What If Performance Management Focused on Strenghts?

HRES 3380 – Spring I 2015

Article 1 What if Performance Management Focused on Strenghts?

Myra Renojo Morin

February 17, 2015

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Source

Buckingham, Marcus (2013). What if Performance Management Focused on Strengths? Harvard Business Review, 12. Retrieved from hbr.org.

Article Summary

In this article, Marcus Buckingham is praising Microsoft for rejecting the idea that as a building block for effective performance management systems, individual performance ratings should be used.  The writer asks “What if performance management focused on strengths?”  He believes that implementing a new system would serve organizations better depending on each company.  This new system would have six characteristics.  First, in order for managers to give “in the moment” coaching and correction, it must be a real-time system.  In today’s real time world where quarter one is new with fresh ideas and full of excitement, then dwindles down by the end of that quarter, recalibration is needed.  Weekly check-ins at the least or monthly at the most is what is needed for this new system.  Mobile phones are a useful tool for the employee to input what tasks are done, what they may need, and since the information is forwarded up to your manager, advice, tips, and insight can be customized to your needs.  Second it must be a super light touch system.  With the employees expected to share their weekly or monthly check-ins, we should expect management to react with the same and focus on what is needed now.  Two questions are asked of the employee:  “What are you going to get done this week?” “And what help do you need from me?”  This allows managers to relay coaching in an enriched way with a simpler form.  Third, the employee must feel that the system is “about me, designed for me”.  Employees must feel that they are driving the system.  To achieve this start with an ongoing focus of me, my strengths, where I am at my best, and how can I get better.  Presently employee profiles are merely a tool that is not subject to frequent updates and wind up like computer generated resumes.  “Start with me” is the least employees can expect with regards to our updated content of news, entertainment, etc.  Fourth, it should be a strengths based system.  Current systems measure against competency bars, point out short fallings, and challenge employee to jump higher.  Although practical it is inefficient.  The brain does not grow and learn in our areas of weakness.  In fact, our strengths are the true areas of opportunity for growth.  The new system should challenge employees over time to build on their strengths.  Fifth, the system should focus on the future.  Current systems rely on feedback about the past.  Employees would be asked to write a review on themselves, then the manager writes his/her review.  From there the manager will sit with his/her peers to adjust the review and some of the employees peers at the same level will be asked the share their insight about the employee’s performance.  So in order to view the manager’s feedback as “developmental” rather than “critical”, the mangers shall be trained to give feedback.  Finally, the system must be local.  Current systems are centralized and cascade company values and strategies down through all levels.  The new system should capture local intelligence, and comprehensively go up from there.  The company’s best intelligence about its products, employees, and customers can be found locally in their teams.  At the team level goals should be set, compensation should be allocated by local leaders, and employee opinion surveys should be aggregated up.  According to Buckingham this is the blueprint for a better system.  He believes that the current management systems can coexist with this new lighter, more creative and strength-based system before the two begin to get in each other’s way.  With any luck, Human Resources may review its old system and lead it out of the way.