A Simple Perspective on Incremental Change

 In daily life at home, at work, or in other places change can be brought about in small steps. Many a time we might dread "Oh how can I bring about change? It's too big an effort"Wanted to share that it's often the power of compounding that can come in handy. 

Take for example in any activity, task, or effort a 1% increment may be more achievable and reasonable to our mind. It can bring down the resistance in our minds drastically. If we make a 1% improvement every day take a guess how much improvement in output, effort reduction, and task completion can one achieve in a month. STOP !!! Don't read further but pause and make a guess before reading further.

If you guessed it's about a third or thereabouts you are perfectly right.

You can bring about a 33% improvement in about a month just by a small incremental change of 1% daily. That's something that we fail to imagine and often end up overamplifying the difficulty of achieving targets.

Visually shown in the chart above is a trend line with a 1% increment for each day and end of the month you are 1.33 times where you started. This kind of change in a month is the envy of many organizations and surely worth pursuing. 

So next time you are faced with an uphill task think about how you can break it up in small incremental steps and bring about a significant change.

Big Bang is not always the best approach, compounding power can come to your rescue many a time.

For the nay-sayers who say my work cannot improve by 1% per day, suggest you should take a shot with compounding by the week or even month and the effort will seem to roll like a well-oiled wheel.

Happy Festival Season !!

Don't Miss the Woods for the Trees: Performance Management can drive right Behaviors

One objective of a good performance management framework is to drive the right kind of behaviors within various organizational entities.   How does this happen? By Setting Targets and Goals with qualifiers. Yes, the word qualifiers is to circumvent the proverbial  "fallen between the cracks"

It is important to emphasize both "how" and "why" aspects when setting goals and not just the focus on "what"

Take for example the highest achiever of sales in Pharma Co (name is irrelevant).  Here was Monty the highest grosser on sales.  For eight quarters he clocked over 40% growth each quarter and was the star salesman two years in a row.  About 9 months later when a new drug was launched by the competition the skeletons tumbled out of the cupboard.    Mohan used his smooth talking skills and network with stockists to off take and store more than they needed and the inventory went piling up finally leading to zero off take in two quarters when things got tough.

We don’t need to mention the fake invoice generation by “unscrupulous” employees to show higher sales.  This happens in various industries and google your way to “Billing Scams”

So if you are looking for good behaviors aligned to your organizations value system then you need to ensure the “desired behaviors” are brought into focus.  

This can be done through combination of the Performance Management and the Competency System.   The PMS should focus on the goals the “how” and “why” along with the “what”.   The managers should ensure that they anticipate how things can “Go Wrong” and discuss these with their teams in the process of setting goals.   

The competency framework should ensure that the behaviors of the competencies (managerial and leadership) do cover behavioral aspects of “how” apart from defining the core job related behaviors of the given role.

Focusing on just numbers,  targets and deliverables you might end up like the proverbial  missing the woods for the trees.

Your Attitude Will Get You There....

One of Zig Ziglars famous lines goes like this…. “Your Attitude, not your aptitude determines your altitude”   How high you rise comes from how you approach things.  

Sample this…

There was a foundry foreman Jack who was supervising his workmen striking away at the sand moulding machine one morning.     A gentleman came and stood by and was observing.   The foreman said “Hi Steve,  It’s been long time I have not seen you”.  They both conversed about how they met twenty five years back at the foundry and how the technology was different then and how the foundry had only one workshop and now it had over 40 workshops across the state.

When the gentleman left one of the workmen came up to Jack and said.  “Jack, Wasn’t that our Chairman whom you just spoke to a while ago.   Is it true that both of you started work this foundry at the same time several years ago?”

“Of Course" Said the foreman,  "Both me a Steve signed up for work the same day 25 years back,  Today he’s the Chairman and I’m the foreman”. 

And he continued in the same breath…

“The only difference twenty five years back was that I came to work for the 1$ to the hour and he came to work for the foundry”

Yes, Cant’ be truer the point made by this simple narrative is that how you look at your work, your task, your role, your part in the play makes the difference in how you approach it.   You clearly see that Steve had an attitude to work very different from John.     So what Zig ZIglar said in his statement is best illustrated by the simple story.

Arise, Awake and Find Your Altitude!!! Happy New Year.

