The right attitude won't be enough to guarantee success. More is needed.
Since compensation deals with rewards for proper work results, how people accomplish their responsibilities and tasks is worthy of discussion. Performance appraisal and merit ratings are frequently (un)popular, immensely complex topics; but I simply want to address the widespread myth that a positive attitude (a favored evaluation factor in primitive management systems) will always prevail.
The inspirational message that if you keep trying you will eventually succeed is a popular dramatic meme in novels and movies. There, we call it fiction.
Victory over adversity through self-confident persistence is also a common theme in media interviews of sports stars. It may be true for the few winners who ultimately reach the spotlights and microphones, but most of those who compete fail to capture first place.
Compensation professionals need to understand that there are many reasons --some of our own making -- for performance outcomes that fall short of expectations. Confidence does not equal competence nor do aspirations assure accomplishment.
A positive personal attitude is only one of the useful ingredients in a complex recipe for goal achievement. While it certainly helps if you BELIEVE in your abilities, you still must objectively possess the relevant competencies. You also must operate within a working context that enables success. Many work environments block proper performance efforts despite the initial positive enthusiasm of the employees.
For two years in a row, while reviewing all the performance reviews in a large corporation, I read, "She never completed that night course I ordered her to take." Remembering that same depreciating comment about the same worker by the same boss last year, I checked to see why the supervisor never supplied effective contingent support to correct the deficiency. The employee did enroll in the night course repeatedly, but was forced to drop out each time. Her evening attendance was constantly prevented by unpredictable late-night overtime demands imposed at the last minute by that very same supervisor. He continually thwarted her legitimate attempts to comply with his instructions. Then he downgraded her merit increase because she obeyed his work schedule orders rather than disobeying those orders so she could comply with another order.
Never happen to you? Ha. Just wait. Contradictory orders are Catch-22 or Hobson's Choice dilemmas eventually experienced by almost every worker.
No matter how firm your conviction that you will accomplish your mission, your success is generally not under your full and complete individual control. Organizations exist to leverage group efforts, but the friction of human interactions can generate toxic byproducts with potentially destructive consequences. Many obstacles regularly impair the effectiveness of even the most confident and able performer:
- conflicting orders
- unclear instructions,
- absent or misleading feedback
- inadequate resources
- imbalanced consequences
- simple task interference
All those elements above that interfere with performance are external circumstances controlled by the organization. How many times are people punished for obeying our commands? "Finish that complicated report right now. Hey, answer that phone on the first ring!" Or placed in situations where failure is virtually assured? Sternly ordering a new hire to report any theft of company property will not overcome the peer pressure to ignore a veteran employee's flagrant pilferage of a handful of paper clips. Examples could fill large libraries.
When highly skilled workers who could perform properly if their lives depended on it fail the assignment, you can be sure there is something wrong with either the support system or the reinforcement scheme. Performance management is an evolving art rather than a rigid science, but there are still good principles that enable improvement.
Hope this inspires some ideas for better compensation practices.
E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent compensation advisor with extensive total rewards experience, specializing in job evaluation, market pricing and pay budget distribution. After corporate HR posts, he consulted to virtually every industry throughout North America before becoming Senior Associate of pay survey software publisher ERI until recently returning to consulting. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook) and speaker, Jim gave expert witness testimony in many reasonable executive compensation cases both for and against the Internal Revenue Service and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.
Creative Commons image "White Water" courtesy of Ben Salter
Jim, your post reminded me about the great little book by Ferdinand Fournies called: "Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed To Do And What You Can Do About It". I see it's now in 2nd edition. I may have to pick up a copy and reacquaint myself with it.
Posted by: Tony Bergmann-Porter | 05/10/2016 at 06:53 PM
Boy, you take me back, Tony, to when I was an ASPA or ACA book-reviewer for I think his very first book attempt unmentionable years ago. The best stuff came from Mager & Pipe's classic short You Really Oughta Wanna.
Posted by: E. James (Jim) Brennan | 05/10/2016 at 07:11 PM
Whoa! It's a better day altogether when I read any content that includes a reference to a Hobson's Choice. Think the last time I heard that expression, it was being uttered by the Honorable John McCain - although I'll skip over the details and circumstances of that encounter.
I loved the story about the stipulated requirement that an employee obtain more education, and the compliance which was subsequently undermined by the requestor. I observed a variation of that scenario at work in just the past year at work, which while entertaining to relay further, I'll opt to forgo at this time, since we all know that comments posted online are like vampires, Gilgamesh and Achilles . . . they're immortal.
Posted by: Chris Dobyns | 05/10/2016 at 11:28 PM
As noted, everyone around long enough has witnessed or experienced similar toxic mismanagement events of that type that earns HR such a dismal reputation. Even at the time, I foresaw that one as a classic case so simple, clear, awful and common that the time would come when I could safely share it as a perfect negative example. If we can't do better, maybe we should simply try to drive stakes through the hearts of the monsters that prowl the workplace.
Posted by: E. James (Jim) Brennan | 05/11/2016 at 12:23 AM