Magnetic Authenticity Podcast with Jolynne Rydz
Welcome to the Magnetic Authenticity Podcast with Jolynne Rydz, where we elevate your leadership impact by embracing your true self. If you're ready to harness your strengths, level up your confidence and influence so you can make a bigger difference in this world, then you're in the right place.
Magnetic Authenticity Podcast with Jolynne Rydz
13: Why Performance Management Sucks - And what to do about it
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Could the traditional approach to performance management be setting you up for failure? Uncover the hidden gaps between leadership and employees that often lead to frustration and inefficiency in the workplace. Our latest episode confronts the daunting nature of performance management head-on, transforming it from a burdensome task to a catalyst for growth.
Get equipped with strategies to align individual potential with organisational goals, ensuring a win-win scenario for all parties. Through this insightful discussion, you'll gain a fresh perspective on how to manage underperformance without it detracting from nurturing your high-performing team members.
Performance management is not just about checking boxes; it's about fostering genuine development through constructive feedback and emotional resilience.
We delve into the importance of honest communication and the dangers of relying solely on positive feedback. Our conversation highlights the necessity of ongoing support and understanding the broader context of employee performance, from organisational culture to individual behavior.
Reflect on your own experiences and struggles, and consider how these insights can transform your approach, making room for growth, understanding, and thriving in your role. Whether you're a manager or an employee, there's something valuable for you here.
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I am a Confidence and Success Coach for leaders, Organisational Development Consultant and independent Leadership Circle Profile® Certified Practitioner. Information shared about this tool is courtesy of Leadership Circle®, all rights reserved. www.leadershipcircle.com
I didn't realise that's what you wanted. Has anyone ever shared those words with you? Throughout my career, there have been countless times that I've been called in to coach someone who's been underperforming and more often than not, eventually these words flow out of their mouth I didn't realise that's what you wanted. And in the same instance, leaders say but I've told them so many times, why don't they get it? Does that sound familiar to you? Have you ever had an underperformer in your team?
Jolynne Rydz:If you have, you probably know that it takes so much time. It takes energy. It takes countless conversations with HR seeking advice on what you can do, what you can't do. It takes paperwork as well to make sure you're doing the process correctly. And if you feel that way, you're not alone. Some research done by the company Robert Half found that managers spend on average 10 hours a week managing underperformance, and more than that. It can keep you awake at night.
Jolynne Rydz:It can be really stressful, wondering how is this going to work out? Am I going to be able to get this person where they need to be? Are they going to get it? And it can be heartbreaking when you put so much time and effort into it and they don't get there and what can happen is that you've spent 80% of your time working on this one to two, you know small group of people and the 80% of your team that are great performers get neglected and they don't get the resources and the skills and the wisdom and insight and coaching that they need from you. And no matter how much training sometimes you give someone, no matter how many conversations you have about this, no matter how many times you show them the reality of the results and where you need them to get to, sometimes they just don't get it and aren't getting there. And I get it. That can be so frustrating. And, on the flip side, maybe you're a HR leader or someone working in HR and you do all of this work in terms of putting training out there, doing a whole performance management process and systems and wondering just why managers are reluctant to do it, because you know that once it's done and when it's done well and consistently, life is so much easier for everyone. And maybe you've even been asked to overhaul the system when the system isn't the real issue and it seems like an incredible waste of effort, time and money when it's not the real issue.
Jolynne Rydz:Maybe let's flip the coin again. You're the employee and performance management feels like just this heavy process instead of something that maybe, when you're planning for what you're doing for the year that it can be incredibly inspiring about what you can do Maybe some fear creeps in about, oh, are they going to up the goal again and will I be able to reach it? What will that mean for me if I can't, which can be incredibly heavy. And then again, when someone is underperforming, the whole process around that is often very taboo. And then, when it's taboo, that can create this angst and this fear and this anxiety because people it's not transparent, and anxiety because people it's not transparent. And for many reasons it's not transparent.
