Performance Leadership may be the key to performance Management

Performance Leadership

Reviewing performance used to be called ‘performance management’. As the aim of a review is to improve performance, I prefer to call the process ‘performance leadership’. There is a structure to this that I have used satisfactorily for many years. This involves setting a plan with clear objective measures up front (KPI’s)! This approach involves reviews of these KPI’s either monthly, quarterly or annually. I prefer to do different levels of reviews quarterly. Achievement or not of KPI’s will effectively score the review. A managing director I worked with in the corporate environment used to say that: “The score at the end of the game determines who wins the game.”

Performance leadership should also assist in good relationship development and not be seen as a chore or a stressful activity.

There are three distinct levels of performance leadership:

1.     Feedback

2.     Assessment

3.     Review

1. Feedback

Provide feedback regularly and often. Try to provide such feedback in the first person, e.g. “I have noticed …” It should be based on a clear, factual and objective observation of performance.

Always begin with a positive. It is easy to be seen as nit-picking, so I always make a positive observation in some way, even if I need to provide something that may not be seen as positive. For example, let them know how pleased you are that they are punctual or that you heard them say something really good to a patient, or that the other staff really enjoy having them in the business. The skill is to open the communication in a positive manner before delivering more critical feedback. Ensure the feedback is non-judgmental and refer to what you have observed rather than what you might have heard. Hopefully, what you say will invite a response from your staff or practitioners.

2. Assessment

Assessment is a more formal approach to performance leadership. This is best to perform once you have provided feedback, but have noticed the non-desirable behaviour hasn’t changed. An example of such behaviours may be that the language they are using with patients is overly friendly, or other staff may have mentioned that they were hearing feedback from patients that the attitude of the practitioner is indifferent to the person being treated. Provide objective and non-judgemental feedback in a formal setting that invites a response and hopefully discussion. Go into detail regarding why an action is appropriate/inappropriate and offer suggestions or provide directions or alternative actions if required. Providing resources to assist new behaviour, e.g. articles, some training or role-playing to provide a personal demonstration of the desired action can work well. In role-play you will take the position of the patient and provide responses to the practitioner that highlight the issues at hand and then model the correct responses/behaviour.

3. Review

A formal review should be scheduled annually or biannually, rather than performed in the moment like feedback or assessment. To gain the best outcome, preparation is required by both parties. Schedule the time for the review and advise the format the review will take. This may involve completion of a form that details each area of performance the review will cover, such as attitude, actual review of agreed KPI’s, how the person works in a team, and so on. The review should be documented and use both the agreed quantitative KPI’s and qualitative measurements such as their attitude and so on. Once completed, the review documents should be signed off by both parties.