When I walk around companies with huge productivity issues, it always seems that the employees…
Once of the most obvious and terrible things that hold companies back is the lack of clarity of expectations and the follow through with accountability. So many issues in organizations can be boiled down to this.
It’s really quite simple, people need to know what their job is—the goals, the expectations, and the measures of performance whether it is qualitative or quantitative or both. That is to say, what they are getting paid to do. DUH! And it is not the responsibility of the employee to figure this out. Great managers, heck even just good managers must be able to clarify and articulate what “success looks like.” In fact, this is a primary and foundational task of a manager. It is core to the very job description of a manager.
One of the worst things that can happen to an employee is not to really know what is expected of them. This grey leads to so many issues. First, it is deflating not to know what your job is or what you are supposed to be doing. Hard to focus and drive towards a goal without knowing the goal. Second, without clear expectations, the performance review will never go well because what will the manager be rating the employee on? So, the performance review will always seem to be subjective and truly unfair. It will be like the target is moving because the target was never established. Not only will the employee be frustrated but so too the manager will be because the performance and results will not be there. Lastly, when there is grey, employees are left to guess what to do and over time this reality devolves to doing work they either like the most/hate the least or the work that takes the least amount of effort. Oh, they sure will try to look busy so to avoid the wrath of management, but not much is getting done. Thus, the scenario from the above quote. Please also note, working hard is not a clear goal. In fact, many people work hard in organizations but on the wrong things and thus the organization becomes unproductive.
Connected to this of course is accountability. After setting the goals a manager must coach, give feedback and ensure the goals of the employees are met. If this is work is not done, you are generally in the same place as not setting any clear goals. Without periodic check-ins and feedback, the chance of the results and goals being achieved decreases dramatically. Remember, accountability does not mean to yell at or punish. It really means staying on top of performance every day to help ensure success. And of course, there is the component of the annual review which is just assigning a rating on the final results and accomplishments of the goals. Any actions that come after that are the natural consequences to the performance whether it be a raise, job retention, a promotion, a demotion, corrective action or dismissal. These outcomes are not really accountability but rather the natural consequences of accountability. I am not sure why it has become so difficult for managers to provide clarity on what an employee is supposed to deliver. I am sure it is due in part because their own departmental goals are not clear to them and there is not nearly enough training and focus on this. It may be considered obvious but what is obvious is that it is not happening as good as it should. For the accountability piece, I get this may seem more difficult but in reality, if an manager is crystal clear on goals they no longer have to be judge and jury but a coach to the employee to reach the goals. A score ultimately comes out, but it is more objective based again on the goals set not on the manager’s opinion. The weaker the goals, the harder it is to hold someone accountable both in practice and in emotional effort. So, if you are a manager at any level, please get the core of setting clear goals, coaching to clear goals and accountability to clear goals in place before you do anything