Jolynne Rydz:And so maybe, if you're the leader, you got into leadership because you wanted to make a bigger difference, you wanted to help others grow, you wanted more responsibility, maybe you wanted more money, more status, you wanted career growth. These are all such normal things and inevitably, as a leader, somewhere along the way, you will come across one, two, multiple, maybe many, depending what field you're in, what kind of organization you're working in as well, where people aren't performing where you need them to be. So I wanted to create this episode because it's one of the common challenges I find leaders face in terms of wanting to performance manage, but wanting to do so in a way that just feels more congruent and in a way that it's actually a win-win for everyone. And to do that, we really need to unpack some of the reasons why it sucks, yeah, why we avoid it, why we have this almost anxiety towards performance.
Jolynne Rydz:Managing someone Like performance management should be an incredible thing. It should be. How do we uplift someone? How do we maximize their potential and bring that out? How do we align it with the goals of the organization, align their passion, their potential and then give them the right skills and tools and structure and environment to go make that happen. For me, that's what performance management should be, but I know that it's not the feeling. The sentiment around that in reality is often far from that. So let's unpack this together is often far from that. So let's unpack this together. There are so many reasons why managing performance is really hard, so many.
Jolynne Rydz:I could talk about this probably for a whole week. I could do a whole week workshop on it if you really wanted, but I won't Not right here, so I'll go through five today, and the first one is the one that I see time and time again whenever there are issues with relationship in a team, issues with the performance and just general angst between, usually, a leader and the direct report. Often, if you can trace it back, I can literally map it out and trace it back to there being a lack of clear expectations at the start. That's it, a lack of clear expectations. And then it builds and builds, and builds and builds and then explodes for many different reasons, but it's a pattern I've seen over and over again and that's why I wanted to share it with you. But it's a pattern I've seen over and over again and that's why I wanted to share it with you.
Jolynne Rydz:So you know that task that HR teams often get you to do, maybe once a year, maybe more often, about goal setting and yes, it can be time consuming and yes, it can be embarrassing if you don't actually know how to do this well or don't have the tools or the skills to do that on both parties. So it can be embarrassing for the leader but it can also be embarrassing for the employee. I often see employees get given this, you know this form or this document or this system, and say you know, go put your goals in. That can be really hard, depending on the level of clarity they have already about the strategy of the organization, how their role fits into that, how their team fits into that. There's so much context that's needed to really get a clear picture, and one that's meaningful, so you're not just measuring the quantity of something. For example oh, you've sent 10 emails a week. You know what's the real meaning. Maybe you've resolved 10 customer complaints a week. That has much more meaning than the other one. So that embarrassment can sometimes show up.
Jolynne Rydz:And then what happens if people avoid this, or they maybe don't give it the time that it deserves is the paths can diverge over time and sometimes it's not even done. I know many people who've explained that they're having trouble at work because they just really don't know what they're meant to be doing, and even when they ask, it's not clear. So it's about both parties realizing what is actually the goal and checking with each other that it's clear, and often we give training to leaders to set these expectations and manage performance and, depending on your organization, sometimes the employees don't get it, and I think that's an incredible oversight, because when you unleash the capability of employees to engage in this process really well, and when I say really well, more than understanding the process and what they need to put in on the form, but really seeing it as an opportunity for their growth and for them to unleash all of their strengths in what they do and feel really fulfilled in what they do and aligned Like that unlocking. That is incredible and it's not something that I think we can expect someone to do without the training and support to do that. So back to that past diverging.
Jolynne Rydz:So if you imagine, let's say, we're in the bush and we've got this goal, an orienteering goal, we've got a degree that we need to measure to get there and we have two compasses and one of them slightly needs a bit of love, slightly off and we somehow misread the compasses by one degree. So you can start at the same point and as you start walking you're generally pretty close to where you need to be going. But as you walk and as you walk you can start to see that the space and distance between the two people they're walking further and further apart. And then, once you get to the end, which is generally the end of the performance cycle, you have this conversation about how things went and each party thinks it was going great, but then when you talk in reality, it was far from where you wanted to end up, just because of that minor tweak right at the very start. So it's really no different.
Jolynne Rydz:That clarity at the start is so, so key. So the first step to overcome that is to clarify and check the understanding. Have you ever set a goal with someone and they've just or asked them to do something and they've just smiled and nodded? That's not enough. We need to actually get them to repeat something and they've just smiled and nodded? That's not enough. We need to actually get them to repeat back to us. So, asking a question like so what's your understanding of what we need to achieve here? And hearing how they language it, and if you detect that they haven't got it right, you need to stay in that moment and really get the clarity until you're both really saying the same thing and understanding the same thing.
