Performance Management: Leading People to High Performance

Course Description:

A recent study of managers across organizations found that they spend approximately 85 percent of their time telling people what to do and the other 15 percent of their time trying to figure out why employees aren't doing as they were told. Managing performance is only (in a small part) about what we tell employees and how we tell them about the work that needs to be done. Doing this clearly and supportively is less than half the battle in performance management. When we spend our time telling people what and how to do tasks and not on acknowledging their accomplishments or immediately addressing poor performance, we demotivate our high performers and fail to motivate the majority of our workforce. And when managers focus their recognition efforts on company-sponsored programs that reward only a select few or rely on compensation programs that delay rewards and separate them from immediate work, we create a further separation between the performance we desire and that which is really occurring.

When we examine current management practices relative to the achievement of a high performing workplace, we realize that a dramatic change in our behavior is needed to create the performance required in today's competitive marketplace. This shift requires improvements in our efforts to orient employees to the company, the department, their co-workers, and the job to be done. It includes establishing and communicating crystal-clear objectives with and to employees. It also requires giving employees frequent, timely, and effective feedback and providing them with positive reinforcement to sustain high performance.