(The simple story is adapted from one used by Rob Thomas as an introductory message in a book Understanding Big Data)

When Normal Becomes Abnormal: Bell Curve Phenomena

Fundamentally I wonder why people see red when you speak about the normalization or rationalization process connected to performance management framework  in organizations.  I tried to figure this out listening to diverse perspectives whenever I had an opportunity.  One common denominator that I found was that people usually get disillusioned with the process rather than the concept and that is the good part to begin with.

When organizations fail to avoid the feeling of "I'm a victim of the process"  or the "I wish I was told before"  or "Why did he /she get a better rating" then the aversion or disliking for the normalization process is much higher.   

To understand why this happens we need to understand why the normalization process was introduced in the first place. The normalization process was brought in as a tool by decision makers to distribute reward (pay rises) in some controlled way and to have some fixed slots that can be mapped to a certain level of increase. (merit increase)

However it is this very fact that causes the heart burn.  People can't digest why they should be up for lesser uptick in their compensation compared to their colleagues if they don't know how this difference stacks up.  

One argument made by opponents of the bell curve is that "when we hire best of best talent" why do we expect low performers.  (tail of the bell curve).    The key to this mystery lies in the terminology and I will elaborate more on this later.

How does the organization  make this important concept more acceptable and the process more tolerable.  Key Focus should be on :  Execution ;  Transparency ; Governance.

Execution:  Excellence in execution implies that common understanding or shared understanding is important.  Managers / Leaders and HR play a key role in creating this shared understanding.   Chose the Labels correctly.... Rather than say Excellent, Good, Average... Stick to Outputs   Way Beyond Expectations,  Beyond Expectations,  Met Expectations,  Just Below or Below.  You cannot expect more than 5% at the maximum to be labeled under the Below expectations.    Also in a good year and with a good team you can have almost everyone beyond or meeting expectation. Be ready to shift the curve (moving bell) and be flexible.  That way everyone celebrates.   So terminology is important.  Avoid any more than 2 to 3% actually being below.  And if someone meets expectations then should the payout be 100%.  Not necessary.... In high performance organizations an element of variability (15 to 30%) can be introduced which is for higher than expected and you need to ensure people focus on how much of that component they get. The problem today with way compensation is understood is by Gross Numbers so people compare Gross with Gross.  They should be shown how to compare (and get used to that...) Fixed with Fixed and Variable with Variable over fixed time periods over which the payout was given.   Easier said than done... but it's not impossible to do this.  

One good way to take care of the disgruntlement is to publish openly what the achievements are for all those who are above or way above expectations and this way you won't have people resorting to water cooler whispers and stoking grapevine.  This is the element of Transparency that we speak of. 

Governance and a eagle eye for misuse is very important.  Do a regular audit as to who are the stars,  what did they achieve,  was it more than what was expected in hind sight or was it something that that was fixed post the achievement.   Just like an Audit Team for your financials you need a audit team to review your performance assessment outcomes and how individuals were rated across groups.   Don't leave it to the HR team to do this but let it be a business driven initiative. 

How many CEO's and Directors of Operations ensure this audit as a practice. If you can tick off a YES to this practice being practiced in your organization you are on the right track.

Again as I said earlier it is not about the Mountains that we need to worry when we drive the road but the small rocks, stones and pebbles along the way. Once again I would emphasize that the shift in view of the Bell Curve need small things to be ironed out and it would be a much more acceptable with a more robust and acceptable process in place.

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance? Part III

In the first two parts (Part I here and Part II here) of this blog post about Promotion-Performance debate we looked at the question of whether Promotion is actually a reward for performance.   The dichotomy comes in when you don't understand that performance is  not a sufficient condition for promotion.  To rephrase - it more appropriate to how people should see it...  "Promotion is not causally related to performance"  or "Performance is not the cause of promotion". It maybe a pre condition or given but the real precedence is good fit on capability or competencies and whether the organization is growing, whether there are roles in the organization for the individual to move.  That is why companies known for their HR practices actually have multiple career path options for their employees.  

Hence we should look at the fallout of not communicating in clear and simple terms why someone did not get promoted.  Most of your A  raters who leave because they did not get promoted after being considered or were looked over for promotion could actually have been retained if only a bit of effort was put in to communicate the right reasons. 

Where HR teams and the managers fail, is their ability to communicate this aspect of a one sided relationship existing between performance and promotion.   Also at stake are ego,  self-esteem and motivation all a fall out of the perceptions about not being promoted that are in the minds of the people.   Also the organizations often leave people who are not promoted to their own devices in interpreting feedback and finding ways to achieve their career goals. 

