I recently asked a question on LinkedIn to identify what was really challenging people who manage others at work, during these difficult times. Amongst the top 4 came managing performance.
Right now, it seems that the additional barrier of having people work from home is causing different headaches for both managers and their people.
Manager
“How can I tell what they’re doing and how they’re doing it?” “How do I ask without seeming like I’m trying to control them?” “How do I find out if they’re really ok?”
Team member
“How can I let my manager know that I’m working and not taking it easy at home?” “How do I make sure that my manager sees what they need to see so that I get the promotion I’ve been going for?” “How do I let my manager know I need help when it’s so hard to get hold of her?”
These are some of the questions that I’m hearing people articulate. Any of them resonate with you?
Here are 5 thoughts for you whether you’re the manager or thinking about your position in someone else’s team
- Think about potential rather than performance
When we are managing others and responsible for their performance, what is it you can actually influence? If you think about it, the only thing you can influence is their future performance – there is nothing you can do about their past performance. And yet so much of what people worry about, is about past performance. So change the way you think about it, focus on potential and see what changes for you.
2. Feedforward
Think about feedback as feedforward. You are giving or receiving data that is going to help you or your team member move forward in the direction that you and they want to go. That will help you with ‘negative’ feedback. Think about how this data enables progress, enables their potential.
3. Trust
Trust is the foundation block for any team. And even if when you were in the office everyday, you felt that there was trust, now that you are working from home, you need to re-engage, re-establish the rules. Agree how you are going to work. Even if you’ve been working like this for a while, it’s not too late to regroup and say:
“Ok, What’s been working and what hasn’t? How do we make sure that we all get what we need going forward?”
There is a lot of evidence right now that people are working harder than ever. If people are having to prove that they are working, there is something wrong…
4. It’s a shared responsibility
Managing performance is not just the managers’ role. Each individual has to manage their performance (although I still really want to share ‘potential’!). A manager should be in a great place to provide direction, support and feedback. The individual then needs to take action to achieve his or her objectives and fulfil their potential.
5. Motivation – a critical component
There are three key elements to performance:
Objective or goal – Skill – Motivation
You can have the clearest goal or vision in the world and all the skills to achieve it, but if you have no motivation to do so, it won’t get done.
Find out what it is that drives your people and then help them find that motivation in what they are doing. For more on this take a look at this blog post – https://soniagavira.com/how-to-use-motivation-to-increase-performance-and-get-more-done/
Which one of these 5 points are you going to implement first? Let me know
And if you have questions or challenges that you’d like some support with, join me in the private facebook group here and get the support you need to achieve your goals and have more fun in the process.
Speak soon
Sx
