Google discovered their biggest opportunities are in their worst and best employees. Addressing these two tails provides the biggest performance improvements. In Work Rules! (Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead) Laszlo Bock shares,
Managing Your Two Tails - Gaussian Distribution
By comparing the extremes Google found meaningful differences in behavior and outcomes.
How you gauge your team’s performance impacts how you invest in them.
Most companies suffer from following what is known as the Gaussian distribution for employee performance. (Known as the “bell curve.”)
Large organizations believe it’s best to use averages or fairness principles with all employees.
By managing people using a normal distribution, most people get labeled as average, while the two tails of weak and strong performers are pushed out to the sides. The tails aren’t as symmetrical as when you look at height, because failing employees get fired and the worst don’t even make it in the door, so the left tail is cut short.
Companies also treat people as if their actual output follows the same distribution. That’s an error.
Most companies get rid of the “bottom tail” performers, who live in a purgatory of failure and fear they could be fired at any moment.
Worse, in today’s job market, many companies keep their bottom tail (They can’t find replacements), and their top tail leaves for better opportunities because they’re not being rewarded for the level of their performance.
Identify Your Worst Performers
Watch Laszlo Bock: A Method for Dealing with Low Performers
Google engages in compassionate pragmatism. Let those at the bottom of the performance distribution know it. Do not tie it directly to pay or career outcomes. Instead, alert and motivate them as positively as possible. Moving someone from the lowest performance to a higher performance level makes a significant impact on your business. Making someone aware of their poor performance, often is enough to get them to improve.
If you believe people are fundamentally good and worthy of trust, you must be honest and transparent with them. This includes telling them when they lag behind in their performance.
A mission-driven, purposeful workplace requires you approach people with sensitivity. Most people who are performing poorly know it and want to get better. It’s important to give them a chance.
Study Your Best Performers
Google’s data discovered top performers find it easier to get things done, feel more valued, feel that their work is more meaningful, and leave the company at one-fifth the rate that our lowest performers do. Why?
Every company has the seeds of its future success in its best people, yet most fail to study them closely.
Studying your strongest people closely and then building programs to measure and reinforce their best attributes for the entire company changes the character of your company.
If you’re in HR, involved with people, and specifically the performance level of your people, I recommend Work Rules! (Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead) by Laszlo Bock. Not because your business is like Google, but rather, because of the methodology and insights this book offers on how to manage, elevate, and treat your people.
WORK RULES…FOR MANAGING YOUR TWO TAILS
To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems today to schedule a free exploratory meeting.
Growth demands Strategic Discipline.
The training most companies invest time and money into doesn’t work. Work Rules discovered who you have trained, and how to train is more important than how much you invest in training. We’ll share how to improve employee training next blog.
Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.
Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.
Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:
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EXECUTION |
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CASH |
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NEXT BLOG – Your Best Teachers/Trainers Already Work for You