Jolynne Rydz:Now the second reason why managing performance can be really hard is when you encounter disbelief. That no one's ever said this to me. I don't know if you remember a TV show reality TV show if you're in Australia, or it's also international called Australian Idol TV show if you're in Australia, or it's also international, called Australian Idol, and on the Australian version many series ago, there was this contestant that showed up year after year after year and, poor thing, they loved what they did. They loved it. They were having a ball while they were on stage, but they were actually not very good. They weren't very good performer, they couldn't technically do the job very well and yet they thought they were amazing. And then what happened was they cut to an interview with the participant, with the contestant and with their mum, and their mum was gushing about how amazing they were. And they're incredible. And, of course, as a parent, sometimes we do want to and we do have rose colored glasses of someone that we love being incredible at what they do.
Jolynne Rydz:And if that's your only source of feedback, people that will only give you good feedback. It can be incredibly shocking and disbelieving when someone hears the opposite, that they're not doing it right or they're not doing it well enough, and they can start to internalize it like, oh, that means I'm not good enough, or they can push it back to you and you become the bad guy, you become the bad person. They might feel attacked and that can make us feel, as leaders, that we want to maybe back down because it's easier to not give them the feedback, because they might get really reactive. Or we don't want to get in a situation where someone thinks which I've seen time and time again that someone lodges a bullying complaint, so performance management has started and the employee feels like they're being bullied and sometimes they are, but often they're not. They haven't been given the support to be in a mindset where they can receive the feedback in a meaningful way and take action on it without activating the ego, activating that protection mechanism that wants to defend, deny, justify, run away, hide under the covers. So that disbelief is literally a sign that someone's ego has been activated. And often it's because they haven't gotten the real constructive feedback.
Jolynne Rydz:And sometimes this is a result of people passing on the issue. You know, oh, that person's too hard to deal with, let's bump them to a different department. You know, you've seen that. Or trying to be nice by only saying encouraging things and brushing off, or ignoring the more difficult conversation of what's not working well and why and how can we support them to do that? So the antidote to this one is to be brave and kind. So be brave enough to share what is actually a gift to share with someone. Hey, I think you're amazing as a person and I reckon you can do an even better job if you did X, y and Z. You're currently doing A, but we need B right. There's actually gift and kindness in that. So never think that it's mean. It's only mean if you have the wrong intent in the way that and in giving the feedback and that maybe you're not equipped enough to do it well in a brave and kind way. So be brave and kind, give the feedback and if you don't have the tools, go find them or chat to me Now.
Jolynne Rydz:The third reason why managing performance can suck is that we can be really unsure how the person can react. There can be a lot of emotion involved and this one sort of builds on number two with the disbelief. Disbelief is almost an emotional reaction there, but it's uncomfortable because we in our society are taught to bottle our emotions or deflect them, particularly in the workplace. You know it's often seen as unprofessional if you're too emotional, but the fact of the matter is we are human and emotion is simply a signal that something needs action. And if someone is reacting emotionally it's because deep down. You've just triggered something that deep down they were maybe hiding or ignoring or running away from something that they knew actually needed to shift and you've brought it to the surface. So that can be really raw and that can be really uncomfortable. And what can happen sometimes.
Jolynne Rydz:Where this really goes wrong is we continue performance managing the person going down the process that we're told to go down when the person isn't ready yet. And what I mean by ready is that we need to get them to a mindset where they're not in threat. As soon as they're in threat, someone's ability to perform unless they are a fight to survive person, their ability to perform is going to decrease because they're going to want to hide or freeze or flee. So this kind of performance management only works for the people who will get in there and fight because they know they can do it, and that's only one proportion of the population. So it's really important that we can recognize whether the person's actually ready, because until they're ready, their feedback and what they need to learn and what they need to shift isn't going to sink in and they actually can't act on it. It's like trying to build a house right, you've poured the concrete slab, but you're so eager to get the result of a house that you just put the frame up on the same day before the concrete set. So of course you can't screw in the screw and the information that needs to stick. It won't stick because the concrete's still soft and then as the concrete sets, it's going to be crooked. That house is not going to last because the foundation wasn't there.