Vague feedback from managers  like "You need to be a bit more hard boiled" or "You're just about there" add to the confusion in the mind of he employee and on top of it he / she is again worried that X got through the job but not me adding to the anxiety.  This reference group effect only complicates the perceived injustice or aberration in the system that people then attribute to the the whole process of promotion. 

There is always some fuzziness maintained by organizations on the promotion criteria and how those decisions are made however it is generally a fit perspective that is considered. What capabilities do you need for the role being considered and the degree of fit which the individual brings to the table.  We will continue to live with that fuzziness and cannot expect it as a problem that will go away sooner or later.  Of course if we don't want performance differentiation and everyone gets the same rating we'll have to wait for those complete "Robot Teams" whose synchronous delivery of goods and services will be very different from the human element.  And of course you won't have to motivate them except recharge or maybe at times tighten their nuts and bolts.

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance Part II

In an earlier post (Is Promotion A Reward for Performance) I had spoken about how organizations can stall the outcomes of an important process by positioning it inappropriately as something which is attributed as a reward for performance.  However performance is a necessary but no sufficient condition for a promotion.

Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for GetWell Pharmaco.   As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks.  A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented.  He always prefers to be in the limelight,  gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager.   The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.

When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules,  meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others.  He just can't lead a team, motivate performance,  coach or mentor others.  He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets.  He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing. 

The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years.  But the question is will he be setting up for failure.

It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him.  So promoting your best sales person  might leave you with worrying about having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others,  drive up motivation,  arrange team meetings,  take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on.   He needs a fair bit of coaching to scale up and manage before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after 2 years of inputs

So what options does a manager have to retain A.    Here are three ways it can be done.  While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.

• Assign a performance coach and work through action and improvement areas. Needs to be a two way process starting with establishing objectives,  working through with understanding barriers to improvement and then action planning followed by action to change 

•  Have an alternative engagement model for motivating and incentivizing the Sales Person (A in this case). This is very important and should be done in parallel to the coaching assignment.  That way A is focused on the achievement and it is important this laddering (showing few more steps on the path towards something different or a new role is to be done)is important.  Most organizations fail on this count and thus are unable to retain your good performer and lose them for lack of action taken.

• Look for a rotation to a new location or new product line in same role and change the context for the individual. It is more likely he / she will be engaged for the period since the change and  in parallel you need to work on the coaching bit

At times you may be promoting someone into his or her area of expertise or capability then in such case it may be a good thing but if not then it is a sure shot for failure.

Look forward to some ideas and comments and if you liked it feel free to share.

You may also want to read

Is Promotion A Reward for Performance - Part I

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance?

"Promotion is not a reward for performance!!". I once made this rather bold statement at a employee town hall meet and it kicked off a good bit of discussion. In my view this came about as a rather provocative statement and I ended up meeting at least a dozen mid to senior level folks who came back and said they never saw it that way. It did change their perspective on how they look at their role and I tried to capture some of the sentiments in this piece.

In the past I have spent quite a bit of time detailing out, designing and running performance management framework and systems for large organizations and came across many many people (a good estimate can be as high as 75% and more) consider promotions as a reward for performance. The more this idea gets reinforced the more it creates a problem for the organization. Organizations that send this signal are setting themselves for failure. Sooner or later you end up with a entitlement paradox, where every good performer starts saying "When's my turn?".

Here are some perspectives on this...

Promotion is all about recognizing someone's capability for a job and making that fitment. If you had to promote someone for just for his good performance then you can be setting him up for failure. Remember the commonly encountered saying... "Your best operations guy may end up being your worst sales person"

One thing I often observed is that managers, at times when it comes to promotions, try to play GOD. They make every effort to give the promoted employee a feeling that they worked a lot through the network to manage their(his / her) subordinate to get a promotion.

How you manage the process in the organization will determine how others view it and who you promote matters because people read the message loud and clear when you promote the wrong persons and punish the right guys by not giving them the role they truly fit into.

In reality it will be an incidental thing that a person who is promoted is a good performer but not always true the other way round. Another point to remember is that performance is a necessary but no sufficient condition for a promotion. Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for GETWELL PHARMA. As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks. A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented. He always prefers to be in the limelight, gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager. The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.

When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules, meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others. He just can't lead a team, motivate performance, coach or mentor others. He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets. He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing.

The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years. But the question is will he be setting up for failure.

