Performance Management Part 2,356
Sunday, July 13th, 2008Saturday’s Rocky Mountain News provided rich material for management practitioners. The paper reported on the firing and reinstatement of an employee in the Denver Parks and Recreation Department. The reinstatement of the fired employee occurred when management was not able to produce any evidence that the employee had failed to perform, and more shockingly, any evidence that there was any standard or goal to which the employee should strive.
PositiveWare has been repeating for the past five years what some management practitioners have known for decades: The key to maximum performance is positive reinforcement, which in turn comes from an environment where employees know what they are supposed to be working on, why it is important, and how they are doing.
When Mayor Hickenlooper announced his intention to implement performance management in the city, we were very excited and made numerous attempts to reach out to the city, only to be rebuffed by the IT consultants who were in charge of the project. Putting aside the wisdom of putting IT people in charge of people projects, the city failed in its effort to implement a performance management scheme upon the departure of his appointee. The results are painfully obvious.
In fact, the effort by the manager to explain the employee’s goals or how she had failed was pathetic in the extreme.
“Um, basically what you’re, what you’re going to do if, um, if you have, um, a timeline of objectives and delivery dates, and so, um, for us, and I’ll give you an example.
“For us, we have, um, a citywide brochure that comes out, um, four times a year, and so, um, so I’m going back to the session calendar is, ah, you know, why we have those registration dates when, when content is due, what posting is due etcetera, etcetera, and so, so if, um, so if our, um delivery date of the, um, brochure is . . . you know, um . . . February second, that, um, the kind of our targeted places in our neighborhoods, whether it’s schools, whether it’s churches, businesses, etcetera etcetera, that, um, that part of the prioritization is, one, you know, who’s going to be responsible for that.”
Imagine instead if the manager had been able to refer to the activity report for the employee instead. If the employee had really not performed, that would be obvious. But even better, with clear goals, it is unlikely the situation would have escalated to this point.
