this blog continues the leadership journey and explores how to manage the performance of others….and once again it’s a blog of two halves - in a moment I’ll explore tips, techniques and models that’ll enable you to have effective performance management meeting, be clear on expectations, agree objectives and ensure clarity regarding next steps. …In part 2 I’ll explore giving feedback - that’s both praise and developmental feedback…..plus we’ll look at how to handle  people who don't respond well to feedback! And in addition, I’ll also share how best to feedback to our boss or those with greater power than us! Not always an easy thing to do…

Before I get started….apologies in advance, there’s a reasonably lengthy preamble from me to set this theme up….but there’s a reason behind it……it’ll offer context and it’ll set you up for activities to do later.

It's also worth highlighting too, in some businesses, hopefully not yours, the term “performance management” has negative connotations - so I just want to make it completely clear what we're covering here, is you as manager / leader, managing the performance of individuals to set them up for success to get the best out of them. We're not talking about “performance managing” someone out of the business…I appreciate that may not have even been your first thought…but it does occasionally come up, so figured it was worth mentioning.

Lets get into this…..From a big picture perspective and in super simple terms your business has goals it wants to achieve…your department will have objectives aligned to those business goals…and this cascades all the way down to you and your team. You’ll be setting team members tasks to work on….the achievement of these will in turn support and impact upon the success of the bigger picture…..How does a business ensure this happens and everyone’s aligned – With an appraisal process. Once again in really general terms, typically what happens is this….At the start of the year,  objectives get set as part of an appraisal….these are reviewed 6 months later…with  121’s catch-ups inbetween - tweeks are made as the year progresses with a full review upon year end, when the whole process starts again

So that’s what this session is all about….having that objective setting conversation….how to best structure it to ensure your team members are clear on what it is they’re being tasked to do…and ensuring they’ve clarity on expectations regarding results….Clearly these conversations are likely to differ albeit in a subtle way depending upon whether it's a start of the year appraisal or a regular 121 catchup. The principle however remains the same, you’re going to want to know, what’s happening at the moment? How are they progressing? Do existing objectives remain the same? Or is there need for a shift in focus and objective review?

Putting aside the annual appraisal for one moment, these regular 121 performance management catchups will likely fall into one of three camps:

1. A team member who’s on track…they’re progressing well and meeting their objectives…which is of course fantastic in which case you praise them and where appropriate set some new objectives.

2. The second scenario is a team member that isn’t meeting their objectives. Now before we leap to conclusions, there may be valid reasons for this…Business changes or influences outside of their control may have impacted upon their ability to achieve in certain areas….so what do we do?…Well we’re back to understanding what’s going on…how are they progressing with the objectives not impacted….and agreement on some new revised objectives.

3. Of course the third scenario is they’re not hitting their objectives and it’s a performance issue…..this requires a whole different type of conversation. Again before leaping to conclusions - ask yourself, what could be going on?….If the “under performance” is unusual and out of character, it’s entirely possible there could be personal challenges, for example they’ve stuff going on at home…so it’s important to be sensitive, ask questions, listen, with a view to better understand their current circumstances….and if this is the case….set in place a support mechanism, be it tapping into external wellbeing resource your business utilises or asking your HR dept or boss for further guidance, anything you can do to enable this person to get back on track.

   
   If however the performance issue is an on-going one, then at the early stages we’re back to understanding the current situation and underlying cause, the difference here is, because objectives are not being met, a conversation needs to happen regarding expectations and what if any support is required. Maybe it’s a temporary revision of some objectives or timeframes involved….perhaps there’s a training need and skills requirement….how are you going to handle this scenario?…From your perspective this situation is likely to require you to schedule more regular catchups, simply to keep a closer track of progress and prevent further slips in performance. ….However even the best management can’t always prevent some from lacking the work ethic required to try their very best…and in such cases you’re going to need to be mindful that should such a situation materialise…with performance continuing to slip for no other reason than lack of engagement, and assuming you can look yourself in the mirror and say you’ve done all you can….it’s likely tough conversations will need to take place…and where appropriate HR involvement…clearly all businesses have their own policies and processes in place I’ll assume you’re familiar with yours and will know what’s required of you should you experience this type of scenario.