It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him. So promoting your best sales person might leave you with worrying about having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others, drive up motivation, arrange team meetings, take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on. He needs a fair bit of coaching to scale up and manage before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after couple of years of inputs

So what options does a manager have to retain A. Here are three ways it can be done. While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.

• Assign a performance coach and work through action and improvement areas. Needs to be a two way process starting with establishing objectives, working through with understanding barriers to improvement and then action planning followed by action to change

• Have an alternative engagement model for motivating and incentivizing the Sales Person (A in this case). This is very important and should be done in parallel to the coaching assignment. That way A is focused on the achievement and it is important this laddering (showing few more steps on the path towards something different or a new role is to be done)is important. Most organizations fail on this count and thus are unable to retain your good performer and lose them for lack of action taken.

• Look for a rotation to a new location or new product line in same role and change the context for the individual. It is more likely he / she will be engaged for the period since the change and in parallel you need to work on the coaching bit

At times you may be promoting someone into his or her area of expertise or capability then in such case it may be a good thing but if not then it is a recipe for failure.

The dichotomy comes in when you don't understand that performance is not a sufficient condition for promotion. To rephrase - it more appropriate to how people should see it... "Promotion is not causally related to performance" or "Performance is not the cause of promotion". It maybe a pre condition or given but the real precedence is good fit on capability or competencies and whether the organization is growing, whether there are roles in the organization for the individual to move. That is why companies known for their HR practices actually have multiple career path options for their employees. 

Hence we should look at the fallout of not communicating in clear and simple terms why someone did not get promoted. Most of your A raters who leave because they did not get promoted after being considered or were looked over for promotion could actually have been retained if only a bit of effort was put in to communicate the right reasons. 

Where HR teams and the managers fail, is their ability to communicate this aspect of a one sided relationship existing between performance and promotion. Also at stake are ego, self-esteem and motivation all a fall out of the perceptions about not being promoted that are in the minds of the people. Also the organizations often leave people who are not promoted to their own devices in interpreting feedback and finding ways to achieve their career goals. 

Vague feedback from managers like "You need to be a bit more hard boiled" or"You're just about there" add to the confusion in the mind of he employee and on top of it he / she is again worried that X got through the job but not me adding to the anxiety. This reference group effect only complicates the perceived injustice or aberration in the system that people then attribute to the the whole process of promotion. 

There is always some fuzziness maintained by organizations on the promotion criteria and how those decisions are made however it is generally a fit perspective that is considered. What capabilities do you need for the role being considered and the degree of fit which the individual brings to the table. We will continue to live with that fuzziness and cannot expect it as a problem that will go away sooner or later. Of course if we don't want performance differentiation and everyone gets the same rating we'll have to wait for those complete "Robot Teams" whose synchronous delivery of goods and services will be very different from the human element. And of course you won't have to motivate them except recharge or maybe at times tighten their nuts and bolts.

The challenge for HR as well as Line managers would be how else do your reward high performers and your stars. In days of stiff talent competition it is very important that you keep a very sharp focus on who you retain. Retaining your best performers will be on the top of your agenda and it is here that disgruntlement with not being promoted plays a key role in turn over. However the reason for this is the lack of understanding of the relationship between performance and promotion and normally confusing the advancement as something that is a validation of their role in the organization. So when you create clarity about these aspects on the table it plays a vital role in making people understand the stance and this is the only pragmatic way to approach promotions and the complexities.

_________________________________________________________________________

HR Fault Lines: What are they and What Can You Do?

"Fault Lines threaten us on the earth." 

The second way to see it is that "Fault Lines Make us cautious, make us take proactive measures when we construct buildings so that we remain safe in the face of earthquakes, or tremors.  

Any break in the bedrock is a fault line.  Fault lines can be major...extending for several hundred miles (usually at the plate boundaries) or can be minor fault lines.  

Just like geological fault lines existing on earth, we have fault lines in HR.  These are at the boundaries.... the interfaces between key HR process areas.    If you look at it and reflect you may find this familiar.

We have a great talent sourcing process,  we have world class learning systems,  we have designed phenomenal talent management processes,  we have superb communication mechanisms.  Yet we have unhappy people.  Yet some of our employees don't  see the whole as a sum of the parts or greater than the sum of the parts.    You can attribute this to the fault lines in HR.   

