Editor's Note: How far can a good attitude take us? What gets in the way of performance." Jim Brennan brings us his own Classic version of Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed To Do And What You Can Do About It. Are we listening?
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 in most industries. After corporate HR posts and consulting CEO roles, he was Senior Associate of pay surveyor ERI before returning to consulting in 2015. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook), speaker and frequent expert witness in reasonable executive compensation court cases, Jim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review.
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