Traditionally the ‘how’ or the behaviours of an individual has had lesser focus but there has been widespread changes over the recent years, with greater emphasis moving to ‘how’ the role was performed, not just the tangible outcomes of the goals. The future of performance will embrace the ‘how factor’ and will have a language to discuss it, a means of measuring it and a way in which we can help it remove the biases that can often occur.
The first step on this journey is to identify the behaviours that matter most in your organisation. While most organisation have worked out their values and their behavioural competencies, for many organisations they have yet to be embedded into everyday language and understanding of their people. This means there’s no frequency to including it in your performance practices. While many organisations will put a mid-year/end year rating on the ‘how’, it lacks context as it happens so infrequently. As a result, many consider it subjective or biased in nature.
In order to bring the behaviours to life objectively and fairly, we can ask people to include our behaviours into their feedback, use prompts and suggestions to give them an understanding as to when we see those behaviours in action. It may not feel natural at first but overtime it will embed, as your people practice their behavioural language frequently. Frequent check ins should also embrace the behaviours, looking at how we are living them and where we have gaps.
We can also encourage our people to understand their ‘personal brand’ – how others perceive their behaviours by giving them clear means of collating information about themselves, regarding their behaviours. Acknowledging it’s not a natural thing to ask someone ‘what do you think of my behaviours’, we can provide templates for how you ask someone to comment on a behaviour. Given that peers will not comment poorly on a behaviour of a colleague for fear of damaging the relationship, then reverse the ask. Facilitate colleagues to ask others on their strength behaviour.
The absence of data (on what they don’t acknowledge as a strength) will be as powerful as the data itself. If we are collating data from others on all of the behaviours, offer soft language by which people can reply. With these practices, we can embed the behaviours into everyday life in a way that is comfortable for your people to engage with.
If you’d like to find out more about how Our Tandem’s unique approach can help transform your organisation’s performance management, contact our VP of Sales & Marketing, Sadhbh Carson on sadhbh@ourtandem.com to arrange a chat and a virtual coffee.
