績效管理英文講座

1、Steve SherrettaNovember 28, 2018Performance Management:Enhancing Execution Through a Culture of DialoguePeter is Chief Executive Officer for a medical supply multinational that recently crafted a new strategy to counter competitive threats. The plan stressed the need to cut cycle time, concentrate s

2、ales on higher-margin products and develop new markets.Four months after circulating the plan, Peter did a“ walkaround” to see how things weregoing.He was appalled. Everywhere Peter turned people, departments whole businessunits simply didn t“ get it.”First surprise: Engineering. The group had cut p

3、roduct design time 30%, meeting its goal to increase speed-to-market. Good. Then Peter asked how manufacturing wouldbe affected. It turned out the new design would take much more time to make. Total cycle time actually increased. “ Our strategic plan message is not really getting through, Peter” tho

4、ught.Second surprise: Sales.The new strategy called for a shift emphasize high marginsales rather that pushing product down the pipeline as fast as possible. But just about every salesperson Peter spoke to was making transactional sales to high-volume customers; hardly anyone was building relationsh

5、ips with the most profitable prospects. Sales is doing just what it s always done, Peter thought.Worst surprise: Even his top team, the people who d helped him craft thestrategy, was not sticking to plan. Peter asked a team member: “ Why areyou spending all your time making sure the new machinery is

6、 working insteadof developing new markets?”“ Because my unit s chief goal was to improve-timeondelivery,”he answered.“ But what about company goals? ”said Peter. “ Wecame up with a good plan andcommunicated it very cle arly.But nowhere it isn t being carriedWhy?out.”Many organizations create good st

7、rategies, but only the best execute them effectively.1Fortunemagazine estimates that when CEOs fail, 70% of the time it s because of bad execution.Weakexecution is pervasiveinthe business world,butthe reasons foritare largely misunderstood.Why is it that no one in Peter s organization was acting in

8、sync with the strategy?Unless weunderstand the reasons, we can t hope to solve the problem.Imagine someone hittinga tennis ball. Whenthe brainsays“ hit the ball,”itdoesn tautomatically happen.The message travels through nerve pathways down the arm and crossesgaps between the nerve cells.These gaps,

9、or“ synapses,” are potential breaks in thetionconnec.If neurotransmitters don t carry the message across the gap, the message never gets through, or itgets distorted. When that happens, either the arm doesn t move at all, or it moves the wrong way.Creating a “ culture of dialogue”Just like a nervous

10、 system, organizations also have gaps that block and distort messages.Thesecret to effective strategy execution lies in crossing hierarchical and functional gaps with clear,consistent messages that relaythe strategy throughout the organization. Sound simple?It snot. The reason is that the “ neurotra

11、nsmitters in organizations”are human beingsexecutiveteam members, senior managers, middle managers and supervisors whose job it is to make surethat people behaviors is aligned with the overall strategy.Doingwhat it takes to achievealignment is very difficult.It is what Ram Charan calls, the“ heavy l

12、ifting” of management, andit s the key to executing strategy.As we llsee later, there is an important difference between companies that successfully align behavior with strategy and those that do not. Companies that effectively execute strategy create a “ cultureof dialogue. ”A culture of dialogue e

13、ncourages pervasive two -way communications where individuals and groups 1) question, challenge, interpret and ultimately clarify strategic objectives; and 2) engage in regular performance dialogue to monitor behavior and ensure it is aligned with strategy.Three keys to managing performanceA culture

14、 of dialogue doesn t happen instantly, anythanmoreafluid tennis stroke does.It takespractice, persistence and hard work.So how exactly can leaders ensure that strategy messagesgo all the way down the line that the tennis ball gets hit correctly? The three keys to managing performance effectively are

15、:1. Achieving radical clarity by decoding strategy at the top.Many organizations think theysend clear signals but donIn somet. cases, managers subordinate broad strategic goals tooperational goals within their silos.That s what happened withPeter s top team.Elsewhere, top team members often have too

16、 many“ top ” priorities we ve seen as many a1 “ Why CEOs Fail,” by Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin,Fortune magazine, June 21, 1999.100 in one case which results in mixed signals and blurred focus.winnowing priorities down to a manageable number as little as five.Strategy decode requires2. Setting up

17、systems and processes to ensure clarityOnce. strategy is clear, organizationsmust create processes to ensure that the right strategy messages cascade down the organization. These include: strategy-centered budget and planning sessions; staff and team meetings to discuss goals; performance management

18、 meetings; and talent review sessions.Dialogue drives all these processes.Each represents a“ transmitter opportunity,”wherestrategic messages are conveyed andbehavior is aligned with goals.3.Aligning and differentiating rewards.Leaders must make sure rewards encouragebehaviors consistent with strate

19、gy, which sounds easy but isn Differentiation is about. making sure that stars get significantly more than poor performers. But almost everywheremanagers distribute rewards more or less evenly. As we ll see, lack of effective performance dialogue is a key contributor to dysfunctional reward schemes.

