How Do You Boost Performance?

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 Monday, November 15, 2010.

A couple of weeks ago a general manager asked me if my organization could support him in developing a couple of his young tigers to help him run his expanding business since he cannot handle it all on his own.   I told him of course we could do that but I needed him to answer a couple of questions to ensure it is the best use of his resources.  Here are the questions.  Maybe they will help you determine how to boost performance through the development of your people.

Are they the right people to take the business forward?  For example:

A)  Have they been involved in thinking out what the business needs to grow in these dynamic times?  Do they inquire, listen, inquire again, listen?  In other words, can they learn when given the chance? 

B) Do they apply the new thinking and attitudes they developed? 

C) Are they taking formal or informal programs to improve their skills, habits and attitudes? When they engage in training, do they learn how to manage change, motivate people, and create team alignment?  Do they have a career plan?

D) What does your performance management system tell you about their ability to lead and get results?  Can they increase revenue, customer retention or productivity?

If the new leaders fit, would you schedule time to help them align the coaching and training they get from us to the business goals and strategies of the business?  For example, would you sit them down and explain, "Here is how we make money today" "Here is what our customers want."  "Here is how we match up with their wants."  "Here are the most important things we need to focus on to help our customers."  "Here is how our organization needs to be mobilized to grow."  

I told him that our business coaches always ask those being coached to go back and ask these questions of their managers but too often, their managers don't take the time or have the interest to answer them.  Because of this, learning and development doesn't directly fit the strategies and goals of the business.  This is a management issue.   Where is the mentoring and coaching commitment?  Without it all training and development turns out to be personal development and out of business context.

Research shows the best way to support top performers and boost performance is to reward them by involving them in strategic thinking involvement, engage them with timely, constant and relevant performance feedback; help them develop a career plan and build their leadership and other business skills, thinking, and attitudes to prepare them for "next level" opportunities on behalf of succession planning.  Offer them actionable development coaching, mentoring and training.

Today, more than ever, you need to align your talent management processes to your changing business objectives.  For example, when a company's business objectives change in the middle of the year due to the emergence of new market opportunities or issues, you need to adjust, align, prepare and build your people so they can help you capitalize on what needs to be done. 

Here is data from Aberdeen Research about the best-in-class companies on how they make learning initiatives work.  Best-in-class companies:

Are 48% more likely to integrate learning with both talent and business strategy
and business results.

Are 47% more likely to support learning before and after formal training.

Up to 51% of them include customers and partners in their training processes. 
(and see a 9% increase in revenue)

Still use formal learning programs (58%) and (44%) cross- functional team learning.

Have determined that the most important skills are:

• Leadership Skills (people management, business strategy etc)
• Communications skills
• People development skills (ie - coaching)
• Critical thinking, strategic thinking
• Change management - collaboration

Have a payoff of ... 93% customer retention; 77% employee engagement; 56% bench strength.

Are more likely to use social learning within their learning strategy. (37%)

Hold managers accountable for the development progress of their teams and are over twice as likely to achieve best in class results.

Have visible leadership support for learning and development efforts. (73%)

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, explains how "great" companies paid a lot of attention to people processes where "good" companies did not.  "Good" companies paid scant attention to managing change, motivating people and creating alignment.

Summary:

People and learning processes are the answer to organizational performance, talent management and business strategy success yet what we have noticed over the last couple of years is that in our turbulent business environment everyone seems to wonder where they are going.  Strategic thinking, employee goals, development plans, training, learning and development, compensation plans, are all on hold or in chaos.  All of this creates a lack of strategic direction, misalignment, talent turnover and mediocre performance.  This is not a pretty picture, so wake up your business and increase its capacity to hit bigger goals by offering your people actionable development.

ACTIONS: 

Questions to ponder:

• Do your performance management systems result in having the right people in the right positions to face today's challenges?
  
• Are top performers leaving because their performance wasn't noticed through coaching? 
• Do people have a career development plan?  How many?
  
• Are they offered a chance to grow their leadership for next level readiness and/or succession plans through actionable development, coaching and mentoring?
  
• How many of your people demonstrate that they are completing formal or informal learning projects?
  
• Are the results achieved in learning projects aligned with company strategies and goals?

What is one action you will take this week to improve your talent, performance and learning processes?

Have a great week.