Each process is like a plate.  The gaps between them are the fault lines. If you have a great sourcing strategy but yet are not able to convert the offers made and are shying away at 80% offer acceptance, there is a fault line in your post offer engagement.   If you have a fantastic performance platform but your career opportunities are least understood by the people you have a fault line at the interface.   So for the sum to be greater than the sum of the parts you need to design the systems such that there are seamless connections that avoid fault lines.  

If you look at the HR life cycle from talent sourcing then to recruitment and hiring right up to separations at each interface we should ensure that there is a seamless integration.  Any gaps existing should be looked at from the up stream process.   e.g.  if you have to design an effective promotion process or a career moves process then the data from the performance management as well as the HRMS (tenure, job moves,  role changes, experience details) and data on the  competency assessments, key strength areas etc need to be complete and of  good quality)   If this is not so then you have a fault line and down stream process gets affected as what goes into the process is what defines its effectiveness.   So from a design and effectiveness process you need to have an assessment frame work that maps the quality of inputs going into any downstream process and fix where the gaps lie.

That way you are able to avoid the fault lines,  the so called chasms that exist in the interface between the processes and that can result in tremors at the fault lines that are felt in both adjacent processes.  So next time you find the whole being less than the sum of the parts you know where to look for a solution.  In all probability it lies within the organization and a simple exercise of  mapping process flows can help you design a better HR system. 

Headline Goals: Whats Your's? Read On

Ever asked your self this question.  "What has been my biggest achievement this far?"   Generally as humans we tend to under use our potential and achieve only a fraction of what we could have  achieved.  Your potential is much more than what you ever thought.

So How do you move towards your potential?  How do you ensure you have something challenging to overcome and achieve. One of the ways to drive yourself to realize your potential is to define a headline goal for your self.   Set the goal and see it through.

What is that?

It is  something that varies from person to person but essentially it is about something big that you want to achieve, something that is worth putting up as a headline if you could put up on the front page of your life's newspaper.  Something you will be proud of. Something beyond the ordinary.

It can be something in your professional space or something in your personal space.  Let us restrict to professional space for now.   You would generally have goals that you get from your manager.   Are these general things that you achieve as per your managers view?  Is there something outstanding there to be chased.  That would be your headline goal.   

For someone it could mean doing a big marketing campaign that will push up product share 10% in the market or even more in less than a year.  For someone else it would be something like Bringing down cost of operations by 25% when the usual is 10 to 15% (say).   For yet another person it could mean aceing the Project Management Certification and scoring a A+. 

What should be the focus of the goal?   

It can be around your current role / job or it can be around something you aspire to do in the next role.  Achieving your headline goal can give you a feeling of  goosebumps when you're through with it.  It stimulates further desire to achieve a new "headline goal".

How many goals.   By and large chose something that can be achieved in 6 to 12 months. Don't choose 5 year time frame to start with.    

How do you handle these goals.  Spend some personal time off to review your progress on the goal. Put down the goal in writing.   Assess progress periodically... maybe once a week or fortnight.   That way you'll soon get into a habit and it remains in your focus.   Remember  What gets focus,  Gets Attention and What gets Attention Gets Done.   Read more about this in my post here.

I have used this concept quite often and found that it works wonders in the confidence and outlook of  your team members.  Also gives them a chance to aspire for something beyond their ordinary self.   In short.... helping to realize one's potential.

Cooling off Window in Talent Management

Performance Management is a key process in the talent management repertoire.   If this key process is done well most of the other processes will fall in place and align beautifully.   One of the down stream processes that depends to a large extent on a robust performance management framework is the employee development process. One part of the learning needs comes from what was mirrored in the PMS outcomes; i.e. the areas for improvement and enhancement in the coming year based on the observed performance in context.

The problem most designers don't notice is that this key process is bound to fail if you couple it too tightly with the performance appraisal.   The best strategy would be to keep the two distinct and separated in time by what we can call as a "Cooling off Window"   The best would be to have the development discussion after a 3 to 4 month window down stream from the appraisal process itself.

That way you would avoid a lot of unwanted discussion around the gaps in the performance observed from feedback.  Normally you would notice that when it comes to the appraisal process most people get very defensive about areas of improvement and so it gets difficult to have any meaningful dialogue.  On one hand employee is defensive about improvement areas as it is tied down to appraisal scores and performance bands which ultimately determine compensation rise and other downside related to pay.  On the other the same points go into determining what areas could be improvement focus.