20、We list these three items separately but they are, of course, interconnected. Systems and processes depend on clarity from the top. Differentiation and alignment of rewards depend on managers using performance systems effectively. Dialogue is the glue that holds it all together. But not just any dia

21、logue will do. It must be dialogue with purpose, focused on performance.Link to company valuationCompanies that manage performance well General Electric comes to mind have higher market valuations. Why? Because, more and more, institutional investors view strategy execution as a vital factor influen

22、cing stock prices.Just a fewyears ago institutional investors relied almost exclusivelyon financialmeasures forcompany valuations. Now 35% of a market valuation is influenced by non-financial, intangiblefactors, according to a study by Ernst & Young.2The study showed that “ execution of corporat

23、estrategy and” “ managementcredibilityranked”number one and number two in importancetoinstitutionalinvestors out of 22 non-financialmeasures.John Inch,a managingdirector andanalyst at Bear Stearns notes that insome sectors, suchas diversified industrial companies,intangiblesaccount for even more up

24、to halfa company svalue.“ Youcan take evenamundane asset and inject good management and have something pretty strong,Inch.” says2 Based on a study conducted by Sarah Mavrinac and Tony Siesfeld for the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation.1. Achieve Radical Clarity by decoding strategy at

25、 the topThe first step in successfully executing strategy is achieving clarity on the top team, which is frequently the source of garbled signals.Lack of Clarity at the TopA recent Hay Group study3showsa disturbing lackof clarityontop teams(organizationalclaritymeasures the extent to whichemployees

26、understand whatisexpected ofthem and howthoseexpectations connectwith the organizationlargers goals).The chartbelow showsdramatically higher levels of clarity on outstanding vs. average teams.In fact the biggest singledifference between great and average top teams and typical ones was in the level o

27、f internal clarity.See Figure 1.Figure 1: Organizational Climate and TeamsChange Hay/McBer to“ Source: Hay Group, Inc.” in final versionF igure1:MeasuresorganizationalclimateAnd a Lack of Clarity Belowdimensionsforoutstandingtop teamsvs.typical ones.Workers at lower levels strongly feel this lack of

28、 clarity.Figure 2 looks at satisfaction levels forFor each dimension of climateworkers planning to leave their organizations within two years versus those planning to stay longer.we asked how the team wasThis study showed that a key reason people leave their jobs is that they feel their companies la

29、ckperforming in reality and howdirection. Even among employees planning to stay more than two years at their companies,only58%itshould be performing.57% felt their organizations had a clear sense of direction.Figure 2: Key reasons why employees leave their companies18%Total % Satisfied 4Satisfaction

30、 with:Employees planning to stay more than twoyears (%)1. Use of my skills and abilities83%Then we measured the difference or “ gap ”in their answers. Gaps over 20%hurtperformance.TheEmployees planning to leave in le (%)49%3 Hay Group partnered with Richard Hackman of Harvard University and Ruth Wag

31、eman of Dartmouth College to identify the dynamics of top executive teams and their impact on performance. From an initial group of 48 teams, the researchers narrowed their study to 14 teams, many from largeglobal organizations. Each team member represented the head of an organization, a major busin

32、ess division, or a major geography.4 Source:Hay Group, Inc.The results are from our Employee AttitudeSurvey, which sampledsome 300 companies representing more than 1 millionworkers.Our survey queried management,professionals, salespeople, informationtechnologists,and clericaland hourlyworkers.The “

33、gap ”referred to in the table is the“ satisfaction gap”planningbetweentoworkersleavewithin two yearsand those planning to stay longer.2. Ability of top management74%41%3. Company has clear sense of57%27%directionNOTE; HIGHLIGHT SECTION 3; MAKE IT POP GRAPHICALLYClarity mattersWhy do employees crave

34、clarity? Think about it. What could be more demoralizing than the realization that your hard work is not contributing to overallcompany goals? Employees want to do the “ right ” thing, but they can only do so if they know what the right things are.Unfortunately, as we saw in our opening vignette, co

35、mpanies often don tcommunicate strategic goals effectively. An oil refinery client, for example, set astrategic goal to cut costs. To see how well the message had gotten through, anoperations team leader held a strategy decode session where he quizzed his team members on what they felt was the chief

36、 priority. Ten team members produced four different “ top ” objectives, including-cutting,cost safety, environmental compliance and reducing sales processingimet. The message hadn t got throughThe. teamleader called his team together and created a“ transmitter opportunity.”“ Don t you guys realize t

