Strategic Discipline Blog

Last blog Bad Performance is Your Responsibility we discussed how ultimately the results you are getting from your people is your accountability.  The bottom line here is that in order to get the 40% discretionary effort from your people which leads to higher performance you need to identify the behaviors that are producing poor outcomes and arrange consequences that will stop them.  Next identify the behaviors that will produce desirable outcomes and arrange consequences that will positively reinforce them. 

Following the habits of Strategic Discipline you will naturally recognize your critical role in getting the most out of your people.  There are lots of ways to improve performance. 

First look at your systems.  Are your systems rewarding your people for the wrong things?  Are you rewarding your people for not working, or to produce a result you don’t want?  Examine what your people enjoy doing.  Most employees want to do more.  Most employees want to be productive.  Is your system enabling them to do that?

Don’t accept what you’re getting is unalterable.  There is a solution.  It may be you ultimately have to change the people, yet most likely the system is rewarding the wrong behavior. 

Positive reinforcement is the best way to reward your people.   How many strokes, compliments and small rewards do your people get in a day?  Do they know their score at the end of the day or not?  Did they know if they won or lost?

Sometimes there’s not an easy solution.  Review the blog on Recyclables Without Certain Consequences to understand how positive and negative reinforcement works.

One of my clients has a customer support unit that responds to customer calls.  The support manager recently posted in a large poster how quickly the team is responding to phone calls.  He’s excited about it. It gives his team a visual measurable grade on how they are doing each day. 

Accept your responsibility for your team’s performance.  Recognize there is a solution.  Dig for the answers.  Your company, your employees and you will be excited with the results it produces!