Coachable vs. Scorable

Some very excitable HR newbies would like to drill down during the creation of performance management systems and make everything scorable on an employee's annual review. Then two things go wrong. First, managers don't want to spend a lot of time on each review so they push back on the shear volume of items to score. Second, employees cry "foul" when any items are subjective, which makes them ripe for abuse and favoritism. What is equally problematic, but rarely considered is the ad on TV by lawyers that specialize in helping employees exact revenge on bad bosses and bad HR processes. (Not that those lawyers are in any way evil. On the contrary - they truly protect wronged employees.)

Effective performance management systems are simple, valid, and reliable. Those traits ensure that they will be effectively used, will measure the attributes that matter, and will be objective.

So, what can you do with all of the subjective issues that impact performance? If you had taken the time to analyze the job (objectives, activities, and competencies), then you would know how to turn most of the "soft metrics" into measurable or observable ones. However, not everything turns out to be completely objective so you have to deal with those performance characteristics in another way. You must coach employees on those factors.

For example, how can you consistently and reliably measure tone and pitch on phone calls with customers? You could try to calibrate all company leaders who are responsible for measuring those attributes, but calibration never really gets everyone on the same page. Instead, you can either turn it into an objective metric by calling customers and asking them for their opinions (that is the only opinion that really matters anyway), or you can capture calls with questionable voice attributes and have coaching sessions with the employee. If you document the agreements and next steps/changes that were commited to after each coaching session then you start to create evidence of a pattern (either of improvement or a continued problem). As a coach you must help the employee identify how the problematic tone and/or pitch of his/her voice can hurt his/her ability to be successful. Once you get their buy-in you can almost always get them to hear on thier own calls how their voice may be preventing them from reaching their goals with each call.

So, if a metric is one of the seven most critical - in that it truly differentiates peak performance - and it is both valid and reliable, then it should be on the annual appraisal. Everything else should be part of regular employee coaching and development. If the negative behaviors are ongoing and a pattern can be documented, then it can be addressed as a performance issue.

Rating Performance Factors

Once you have identified performance metrics and you have made them SMART (specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time-referenced), you can rate the performance of an organization, department, team, or individual employee. I recommend that you develop a weighted measurement system so that the most important performance objectives earn the greatest focus from your employees. This can be done in a simple manner when you review the objectives with your team.

First, make it very clear how important each objective is. I suggest that you use the following scale:

1. Mission Critical – employees in this position must succeed in this area.
2. Very Important – this factor is one of the most important for this position.
3. Useful – this factor can help employees in this position be seen as successful.

When you then sit down to review results with team members you can put their results in a matrix. Each column represents how important the objectives are. The most important objectives are in the first column. The rows represent how well that employee has executed against each objective. If someone has emphasized an objective to the detriment of others they will be doing very well, but perhaps too well. Therefore, the very top row is actually not a positive thing, it is "excessive focus". That is just as problematic as having a performance metric in a lower row (e.g. underperforming). The rows I recommend are:

1. Excessive Focus – the employee ignored other important factors because he/she was so focused on doing this well.
2. Exceeded Requirements/Expectations – the employee did more than I had hoped or expected in this area.
3. Met Requirements/Expectations – the employee was as successful in this area as I wanted or needed him/her to be.
4. Missed Requirements/Expectations – the employee did not live up to my expectations or did not fully realize my requirements in this area.
5. No Focus – the employee seemed to ignore this factor.

This 15-cell matrix (5 rows x 3 columns) drives home a very clear, visual message. Of course, you must discuss each individual result as measured during the performance period that you are discussing with the employee, but the visual representation of their performance is what will stick in their mind. Their goal will be to have all objectives in the second row across every column.