A Tale of Two Managers
George and Pete work for GuvWA. Like all GuvWA staff, they are required to participate in their organisations Performance Management System. This is their tale…
George meets with each of his direct reports at least once a year for an ‘appraisal and planning’ meeting.At least this is more than he gets from his boss – not that he's complaining mind you! Despite the fact that everyone’s supposed to have them, George hasn’t had an appraisal or planning meeting for at least four years and he’s not about to ask for one!
When he meets with his staff, George gives them feedback on whether or not he thinks their performance over the previous year meets, exceeds or fails to meet expectations. He writes Meets Expectations on most reports because it’s just not worth the hassle and aggro to write Fails to Meet Expectations and nothing happens if they Exceed or Fail to Meet Expectations anyway.
George spends about forty minutes with each person, talking (or more often arguing) with them about things he’d like them to improve,and which they say they can't improve without training or more resources or a better system! He usually ends up with a 'training wish list' and he dutifully records this on the form even though no-one ever looks at the forms or organises the training once they’re filed.Because he has to, George ‘sets some goals’ with each person. He doesn’t see the point of this goal-setting business since their JDF doesn’t change, and so he usually ends up copying the goals from the previous plan and adding one or two 'improvement' goals (to keep them on their toes).
He is supposed to meet again with his people for a progress meeting half-way through the year, but doesn’t usually because he’s busy, and they’re busy, and because he works with them every day and, at least according to George, that’s where any problems get identified and sorted.
George believes this performance management stuff is a waste of time, since he can’t give people any rewards for good performance, he can’t sack them if they don’t perform; he can’t do anything about scarce resources or lousy systems. He can't usually get people the training they need either... so he wonders how on earth are they supposed to develop! (Come to think of it, though... George realises that he never really developed his skills from training courses...it was more on the job learning - trial and error, observation and being thrown in the deep end really...and the occasional good manager who challenged or developed him... but they're few and far between)...still, he writes down the training needs on the form and files it as instructed...
Performance management, he thinks... just another one of those systems designed to keep the pencil pushers in HR busy…
Pete has a slightly different take on performance management since coming to work in the section he's now in.Pete’s current boss considers the process of performance planning and tracking to be the engine of performance – she takes it really seriously and makes sure everyone in the work area is involved.
She gets the whole team together once a year for a half day Performance Planning Briefing before the individual planning sessions, and she has set up a structure to make sure regular one-to-one and team tracking meetings occur throughout the year.
At the briefing, the boss gives her ‘best guess’ on what’s coming up – changes, resources & challenges - and maps out her priorities and objectives for the area for the next year. She lays on the table everything she knows about budget, staffing levels, staffing changes, business plans etc for the coming year. They all then discuss what it means for the work area and everyone chips in their ideas on whether the priorities make sense and whether the objectives are achievable. People also add their own ideas on what’s likely to change or challenge the team in the coming year, and there are usually some changes or additions to the priorities and objectives as a result of this discussion.
At this meeting, they also review the team’s performance against last years objectives and against the set of Shared Standards (something she developed with the team a couple of years ago). The team identifies areas where evidence shows they are best practice and areas where, as a group, they need to improve. They also update standards to reflect what’s needed, or they change the wording to make it easier to understand or to remove ambiguities.
The final thing at this meeting is that everyone agrees on 3-5 measures or indicators the team will use to track its performance in the key areas over the coming year.
At the end of the meeting, everyone is given a schedule of one-to-one Performance Planning Meetings that will be held over the next few weeks. The first round of meetings is the supervisors with the manager. Only then do staff meet with their supervisor.
The schedule states that the purpose of these meetings is to build alignment between staff efforts and interests and the team needs and resources. On the back of the schedule, the agenda for the planning meetings is spelled out, and there’s an explanation of what to expect, how to prepare & how to have a say in setting goals and action plans.
The first time Pete saw this he was impressed, but wondered what would really happen when he met with his supervisor – going on past experience this might be a little different to what was on paper!
But Pete’s supervisor ran his one-to-one meeting much the same as the boss had run the team meeting… he even showed Pete his own performance plan! Even though Pete had only been in the area about two months, they reviewed his work against the Shared Standards and Job Specific Standards for Pete’s job (he was actually thanked for his work!). They talked about frustrations, achievements, wishes, needs and opportunities; what the year ahead held for their section, and what was needed from, and possible for, Pete. They then distilled this down into 3 or 4 goals and action plans that made sense to both of them.