37、hat if we canthey re going to shut us down?”he said. t cut our refining costs by three cents a gallon,“ Is that all you need us to do?” replied the team members, taken aback. United by a clear directionand shared ownership of the cause, team members enthusiastically cut costs by five cents per gallo

38、n over the following year while continuing to maintain good safety and environmental records.Narrowing prioritiesHaving too many priorities can lead to lack of clarity. AeroMexico, for example, had worked with a strategy consulting firm that delivered a 249-page report listing key performance indica

39、tors (KPIs) for measuring progress by the enterprise. The good news was that the KPIs gave the top team metrics for measuring successThe.bad news was that there were 100 of them, and they weren t prioritized.“ It was clear that execution would suffer unless weidentified the most important ones, says

40、 AeroMexico CEO Arturo Barahona. “ So we discussed which onesconnected most directly with our strategic priorities and where we were in thebusiness cycle, and each team member settled on five chief goals. By gaining ” clarity on key objectives, the team greatly increased the odds that signals would

41、transmit clearly down the line.Getting buy-in at the topHay research on teams has shown that it s not uncommon for team members to nod their heads inagreement when new strategies are set in meetings, then go back to their division or department and carry on exactly as they had before. In effect, the

42、y end up sabotaging the plan. That gaining buy-in is essential to effective execution, and dialogue is what makes it happen.IBM created an executive team consisting of six Ph.D-level technical leaders at an applied research unit. Their mission: build strong relationships with top research universiti

43、es so that IBM could recruit innovative scientists capable of developing breakthrough products. The problem was that the Ph.Ds, all world-class scientists, were used to competing for research dollars and dismissing each other's ideas to advance their own. Getting them to work jointly and be held

44、 accountable for business results was going to be very difficult.In the first group meeting, the vice president simply assigned accountabilities to the various team members. "I could see the scientists digging in their heels, says Harris Ginsberg, an internal leadership consultant who attended

45、the meeting. "No one was going to dictate to them what they should do." Even if they'd said yes to the VP's directives, adds Ginsberg, they would never have followed through.Ginsberg, who helps IBM business units clarify and execute strategy, knew the key was to get the scientists

46、talking to each other. So he coached the vice president to change her behaviors. Rather than hand out directives, he suggested ways she could stimulate team dialogue about how to meet objectives. Ginsberg also counseled other team members about the need for a "consensus process" on an inte

47、rdependent team.They all "got" it. At the next meeting the VP said, "Our mandate is to create breakthrough products. Without access to talent at the top universities, we won't succeed. How are we going to get it?" At first, Ginsberg recalls, she met silence. Finally one team

48、member raised her hand.She was willing to "get out there to the universities, and be more visible, go out with the recruiter and the senior human resources people," said Ginsberg. She also agreed to help some up-and-coming scientists learn how to develop relationships with universities.A s

49、econd team member said he would "help her make some calls." The ice was broken and all the team members eventually took on group responsibilities. "Itwas all about dialogue," says Ginsberg. "Until the individual leaders embraced the unifying elements of the strategy for the

50、good of the enterprise, they only attended to their own mission.The dialogue helped them buy-in, agree to some shared activities, and begin to work more collaboratively."2. Set up systems and processes to create clarityWhy is executing strategy so difficult, even when the plan is clear? Because

51、 good execution only happens when employee behavior is aligned with strategy. And many managers can t, won or don tcreate the “ transmitter opportunities required” to get people to do the right things. tManagers: can tbecause they don t know how to talk with their subordinates about changed/oranpoor

52、 performance; won t,because they find it uncomfortable to give candid feedback; or, simply don realizet that successful strategy execution will never happen without ongoing performance dialogue.Part of the solution to this problem is creating systems and processes that force performance dialogue. Ge

53、neral Dynamics Defense Systems (GDDS) in Pittsfield, MA, is one company where creating such systems has contributed to dramatic results. From 1999 to 2001, attrition among its valued software engineers dropped from 20 percent to 2.4 percent. Union grievances dropped from 57 to zero, saving hundreds

54、of thousands of dollars. And, best of all, earnings and profit margins doubled.What GDDS didIn 1999 the $200 million plus defense contractor challenged its employees to improve the company snegotiating leverage on bids, and thereby increase margins and profitability. To accomplish this goal, senior

55、management directed all departments to chase out costs, and created numerous processes to transmit the cost-cutting strategy down the managerial ranks right to the shop floor, which is where they felt many of the best cost-cutting ideas would come fromCarmen Simonelli, director of facilities and security, says his departmentcosts 5 percent below budget,