Most management theories will mention that if you want to change a person's behavior, you must first change his motivation. Therefore, when an employee does not do a good job, the supervisor will attribute the reason to the employee's lack of intentions, that is, lack of motivation, as long as the employee finds a way to motivate him, they will actively do the job well.
However, "Performance!Performance!Part II" argues that asking the supervisor to help his subordinates find his motivation is tantamount to treating the supervisor as a psychiatrist, which is fundamentally difficult for professional managers. From a practical management point of view, a better option than psychology would be behavioural management. Because when the behavior is bad, you can see it, you can measure it, and you can discuss how to improve it. In other words, it is not as practical to discuss the motivation for improvement as it is to discuss the improvement behavior when reviewing employee performance.
Before the performance review, psychological biases should be eliminated first, and then the factors that are unclear about the supervisor or organizational norms should be excluded, and the subsequent performance interview should be accurate. According to Google's Super Employ, Google holds a meeting with executives before a performance review to remind them to rule out the psychological biases that often occur in performance reviews (see chart). After evaluating performance and finding that the results are not as expected, it is time to find the problems of the employees and how to improve them.
Different perceptions of "problematic" links make it difficult to improve and review mistakes, and it is not only after the problem has occurred that efforts should be made to remedy it, but in the process of performing tasks, various factors that can affect the performance of employees should be addressed. The performance interview is about the "how to improve employee performance" approach, so that the manager can take more concrete actions.
But why do people respond to performance interviews that don't work? This is because many supervisors think that employees know what's wrong, and they think, "How could they not know what they're not doing well?" But if you know what you're doing wrong, you're likely to take the initiative to improve. The reason for not improving is that he doesn't know what the problem is, or many problems are not clearly explained by the supervisor, so the employee cannot perform well, and the supervisor's responsibility has to find out the problem.
"Performance!Performance!" asks managers to do a "coaching analysis" to examine whether employees are fully aware of the items that should be implemented and find out what should be improved.
1. Employees don't know why they're doing the job:
For employees, explain the meaning of doing one thing clearly, understand the importance of their own work, and employees are less likely to work with the mentality of handing over errands. The reasons can be divided into two categories, the first is to do this, what is helpful to the company, such as submitting the report on time so that other departments can follow up the follow-up work according to the schedule, and the second is how to help the employee's personal work, such as promotion or salary.
2. Employees don't know how to do the job:
Of course, supervisors want employees to be able to work as soon as they arrive, but if they don't teach them how to do things, they have to figure it out on their own, which only puts the company at risk of new hires ruining customer relationships and making bad products.
3. Employees don't know what to do:
You have to tell the employee exactly what to do and what his responsibilities are, otherwise he will have to do the job on his own assumptions and risk wasting time on things he shouldn't.
4. Employees don't think you're doing it:
You have to "convince" your subordinates that "your way" is better, force them to accept your methods, and they will still only do things their own way in private.
5. Employees feel they are doing better:
Employees may think your approach is good, but your "own approach" is better. At this point, you can convince your subordinates by comparing the gap between their practices and expected results.
6. Employees feel that other things are more important:
Some supervisors will report that it is not that the subordinates are incompetent, but that they always do something unimportant. However, the supervisor is not clear about the explanation, and the subordinates simply do not know what is most important to the company. So you have to personally prioritize the tasks you are assigning and notify the person in charge every time you change priorities.
7. Employees don't get anything rewarded for their efforts:
If employees do more things, they will not feel any benefits and will naturally not work harder. The supervisor can observe the work of his subordinates and convey the remuneration accurately. For example, after completing a difficult task, give a verbal reward, or give a bonus, vacation and other tangible rewards.
8. Employees feel like they're doing what you're told:
Supervisors will expect their subordinates to give them daily, monthly, and annual performance figures as the basis for decision-making, and employees will of course expect their supervisors to give feedback so that they can understand whether they are doing things right. However, usually the supervisor does not give feedback to the subordinates, so that the subordinates think that I don't care about me, that is, I am doing a good job, resulting in the final output deviating from the supervisor's expectations.
9. Employees are rewarded for not doing what they should have done:
Do you often assign light work to weaker employees? In fact, this will encourage other employees to lower their performance as well, because if they don't do things well, they will have less work. So for a subordinate who is not performing well, you have to assign the same difficult work, but help him to complete it until the employee's performance improves.
10. Employees are punished for doing what they should have done:
In your company, do employees who can handle difficult tasks well be assigned to difficult jobs all the time? This will motivate employees to reduce their desire to perform, because good performance will only invite punishment. So the next time you assign work, balance the distribution of work.