Jolynne Rydz:So the third thing that you can do to overcome this is to hold the space to let the emotion flow out of the person. You can pause it and continue if it seems like it's getting too much, but you're continuing it in a very short timeframe onwards so they are not let off the hook. And the really key thing here to hold the space is to see the person. So when that person in front of you who isn't meeting the standard that they need to, when they feel seen, heard and understood, that's when they're ready to work with you and learn. Until you do that, if you don't do that, they are going to feel attacked, judged, unsupported, maybe even like you've betrayed them, like these are all really heavy feelings that you cannot think straight and operate well in when those are there. So we've got to make them feel seen, heard and understood and hold that space.
Jolynne Rydz:So the fourth reason why managing performance can suck is that we can tend to set and forget. So what I mean by this is we can have a tendency as leaders to treat people like an alarm clock. Right, let's set the buttons here. This is what they need. This is when they need to ring. All right, go away and do it. An alarm clock will go away and do it. It will ring at the time you. When they need to ring All right, go away and do it. An alarm clock will go away and do it. It will ring at the time you've programmed it to ring.
Jolynne Rydz:But the thing is, people are not alarm clocks, right, we are more like onions. Yeah, we have these beliefs, we have these layers of self-worth identity. We have different abilities in our way to communicate what's really going on for us. We have different levels of trust and ability to be vulnerable. We have different cultural drivers about how we show up and communicate and whether performance, and maybe even a job, is actually a real source of pride. And on the opposite side, shame. And once shame kicks in, that can be really hard to recover from the trick here.
Jolynne Rydz:If one of the reasons is set and forget, the antidote to set and forget is consistent care, so caring about how this person can achieve what they need to, what we need them to. How can we support them? How can we guide them? How can we give them meany feedback? We guide them. How can we give them meany feedback on all the good things, no matter how small it is Sometimes it's tiny, sometimes it's as simple as you know, you made eye contact today. That was really great for the team morale or sometimes it is as simple, as you replied to me when I asked you how this was going. It may seem small to you, but it's important that you acknowledge that to them that might actually be a very new and difficult step that they've never, no one's ever asked them to do, or they've actually had some resistance around doing in the past for various reasons.
Jolynne Rydz:So what tends to happen where this can go wrong is we have a reticular activating system in our brain and what this tends to do is it looks for things that match the filter that we've got. So, for example, let's say you're wanting to buy a red Corolla. You start researching red Corollas and then suddenly there's so many out on the road, like you cannot believe why there's suddenly so many red Corollas. Now the thing is, the number of red Corollas on the road hasn't magically changed because you decided to buy one. Your brain has just lifted that filter to look for red Corollas. They were always there, you just didn't see them.
Jolynne Rydz:And when we're in a performance management process with someone, it can be so easy to look for all the faults that they continually do and they add up and they add up and we keep finding them, maybe. And so when we can switch it to look and find for the mini feedback, the mini progress, the signs that they are getting it, the signs that they do want to do this, the signs that they do have the capability, with the right support and time and training and headspace, when we can look for that, our brain will start to see what's good about this person. And obviously, with everything I'm saying, it is obviously their responsibility as well, but I'm trying to give you some tools that can where you can go. Okay, I've done my absolute best in this process, regardless of the outcome that happens at the end. So the fifth reason why managing performance can suck is maybe it's not about them. Yes, I'm going to go here because it needs to be said.
Jolynne Rydz:So there are so many reasons why the poor performance of the individual is not actually about them. It might be partially about them, but often I've seen it's a mismatch between them and everything around them. So you've got to look at the whole system picture between them and everything around them. So you've got to look at the whole system picture. So let's start with system. Are they operating in a system that's not conducive to getting them the job done, for example, someone that needs to push a lot of change through? Is there a lot of bureaucracy and approvals that are designed to manage risk, which is useful in some ways, but sometimes it's too much. We manage too much risk and then we end up with all these approval levels that are there from a place of fear rather than adding value. So what's the system around this person and their role like? Is it empowering them, or are there tweaks that could be made there? Because sometimes this person doesn't know that or is not able to articulate that, or has been taught that they can't articulate that for fear of being called negative, and I've seen that happen a lot as well.
