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Leadership & Management

Leading The Team Beyond Performance Management

By June 20, 2020 November 27th, 2023 No Comments
colleagues having meeting | The Spark Group

Why “BEYOND” performance management?

Most leaders and entrepreneurs just want to manage performance, when they manage the team. Go beyond that. Ever heard the saying from the late Zig Ziglar, “Grow Your People, and the People Grow Your Business.” Going beyond is focusing on your people growing. When they do, your business will definitely follow suit.

“If I train them, and make ‘em good, they will leave me.

Worse, they become my competitor.”

I got news for you. Whether you train them or not, they can still be your competitors. And what’s worse than them leaving, is you don’t train them and they STAY! It’s given many people (employees) will come and go, and that includes the business owner.

People will come and go, the point is, while they are with you 3 months, 3 years or 13 years, how much value did they add to your organization’s value? Not training them for fear of them becoming your competitor, or not training because of the what’s-the-point-they-will-leave-me-anyway attitude will hurt your business.

“When KPIs are not met, I know when to terminate non-performers.”

Don’t get me wrong, KPIs (key performance indicators) are great. It tells leaders & entrepreneurs what to expect from each person in the organization. KPIs are a yardstick that gives you the opportunity to coach. For a specific position, there’s a specific expectation. KPIs will indicate to employees where they are on the mark, how near or far they are, or if they are on the mark.

KPIs enable us (leaders) to see the gaps. Hence, we can coach the gaps.

If we are not able to see the gaps in performance, we are not able to facilitate said employee in identifying her own gaps, and we are not able to reduce the gap.

Performance Gap = What is Expected Current Performance

“Performance gaps enable us to give feedback and really help someone.”

Some leaders and entrepreneurs are too quick to reprimand, cut salaries, issue letters or even dismissal when performance is not up to par. Meet performance gaps with specific feedback, evaluation, training, coaching and mentoring. This shows our dedication to really helping the person.

And many leaders and entrepreneurs will ask me in my seminars – “What if we have done ALL that we could, and our employee is still struggling, and worse, he/she is making me lose money?”

There’s plenty of truth in that, hey, we run businesses at the end of the day, and we can’t be molly-coddling one person, while the rest picks up slack for one person, and you keep giving chances for a person to step-up…

The difference I coach employees to look for is the WILL, CAN, WON’T and CAN’T. If someone is willing, but can’t, it’s about skills and abilities. If they can, but won’t, then it’s about willingness.

If a person is willing and taking steps to change, small steps as it may, we as leaders should NEVER give up on someone who is still trying.

It is only when they STOP trying, then save your breath. After all, we are where we are today because someone DID NOT give up on us, whether they were our teachers back in school, parents, grandparents, elder siblings or even really good friends.

Leadership is not for everyone. It’s something that you will find space in your heart and mind to do. It’s not just a logical equation, and that’s not the approach I take with the people I coach. Most of the time, it’s all about heart, and it’s never about US (leaders).

Jack Welch said it best. Before we become leaders, it’s about growing ourselves. When we become leaders, it’s about growing others.”

When we begin to lead, it is not about ourselves anymore. In my journey, I found that it’s a constant balancing act between our businesses being a selfless journey (extreme selflessness), and one that is rich in personal results (individual achievement). It’s a constant balancing act.

It’s something that could take a lifetime to learn.

Are you ready to grow from good to GREAT with your Team?

Click here to join our Employee Whisperer Workshop

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