How does results tracking impact your team?

Today we get back to one of the subjects mostly used in the work AMC LLC provides to its clients. As you know if you have been reading this blog for some time, we do about as much projects management and leadership development work as we do coaching and performance management.

For our Performance and coaching work, we apply the Performance IQ®  System invented by Gary Morais and GPT3. My reason to use this area for today’s post was a recent message I received form BLR. It said: (shown in italic)

You know you should be coaching Terry, but you’re busy, and Terry’s doing OK.

Well, OK is overstating it, but what a hassle to get someone new, right?

So you give Terry a small raise and a “satisfactory” rating and life goes on.

Unfortunately, this all too common scenario is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Here’s how it’s going to unfold:Eventually, you’re going to let Terry go. Either there’s pressure to cut positions, or you just can’t stand the poor performance one more minute.

“It’s because of poor performance,” you say, as Terry heads out the door.Your problems are just beginning, however, because Terry’s not going home, but to the attorney’s office.

Later, in court, Terry says, “You fired me because I am … [choose one or more: disabled, black, white, old, female, male, enter nationality].” “No,” you protest, “it was performance. Terry’s performance has been terrible for years.”

Think that answers it? Think again … because here come the questions:

Did Terry get a raise each year?
“Well … yes, but …”

Did Terry get a bonus each year?
“Well … yes, but …”

Is this your signature on these appraisal forms that say Terry’s work was satisfactory?
“Well … yes, but …”

At this point, it’s too late for “buts.” The jury is just wondering how many zeros to add.

Clarify and Coach

The cautionary tale above should help you convince your managers to get their heads out of the sand and address performance issues. You can present the task as a simple “two-C” process-Clarify and Coach.

1. Clarify. First, clarify with employees what you expect of them and how you will measure their efforts. As a basic element of fairness, juries won’t hold employees to expectations they didn’t know about or that were too vague to be measured.

2. Coach. We’ll talk more about coaching in our next issue, but the main thing is that coaching is frequent, immediate, and specific. It’s a helping role, but it’s a performance management role as well.Follow the Two Cs and guess what? Come appraisal time, your work is already done. The combination of regular coaching and clearly defined goals lets the performance management system be the messenger of any bad news. The employee knows what’s coming-there’s no surprise.

Should termination ultimately result, that will be no surprise either, because you’ll have a string of coaching sessions and honestly-written appraisals to back you up.If an employee still tries to sue, it’s unlikely that an attorney will take the case. But if you do ever get into court, you will be able to show convincingly that expectations were clear, that the employee failed to meet them, and that you gave frequent assistance and guidance-every chance of success

I agree with what BLR has provided for us. It’s a great guideline and protects anybody in a management or leadership position asked to provide performance assessments of subordinates.

The one aspect that I believe is missing in this article is the third step. I can that  

3. Track. Keep track of the reports that your assessment system generated. Keep track of all the videos, comments, conversations you had during the coaching. And most importantly, keep track of the results of the homework assignments and exercises.

With tracking all this information, as a coach as well as the person who is being coached, there will be a great record of everything that happened, and to a large extent, whey it happened. In the Performance IQ® we use at AMC LLC, we have a complete record of everything, including what the coachee says about his/her own progress. It’s not, as it may sound, a very meticulous process. The system is developed and automated to a degree that the tracking is almost automatic.

Though this kind of racking is vital in case of a law suit, it is as important when you want to decide who to promote, where to spend you next budgeted amount for training, etc. Individuals who show during coaching that they are committed to improve themselves are prime candidates now only to become top performers but also to take full advantage of all the support a company provides to them. They deserve it because they show that they want to change and improve. As a coach there is nothing more gratifying than working with these individuals

In summary, BLR makes a good point ad shows tow important first steps. Adding the tracking and especially the automated tracking makes all the difference in the world.

If you ever want to take a look, go to this link,

http://hr.gpt3.net/hr/pxRegistration.asp?src=www-AMC 

take the free assessment and contact us for a consultation to discuss your coaching options.

If you are a supervisor, manager, or team leader and have to assess individuals, apply what BLR suggest but add the tracking. If you don’t have or like to use the system we offer at AMC LLC, please use some form of tracking to make sure you can show exactly what happened, why and how it impacted the performance of your worker.

Axel Meierhoefer, President AMC LLC