11. Employees feel that doing the right thing will lead to negative consequences:
Some subordinates are afraid to put forward their opinions at the meeting for fear that other colleagues in the meeting will think that the new recruits should not be in the limelight. At this point, you need to stand up and encourage your team to understand, "Employees can argue with their boss if they say it right. 」
12. Obstacles that exceed the employee's control:
Most often there is a need for collaboration between different departments, such as when the person collecting the data has not finished its work and the analysis department has nothing to do. Therefore, when the reason for the employee's poor performance is affected by the improper performance of other departments, the supervisor should collect relevant evidence and take the initiative to ask the managers of other departments to assist in solving the problem.
13. Employees are limited by their personal talents and are unable to perform well:
Have you ever blamed a subordinate's poor performance on his lack of talent? In fact, up to 80% of employees in the workplace are not unhelpful, not talented. Before blaming an employee for his or her lack of competence, it is important to check whether adequate training has been given.
14. Personal Issues of Employees:
Personal problems are events in life that occur outside of the workplace and cause employees to perform poorly. Supervisors can be flexible in line with the company's system to see if they can help troubleshoot the problem.
15. Employees are unable to:
If the employee still doesn't perform well after trying all of the above, it can only be attributed to his lack of competence in the role. At this point, your only option left is to transfer him or fire him.
Reach a consensus of "acknowledging the problem" and discuss solutions to be effective After doing the teaching analysis, you will find that most employees are actually "capable" to do their jobs. In this case, the following five phases (see chart) can be used to guide the subordinates to correct their performance.
1. Agree that there is a problem:
The first stage of the interview is to get the employee to agree that there is a problem, which is the most important part and even takes up more than 50% of the time of the overall interview.
It's easy for many managers to assume that employees know the problem exists, but in reality, many problematic employees think it's not a big problem even if they know they're doing something wrong.
For example, an executive at a small chemical company decides to fire a Ph.D. chemist. The chemist performed satisfactorily, but he rarely reported his weekly progress to his supervisor, despite repeated requests from his supervisor. So the director thought that if he couldn't even do such a simple thing, then there was no need to keep him at all, anyway, the doctor of chemistry was running all over the street.
But until the supervisor understood, the chemist assumed that he would talk to the supervisor every day about the progress, so he assumed that the written report was nothing more than a record of work and was not necessary. The supervisor then met with him again and stated that although the briefing was informative, he needed a detailed written report for easy research and memorization, and the chemists learned that it was a problem and submitted the report on time.
2. Discuss possible solutions together:
Once the employee really understands the problem, you and the employee must work together to find various ways to solve the problem. In fact, very few people deliberately mess things up, mostly because they don't know how to do things. So at this stage, you can pass on your experience to your subordinates and let them learn solutions that you can't think of.
If employees are often late, the solutions include "set the alarm clock earlier", "buy an alarm clock with a loud ringtone", "go out early", "change the mode of transportation", "go to bed early", etc. The employee may have some solutions, but if they don't, you have to provide them yourself, but it's better to let the way you think come out of his mouth and make him agree. It is important to note that this is not a real solution, but rather a proposal for all possible solutions.
3. Mutually agree on a solution to the problem:
This stage is for employees to pick and choose what works for them. Because if you provide a solution directly to your subordinates, you will reduce the opportunity for him to think of solutions on his own, so that he will not find a way out of problems in the future;
4. Supervise employees to do what they agreed on:
Subordinates start to solve problems, but most of the problems are still not solved, because many managers think that employees are mature adults, so they should be accountable for themselves as long as they point out problems that they agree with.
But in fact, if the supervisor does not give feedback to the employee at the moment of change, after doing it once or twice, the employee will not be motivated and will return to the wrong way of working. Therefore, the supervisor must do a good job of supervision, praise subordinates when they change, and remind subordinates to go back when they are still the same.
5. Motivate any behavior that achieves the goal:
The final stage of the interview is to motivate behaviors that will achieve the goal. At the same time, the closer you reward the behavior to the time of improvement, the greater the impact, and vice versa.
For example, if an employee does something right today, your immediate response is more effective than sending them an email thanking them a week later. If an employee meets your requirements at 10 a.m., thanking them at 10:15 a.m. will be more effective than 5 a.m. tonight.
In addition, behavior management research has shown that non-sustained positive motivation is more effective, especially for employees who have successfully changed their behavior. You can change the interval of praise from once after 3 days of improved behavior, then once a week, and continue to increase the interval to achieve positive feedback.
(※This article is authorized by Jusi Culture and reprinted from the manager)