However this does not mean that you can short cut the performance appraisal and feedback. The rigor of the feedback mechanisms - timely, periodic (2 to 3 times in a window of  6 months) and context specific still holds good.

By keeping a cooling off window the two processes get done at different times.  The feedback at time of learning needs should also factor in context specific inputs given to the employees when working on their job and performing their roles.  This reinforces the inputs on improvement areas.    Combine this with multi rater feedback where the employee is given feedback on areas to improve and areas of strength and this becomes a design synergy.   

So next time you find that people are not forthcoming and development needs identified were not relevant to the context of the employee double check if you had the cooling off window or did you try to combine the performance appraisal with the development discussion. 

Bell Curve in Action: It isn't about Belling the Cat

Some time back I wrote about the  Bell Curve and how employees resent it when not used in right manner.  It is interesting to know how people see red when it is not implemented properly or done with the sole  intent of letting go of people who fall in the lower tail.   It is not about "belling the cat" but rather the bell curve is about driving  high performance and managing expectations towards that objective.

Interestingly in the past week there were two well known names in the news for their tryst with the Bell Curve for managing performance.   Microsoft apparently is moving away and Yahoo is moving in with the Bell curve.   So the pendulum continues to swing one end to the other.

While Jack Welch used the Bell Curve process at GE in the 1980's  it is said that it worked well.  Reason being that people understood what relative performance meant, what it meant to be in bottom 10% and what it meant to be in Top 5% and so in the context of the organization.  This has to be a deliberately discussed and understood concept. 

Recently it is reported that at Yahoo Inc.,  there has been a lot of noise about the bell curve being brought in just to get rid of people.   If this is not the case then the CEO and HR teams should have handled the objective,  implementation and rationale on how to approach the bell curve very sensitively.   If not it fires up an environment of mistrust and loss of faith in the HR process.   You can read the Yahoo Story here. 

In fact a well managed bell curve process actually can be used to distribute pay rises by linking payout to the position on the curve.  Managers can also understand where people fall on the curve and in case of extremes (outliers) managers should use it to find reasons as to why someone is performing at extremes which can be both over performing or under performing.  This can help moderate the employees performance with suitable action to improve or to move the employee to more challenging roles.  

It is sadly understood from the article link above that most high performance companies no longer use the bell curve.  Perhaps they don't understand it well or have implemented it badly and giving up.   However many of those who are using are fine using a flexible normal curve based on how the company performers with skew changing to left or right depending on how the company fared. 

The Bell Curve is not a fad that came and went but is still around and companies like Yahoo are only paying attention to it.  Managed well it can be a very useful tool to drive up performance and take the organization to the next level of performance.   In a later post we'll discuss how this can be one. 


Other articles on PMS

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance Part I

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance Part II

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance - Part II

In an earlier post (Is Promotion A Reward for Performance) I had spoken about how organizations can stall the outcomes of an important process by positioning it inappropriately as something which is attributed as a reward for performance.  However performance is a necessary but no sufficient condition for a promotion.

Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for Pharma Co.   As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks.  A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented.  He always prefers to be in the limelight,  gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager.   The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.

When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules,  meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others.  He just can't lead a team, motivate performance,  coach or mentor others.  He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets.  He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing. 

The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years.  But the question is will he be setting up for failure.

It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him.  So promoting your best sales guy might end up in your having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others,  drive up motivation,  arrange team meetings,  take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on.   He needs a fair bit of coaching before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after 2 years of inputs

So what options does a manager have to retain A.    Here are three ways it can be done.  While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.

• Assign a performance coach and work through action and improvement areas. Needs to be a two way process starting with establishing objectives,  working through with understanding barriers to improvement and then action planning followed by action to change 

•  Have an alternative engagement model for motivating and incentivizing the Sales Person (A in this case). This is very important and should be done in parallel to the coaching assignment.  That way A is focused on the achievement and it is important this laddering (showing few more steps on the path towards something different or a new role is to be done)is important.  Most organizations fail on this count and thus are unable to retain your good performer and lose them for lack of action taken.

• Look for a rotation to a new location or new product line in same role and change the context for the individual. It is more likely he / she will be engaged for the period since the change and parallely you need to work on the coaching bit

At times you may be promoting someone into his or her area of expertise or capability then in such case it may be a good thing but if not then it is a sure shot for failure.

Look forward to some ideas and comments and if you liked it feel free to share.

You may also want to read

Is Promotion A Reward for Performance - Part I

The Normal Curve in PMS