Performance management is usually thought of almost exclusively in terms of formal, structured processes through which managers are expected to control the performance of their staff. These include formal target setting procedures; routine progress checking and performance monitoring; programmed feedback sessions; and end-of-year reviews. Often these elements are driven more by the requirements of an organization’s pay structures and the felt need for managers to get to grips with ‘poor performers’, than by the wider considerations of business performance and staff engagement.
While leaders are focusing their attention on getting these formal systems and processes ‘right’, though, they need to recognize that other, more powerful forces are at play which unavoidably impact upon organizational performance. The everyday conversations and interactions that they have with their staff – and that staff have with each other - are particularly influential in this.
The impact of local conversations
Everyday, local conversations have a major impact on people’s understanding, capability and motivation, and on the individual and collective actions that flow from these. This is because these interactions strongly influence their perceptions and interpretations of what’s going on, and help them to decide how they should act as a result. Given this, the main performance-management task becomes one of stimulating (and participating in) everyday conversations in ways which influence both the dynamics of interaction and the outcomes that emerge. This is perhaps the least recognised aspect of performance management, with its emphasis both on informal exchanges and the absence of structured processes and systems to ‘contain’ these.
Shifting the patterns
It is important for leaders to understand that the everyday conversations that constitute day-to-day organizational life are necessarily self-organizing, and that outcomes are co-created by all of the parties involved. The outcomes that emerge can’t be controlled by any one individual, whether that person occupies a formal leadership position or not . However, a leader can influence the patterns of interaction and content of the conversations, if they make use of the natural ‘influence channels’ that exist in the organization and participate directly in particular conversations. In terms of performance management there are three practical ways in which they might do this.
First, at the conceptual level, they can seek to shift the patterns by introducing new concepts and ideas into the mix. The aim here is to unblock ‘stuck’ conversations, provide new insights, and stimulate new approaches that exploit untapped potential and open up unexplored possibilities.
Secondly, at the contextual level, they can help people to (re-)frame issues and events in ways that enable them to gain new meaning and purpose from their work, maximise their contribution to the organization’s success, and maintain their psychological and emotional wellbeing. This might include such things as:
- clarifying the purpose of specific activities and resolving priorities as these shift over time
- helping people to make sense of emerging issues and events, and to put these into a perspective
- jointly exploring limiting perceptions and unhelpful interpretations of emerging issues and events, and helping to change them
- addressing conflicts and misunderstandings within and beyond the team, where these are undermining performance and inhibiting progress
- helping people to deal with any adverse psychological and emotional impacts arising from the changes that are taking place
- identifying existing patterns of conversation and behaviour that are limiting progress, and working to shift these
- helping to validate outcomes and proposals, in relation to the contribution that these make to the organization’s wider goals.
And thirdly, at the content level, they can help directly with issues that affect immediate task delivery and performance improvement. This might include such things as:
- facilitating problem solving
- acting as a sounding board and coach
- helping people to identify and exploit opportunities for improvement in their work processes and supporting systems, or to unlock their own potential to the full
- identifying and acting upon systemic barriers to performance
- providing timely, informal feedback on observed performance and recognising individuals’ specific, personal contribution to particular outcomes.
The above examples are only intended to give a flavour of the sorts of ways in which managers might use the dynamics of everyday conversations to enhance organizational performance.
Leadership implications
The crucial point for managers to understand is that everyday sensemaking and use-making conversations will happen anyway, with or without their deliberate involvement. Through this informal and unstructured process of everyday interaction, people will make sense of what’s going on and decide how best to act, both individually and collectively. How they decide to do so, and the outcomes that emerge as a result of this, will determine the performance levels that are achieved. Formal structures, systems and processes will serve both to enable and constrain the ways in which people act; but the actions themselves will be heavily conditioned by the nature and outcomes of the local sensemaking and use-making conversations that take place informally.
The only choice that a leader has in this, therefore, is whether or not to engage with the process in a deliberate and informed way. If they choose to do so, their impact on the performance of their team and the wider organization is likely to be significantly greater than it might otherwise be.
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