Every position in your organization exists to do something for the organization.
Therefore, every role in your organization should have measures to evaluate its contribution to the organization.
Please note, I’m referring to ROLES or POSITIONS not individuals or people.
Individual performance will be discussed in the next installment about Coaching.
Things to think about initially:
- What does each position in your organization do?
- Why does it exist?
- What work would go undone if the position didn’t exist?
Next, answer this:
- How do you know the position/role is achieving what it’s supposed to achieve?
- How do you measure progress?
- How transparent is / are the measurements of progress to you and to the employee in the role?
- How frequently are those measures evaluated?
- Are those measures applied to each person within the same role?
Most organizations call these Key Performance Indicators or Measures.
What I’ve found is that some positions have KPI. No problem.
Other positions have some KPI, but not much and they aren’t frequently evaluated.
And MANY positions have NO KPI associated with them.
This is a problem.
If you cannot measure a position’s contribution to the organization than you have to wonder, why you have the position at all? You’re paying this position to perform. What is their contribution as a result? And does that contribution warrant the salary in exchange.
All-too-often these questions are unanswered or not evaluated on a regular basis.
Some managers find it very difficult to create KPI for certain positions and I understand that.
But anything can be measured.
I’ve helped many, many clients come up with KPI for positions within their organizations.
Sometimes you need some external, objective perspective because you can be too close to it.
If that’s the case, I’m happy to help.
But, regardless…. I’d like to encourage you to remember this.
In order to effectively manage a high performing team.
Every position you manage should have clear performance indicators and / or measures to determine how well the position is contributing to the success of the organization.
We create roles to ensure the organization achieves its goals.
If you can’t measure how the roles tie to the organization’s achievement, I ask again…
Why do you have the position then?
