Performance Management – Ladder up towards growth and win through unleashing potential

The dilemma with performance management is mixing it up falsely to one-unit appraisal brick of the entire performance management castle. What performance management can do to us as individuals, as a team, and as an organization is nothing but ‘Wonders’.

Performance management is an art and science of helping employees win in their own self and at the workplace. It is critical to make or break the pathway to organizational success. The leadership embracing the idea of ‘people growth leading to organizational growth’ is the one that reaches the heights of unmatched success.

It is a collaborative equation between manager and team members leading to growth and success. As one of the top management experts, Ken Blanchard explains that out of three aspects of performance management, coaching should be the one where the extreme focus be continuously on. However, in our industry, more emphasis and time is given to the pre-coaching phase–planning and the post-coaching phase–evaluation. While planning is objective setting with SMART strategy and evaluation is done through various assessment and appraisal tools, coaching and continuous feedback remain at heart to an effective performance management system. A good leader is an effective performance coach. Coaching ensures helping the employees achieve the pre-set goals, give prompt feedback, redirect them on the right paths and give timely praise to stay motivated and determined. Performance management lays down a path whereby a platform is built to connect continually before reaching the point where performance confrontation in a measured structure is done. Coaching ensures a clear line of performance delivery against pre-identified objectives worked throughout the year and there remains no surprise in well-implemented performance management. It is not only the responsibility of managers to give frequent feedback but also of every employee to take one. Focused talented individuals are keen to know the areas by polishing which they can raise their performance bar. Here a special mention be a saying often attributed to Ken Blanchard which says,

“Feedback is the breakfast of Champions”.

Talking about performance management without the discussion of the never-ending debate of rating methods and tools is incomplete. Rating or no rating – both schools of thought exist, however, the entire dependency lies on the strategy organization follows in line with its vision, mission and values. Here, the intent should always clearly be extracting the hidden potential, career development, employee recognition and creating personal and professional discipline. When you have the best-disciplined people in your journey, then it starts turning into a great organization. Continuous growth is directly proportional to implementing performance management. The truer the performance management system is, the more people grow it leads to, and as they say when people grow eventually the company grows.

One of the key reasons to adopt a full-fledged Performance Management System (PMS)is that it prepares the talent pipeline, identify future leaders, and plays a significant role in succession planning. Succession planning is executed based on performance levels and talent bank of human capital which are identified during PMS. The system brings to limelight Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities along with productivity and potential of the workforce. This helps in assigning objectives and assignments that are needed to develop people depending on the performance and potential category they currently exist and can be groomed to move in the future. The objectives and KPIs should be aligned with the right amount of challenge and stretch. Challenging tasks help explore and reach hidden potential while relaxing targets make the employees dull. Through the performance management system, even an average performer can be motivated, recognized and appraised rightfully to turn into a good performer.

“Use ample praise, the more specific the better.”

says Jack Welch, one of the most renowned CEO and leadership consultant.

A man remains ‘work in progress’ his entire life. Becoming good to great is a matter of conscious disciplined choices and investment, be it an individual or an organization.

Arif Raza
Head of Human Capital
PICT

A delivery-driven senior HR practitioner, Mr. Raza holds more than 20 years of professional experience to his credit, where he developed teams, established systems and procedures in synchronization with the growth and development of the people and businesses. He has a professional affiliation with the Employers Federation of Pakistan and has also taught Human Resource Management Courses in the University of Karachi as part of his passion to contribute to societal development.