It is provocative to tell Government employees that they must submit five achievements they made in the past week, or they will be dismissed. This implies that the new boss questions their productivity and effectiveness. It is also a clear indicator of the management style they should expect. This is clearly poor management and demotivating. It’s not the intention that counts, but how you introduce a performance culture. Stick or carrot, name-and-shame or praise and increase.
I started a new job in a different organisation. In the first weeks, I organized a workshop for managers to help them identify five recent achievements. In addition, I asked each group to identify their top five priorities and challenges. The message I sent was not to convince me to keep you all, but to find out more about you and your role in the organization. I also wanted to know what obstacles I could help you overcome.
It worked. Together we were able, in a short period of time, to reorganise the services, make some necessary, but unpopular, cuts, and achieve budget savings while making people more optimistic about their future. Benchmarking was a popular way to compare ourselves to others and learn what they do to improve performance. We set goals, tracked progress and celebrated our successes.
It’s not easy, I know. We had to earn people’s confidence, overcome cynicism, negotiate, and compromise. And we had more than once to convince a board of skeptics that we could deliver with their help. We talked about targets, performance indicators, and league tables throughout, demonstrating how this language doesn’t have to be demoralizing or threatening, but can instead be motivating and rewarding.
