Performance Management Blog

March 19, 2021Employees own their performance (not their manager…)For years the received wisdom about managers is that they are responsible for their employees’ performance.  This is, when you think about it, more than a little bizarre. A manager can’t, after all, force someone to improve their performance.   We take a different view. We believe that the only person who can ultimately change and […]

March 5, 2021The three levels of performance conversationsIf you are still stuck with annual appraisals, with maybe the occasional mid-year review, you are giving managers a massive ‘neuroscience’ headache.  Coaching and feedback are at the core of performance conversations, and you need to make sure they happen all year round. Conversations about performance happen at essentially three levels, and mixing it all […]

February 26, 2021Is your whole organisation under-performing – including you?It’s that goal setting time of year again… and I just had a quick review of the goal setting research – gave myself a shock reminder! People who ‘do their best’ consistently under-perform against those who have challenging, demanding goals.  So if goal setting is weak, ineffective or non-existent at your place of work, then […]

February 24, 2021Virtual Working – what have we learned about managing performance?The last 12 months have brought so much change, its hard to remember that there was a time working from home was a privilege for a few office workers.  Managers are having to manage performance virtually, and for many that is a new experience. What did we learn this year, and how can that help […]

February 19, 2021Appraisal or Performance Review – what’s the difference?This might seem like an HR jargon discussion – only relevant to HR junkies – but actually, I think it does matter what name you use. ‘Appraisal’ has a very judgemental sound, it definitely feels like an experience that is ‘done’ to you, not one you take part in. Performance Review has the potential to […]

February 17, 2021Why bother with Performance Management?When people ask me why they should do performance management I answer ‘Good performance management stops people dying.’ (because it’s  true – read on …) Think about this for a minute.  Is it that serious? Can performance management really be a matter of life and death? As a leading performance management specialist, I make it […]

October 31, 2012When performance ratings say you’re stars … but the organisation is failingClients have recently been talking a lot about the challenge of matching individual high performance with overall organisational under-performance.  Its a common problem: performance distribution curves are often skewed to the right, with the bulk of people being graded as ‘good’, ‘excellent’, or some variation on these themes – yet at the same time, the […]

July 13, 2012Dean of business school says ” no time for appraisals”…before you start nodding your head in agreement,  it’s worth a moment to pause and reflect:  Academic research shows over and over again that organisations with effective performance management practices outperform those without.  Yet University HR teams struggle to get performance management properly implemented. This particular Dean claimed to have 25 direct reports.  Frankly that […]

June 15, 2012Technically brilliant but not SMART?Musing with the CEO of one of the UK’s leading scientific research institutes the other day… he told me that early in his scientific career he had been advised to ignore management and focus on becoming a great scientist.    ‘You’ll get a top job anyway’ was the advice.  So he worked hard and is indeed […]

February 16, 2012To Bonus or Not to BonusIn recent weeks the public sector has got very confused about the role and purpose of bonus payments.  Perhaps the rest of us should be grateful we don’t have to make bonus decisions in the glare of the national media – for it is clear from many of the conversations we have every day with […]

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