These plans not only mapped out the critical actions/steps Pete will take, but also when and what actions/steps his supervisor will take to follow up, organise resources or make arrangements with others. Pete was particularly pleased that the plan included real plans for his career development - the sup. would get him a copy of the JDF and selection critieria for the next level up; he'd study it and then meet with the supervisor again (the actual date was written in the plan!!) to help Pete assess himself against the selection critieria, and to discuss what Pete & the supervisor could do to develop Pete so he'd have a chance if a position opened up down the track 12 months or so!
This beat anything Pete had experienced before when he'd raised hopes about the future and just got fobbed off with platitudes - 'you're not ready for that just yet' or 'we'll see how you go' or even worse, 'anything's possible'.
There was one disappointment for Pete at his first meeting - not having been had any decent training opportunities for the previous 18months in his old section, and with some ambitions to become a supervisor, he figured he had a reasonable case to get some training now (even though he knew from the manager’s briefing that there wasn’t much in the training budget).
His supervisor was straight with him – it wasn’t gonna happen. Budget and staffing limits plus other training priorities put the type of training Pete wanted on the back burner this year. Instead, they prioritised his training needs (the supervisor renamed them development needs) and did some brainstorming before coming up with a plan for some on the job coaching with two of the other staff in the area. The supervisor also agreed to mentor Pete if Pete would agree to undertake a particular project about three months down the track. Pete was sceptical but somewhat hopeful when this actually got converted into a goal and an action plan with names, milestones and follow up dates.
Pete walked out with a copy of his goals and plans, a date set for their next one-to-one follow-up meeting (five weeks away) and a clear sense about what he needed to do. He felt confident that the supervisor would follow up and – more importantly - would help if Pete ran into trouble. But he’d keep a wait and see approach to the ‘development and mentoring’ plan….
Since then, every six weeks, at a 45minute performance briefing, Pete’s manager reports to the whole team on the key indicators, as well as progress & setbacks re the objectives, so everyone is up-to-date on the work area’s performance throughout the year. Immediately after this briefing, the supervisors meet with their small teams and everyone, supervisor included, gives a brief update (actions, progress & problems) on their progress. This is voluntary and newcomers, like Pete, usually hold back until they see that the atmosphere is serious but supportive and that there is no blaming or scapegoating.
Problems and setbacks are discussed openly and people help each other to come up with solutions at these meetings – the neat thing is that, this way, it becomes clear when problems have to do with system or process issues, and the supervisor or whole team addresses them. Agreed solutions get turned into action steps and they add these on the plan there and then. The supervisor also makes a diary note so they don’t get forgotten. Follow up action /dates are also agreed at this time and Pete's impressed with the process and the way problems actually get dealt with - on top of that these meetings create a real sense of achievement that feels good.
Sensitive or tricky issues are always left for discussion in one-to-one meetings with the supervisor and every four months Pete meets for half an hour or so, one-to-one with his supervisor, for a more personal review & update on the plan and to summarise progress. Together they take more of an overview, looking for things that might be positively or negatively affecting Pete's performance, motivation and job satisfaction. At this meeting, the supervisor also asks specifically for feedback on how his supervision impacts Pete, and what he can improve! This is a new one for Pete! But he can see, that whether it's in the team or one-to-one meetings, this supervisor listens and is actually interested in learning and working with his staff to enable performance - he doesn't just demand it.So, he was pleased, and not really surprised, that when he took the risk and offered a suggestion about something his supervisor might do to better support Pete's work, this got turned into an action plan and followed up - just like any other matter.Talk about walking the talk....
Even though he’s not getting any more training and no more money than previously, Pete is enjoying working in this team – he likes the ‘performance culture’ the boss has developed – and he feel’s like he’s really learning and developing through the peer coaching and the mentoring he’s been getting … yes, his supervisor took it seriously and Pete is impressed! Bosses in this area generally seem to have more time for people – maybe that’s why PMS works here… or is it, as Pete is beginning to suspect, the other way around?
Anyway, whatever the reason… Pete’s experience here is a far cry from when he worked with his old boss, George.
And he ain’t going back…
The characters in this tale are entirely fictional composites of the many managers and staff we have worked with over the past fifteen years...
Any resemblance to any actual person living or dead is entirely coincidental.
We'd expecially like to note that many of the real managers we've met named George
have been great managers, and that good managers like Pete's boss
DO actually exist!
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