Jolynne Rydz:The other thing is the tools. I remember many years ago I was once in a job that I remember one of the tasks we had to do we were migrating systems. We had to manually enter, take all the data out from the first system and enter it in the second system. This is thousands and thousands and thousands of lines of data, right, so it didn't align with me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it for a number of reasons it was going to put my team under immense wellbeing stress, which impacted their wellbeing, and wellbeing is incredibly important value of mine. They were more efficient and cost effective. When you actually did the numbers of the staff, time that it was going to take and the cost of engaging someone to do that data migration, it didn't financially make sense and so actually, the result was for me, I decided to leave that organization. I haven't told them this. So if they're listening and you're wondering why I left, that's actually one of the reasons why I left. So the point of me sharing this is that sometimes the tools that we have are not the tools that could best empower us to do our jobs well. So, instead of manually transferring data entry, I could have been looking more strategically at how do we make sure this new system is engaged and used to its fullest and there's an easy transfer and change process.
Jolynne Rydz:We also touched a little bit about personal resistance there, which I wasn't going to, but there you go, it's come out. Hopefully you find that helpful. Another reason that it might not be about them is the culture. Is it okay in your organization to ask for help, or do people judge you as incompetent? Do people compete for acknowledgement and the praise and recognition? Do they maybe withhold information because they're either because they feel they need to or because they are just too busy to give it to you? And maybe there's a busyness culture there that you have to be seen as busy to get through so you don't get the real work done.
Jolynne Rydz:Do you maybe have to hide mistakes? Because anytime someone's made a mistake in the past, they've been absolutely grilled and throttled and not given the opportunity to use it as a learning. So then everyone hides their mistakes and people get stuck all on their own trying to figure it out, which often, you would know, is not very helpful. I mean, just today I was with this beautiful group of people fleshing out an issue that I knew if I had sat on my own and tried to figure it out myself. It would have taken months, but within 20 minutes we had come to some real clarity on an issue that I was facing, and that's the power of doing that together.
Jolynne Rydz:So sometimes it's not about them. Another way it's not about them is if there's a mismatch between expectation and reality. So this employee came in thinking the job was X, but in reality it was Y, and for many different reasons that mismatch of expectation could have happened Again. See, there's so many layers to this. I gotta not dive too deep. And now this is going to be the really controversial one.
Jolynne Rydz:If it's not about them, is it you? Yes, so, as a leader, can you, hand on heart, say that they can truly be open about what their challenges are, that you've provided that grounding now, obviously, yes, on their end they might have some own their own stuff. That they truly be open about what their challenges are? That you've provided that grounding? Now, obviously, yes, on their end they might have some own their own stuff that they need to work through. But have you done everything within your power to make it known that they can be open with you? Come to you when there's challenges. Are they empowered to come to you with problems and solutions and can you, hand on heart, say that you've done your best to really get that clarity at the start? Give them all the tools that they need or explain why they can't have them. Give the emotional support that they need, give acknowledgement, create a safe space, work on the alignment between their values and purpose and the organizations and modeled great feedback.
Jolynne Rydz:Because if you can't, there is a possibility that part of the reason that this is so hard is it's you. So if this is grating for you, great, because that means there's something in there that you can learn. So the way to overcome this is to ask yourself what else could be causing the issue. So no system, no team, no topic, no person is off limits, because when you can see the whole picture of how this employee is operating and why their performance might not be where it's at, that's when you can truly get to the root cause and shift that.
Jolynne Rydz:Too often I see that people performance manage just the technical delivery of the task without understanding all the context of the human behavior behind it, the culture, the systems they're working within, the interaction of different stakeholders and how that could be affecting the person and their ability to do their job. So this is stuff that I absolutely love doing and could do every day, all day. So if you want to find out more on how you can do this, feel free to book your strategy session and we can deep dive into what is your biggest challenge with performance management right now. It might be a person, it might be a whole team, it might be maybe not knowing where to start, but we can identify what is your biggest challenge and what you need to do to take that next step forward. So I'd love to speak to you. You can reach out on the DMs or book your strategy session today and until next time, remember you were born for a reason. It's time to thrive.