Lets switch gears now and zero in on a standard objective setting conversation.  I’ll introduce you to a couple of models and in a moment you can have a practice with what I’m about to share. So let me ask you a question….have you ever heard of SMART objectives? It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound….I ask if you’ve ever heard of it because it’s a widely used acrynm for goal setting and many organisations use it – so it’s possibly something you’re already familiar with….Either way, I’m going to talk through it…so if you’re already familiar with SMART treat it as a refresher…I’m confident you’ll get value from this…and if you’re not familiar with it….great here’s something that’s going to save you time and make your 121’s far more productive. 

Now side note….I think its important to add here, given this acronyms wide spread use, I often get push back from others saying it’s overly complicated and can be time consuming to use….and as I use it myself I can totally understand why these views are expressed. However there’s a way to use SMART that’s neither complicated or time consuming and that’s what I’ll share here……So let’s explore the whole complicated and time consuming bit…..the mistake many make when using SMART is trying to create an objective by literally going letter by letter and trying to word something that sounds something like an objective. The thing is you can get caught in the weeds and spend forever trying to word something that sounds right, but ends up being a meandering long winded paragraph of complexity.

You’re far better off formulating an objective….by initially forgetting about SMART…and simply writing out what it is that needs to be done and by when. THEN you use SMART as a template….What do I mean by that? Take your objective, lets say for example it’s “by the end July, complete all course work and pass the exam for x” and ask yourself…is this specific? – Meaning is the objective clearly? When you read it do you know what needs to be done? In this example absolutely you do. …Next can you measure it?...Again that’s a yes - You haven’t passed the exam yet but if you’ve passed come the end of July…it’s measurable. Is it achievable and is it realistic….Now at times these two get confused as being the same, when in reality they’re not.  To be honest, between you and me, the A and R in SMART are really just prompts for you as a manager to take a moment to pause and consider, are your expectations in relation to the objective you’re setting…..within the realms of reality?  

For example….Lets pretend you manage a telesales environment and you’re setting an objective for a telesales operator….You might set an objective for them to complete 50 calls a day….Now is that achievable?Probably yes…anyone could pick up a phone and speak to 50 people in a day. HOWEVER, if the quality of the calls are shocking because the telesales operator is now focused on call quantity rather than call quality then this objective clearly needs revision….Now to add to this, if other telesales operators only do 35 quality calls a day, then one could argue that asking someone to do 50 calls a day is not very realistic……

So let’s return lets to the earlier example about passing an exam. It’s specific and measurable, achievable and realistic – so the final element is it timebound - do we know when it needs to be done by….again yes, the end of July.  So we can say this example is definitely a SMART objective. One other to highlight here too. SMART objectives don’t need to be long-winded lengthy paragraphs, as you can see here a simple well structured sentence is all it takes!

So take a moment now and think about objectives you need to set members of your team and go make them SMART….Remember, just create the objective….and use SMART to simply sense check it…I’ll see you when you’re done. Welcome back.  I trust you found that useful…if however you're STILL not a fan, let me throw another acronym your way - T M T, task, measure, time, it’s very similar to smart, it just simplifies things even further. What's the task that needs to be done. How are you going to measure that task? And whens it to be completed by?…So if you don’t like SMART…use TMT instead.

OK, before I wrap this session up and and you get a chance to read the the next blog and the theme of feedback – A couple of final thoughts. How many times as part of a 121 catchup, have you sat down with a member of your team asked them to update you on progress and the response you’ve received has been frustratingly absent of detail and specifics….This is where the setting of SMART objectives really comes into their own….Think about it…when you initially formulate a SMART objective with a team member….you’ve both agreed upon expectations, measures to monitor progress and timescales as deadlines.  Now all your 121 catchups have focus. How are they progressing in line with timescales? And what evidence is there from a measurement perspective?

And…Don’t feel all the responsibility is on you as manager to formulate SMART objectives. Especially as part of yearly appraisals, have both you AND your team member work on what objectives need to be set (This may not always be possible depending upon visibility of initiatives to be worked on obviously!.). It's a great development technique and helps to instil this behaviour as the norm…

Hey, well done for making it this far…this is definitely not one of the sexiest subjects but hopefully you’ll agree, one that’s definitely worthwhile getting your head around…if you’re to work SMARTER and not harder…pun totally intended.  OK. Next up Feedback…see you there.