The Evil Report Card
When I was in secondary school, we had 2 to 3 terms each school year and generally speaking, you had to pass the mid-term and finals in order to promote to the next year. As a student, I pride myself to be super quick with homework. I didn’t cause troubles so my ‘conduct’ was consistently graded ‘good’. I was sociable and got along with everyone. If I were an employee, you’d describe me as efficient, easy to manage and good team player. Well, at least until you see my evil report cards. I had a pattern of failing badly during the mid-terms and had to show significant improvement to be granted ‘conditional promotion’. In business lingo: I had to receive written warnings before I stepped up and deliver.
Get The KPIs Right!
To my mum’s horror, the principal threatened to make me repeat Form 4 unless I made significant improvement at the finals. There were no red flags – I hand in my homework on time. I behaved and was active at sports. Oh wait – were there really no red flags, or were the teachers looking at the wrong indicators? I found this remark on my Form 3 mid-term report: “Eva appears quite attentive…”. How do you define attentiveness? Does being attentive equate to learning? Were there other telltale signs? Well there were many tests prior to the 2 major exams. But they weren’t presented to the parents. So imagine the shock when they saw the red marks on my mid-term report.
How are you evaluating your people: is it based on subjective feelings, or objective data? Are the KPIs quantifiable? What are considered best practice behaviours and in what ways do they link with success?
The Much Needed Evil Report Card
The school and I needed the data to recognise we were both failing. The teachers needed to know their teaching didn’t reach their student. I needed to know my lack of effort had consequences. It was a much needed reality check.
In the business world, we cannot afford to wait 6 months to spot the performance gaps. How frequent do you conduct reviews with your team? When there are performance issues, are the managers held accountable for their team members’ performances? Are there consequences for under-performing?
What Do You Do With The Data?
Fortunately we had 2 terms in that school year, which means I had time to make up for the lost ground. And now that both the teachers and I knew which subjects I failed and how badly, we were able to target our efforts to achieve some amazing results. I failed 3 of the 8 subjects during the mid-term. At the finals, I passed all 8 and excelled in several. To this day, I still remember how Mrs Lai’s encouraging words gave meaning to the lessons I used to find boring. And I thank myself for not giving up.
So you have all the sales figures, individuals forecasts, customer survey results and market share data. How do you set the development goals and objectives? How do you prioritise your coaching effort? Would your staff remember you as the leader who lift them up?
Conclusion
In the business world, the Not-So-Evil-Afterall Report Card facilitates a continuous and ongoing improvement process. We need these mid-terms to help us benchmark performance and pick out areas to develop. The aim is to lift our people up so they continue to grow and “promote” to the next level. It isn’t just the employees’ responsibility. Leaders need to take ownership of the process to make things happen.
I have asked more than a few questions in this article, with the intention to get you to think about your current process and attitude towards driving performance improvement. Hope you enjoy the read and as always, I welcome your feedback.
Author:
Eva Lam
Tree Consulting Asia Company Limited