Well, we promised seven ways to build a performance culture, and over the last week, we have covered everything from processes and performance profiles to career paths and coaching.
What Gets Measured Gets Done
When building a performance culture, there is a key ingredient that ensures success: measurement. As you may recall, measures are included as part of a performance profile. Measures provide a concrete means of gauging the success of an output. It makes the output countable and provides a way to hold the employee accountable for their performance.
A lot of organizations avoid measuring success in a systematic and consistent way, because it requires accountability. While measurement is an accurate way to determine success, there can be a lot of worry around who will be culpable if the measures show failure.
However, when you take an honest look at accurate measures, you can:
- Know if your current processes are resulting in the accomplishment of business goals.
- Have a just-in-time snapshot of new initiative outcomes.
- Course-correct if measures are not what was anticipated.
- Fine-tune future actions based on measurement fluctuations to ensure organizational success over time.
The focus of measurement should be on information-gathering, rather than as a punitive tool. After all, if measures indicate failure, as long as you have quick access to those measures, you can use analysis to diagnose a way toward success. As long as measurement is used in future decision-making, it will lead to better results over time.
During analysis, measures are reviewed to determine which outputs aren’t currently being produced successfully. Without steady and reliable data, there is no way to have an accurate picture of performance.
Measurement is also a tool that can be used in both training and coaching. A coach can determine areas for improvement by looking at where the performer’s measures are lower than expected. Successful coaching then results in improvement of those measures. Likely, a training initiative can be determined to be successful by looking at the appropriate measures within the organization. Training should have a specific goal to produce a change in measures over a set period of time. Training is successful if that shift in the numbers occurs as expected.
In the end, a performance culture cannot exist without honest, ongoing measurement. You must have a measure for where performance is if you ever hope to improve it.
How Can We Help You?
We are thrilled that you joined us on this journey. Our goal is to help you drive better business results by improving the performance of your people.
As we wrap up this series, we just wanted to remind you that we are here for you. Whether you need to bounce ideas off someone or need assistance implementing one or more of these concepts within your organization, we are here to help.
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