I learned years ago that Al Pacino still took acting lessons and that Paul Simon took guitar lessons. Regardless of whether or not they are your favorites, I believe we can all agree that they’re masters of their craft and nonetheless they -- and many greats before them and since -- consider themselves perpetual students. Similarly, business leaders will never be too experienced or too senior not to need professional development. 

Notice that I said “need,” not “benefit from,” “use,” or other lightweight verbiage. That’s because senior-most leaders need professional development just as much as anyone else on their team. 

Understandably, leaders tend to believe that they don’t have the time for it; however, think about this: all of the actions, language, and decisions that leaders carry out -- or don't carry out -- have more impact on their company’s success than literally anyone else. Not to mention that as “the boss” they will always be doing things -- or not doing things -- that someone will not like.

They have the hardest job at their company managing expectations and outcomes in every conceivable direction. Professional development from a coach -- not just an advisor or mentor -- will make a massive difference in how you lead not just your company but also yourself in the directions that are most conducive to true success. 

Here are some quick thoughts on this topic that I strongly believe: 

• Allocating budget toward executive and senior leaders’ professional development is an investment in the company’s success.

• The people who work for and with leaders receiving such support will be more inclined to be developed themselves. 

• The resources invested in executive professional development are far less than what will be spent on correcting the mistakes or missteps that inevitably happen when they’re not intentionally working to evolve their leadership capacity. 

• Respectfully, leaders -- like the rest of us --know less than they think they do about how to manage and lead at all times. Input and even divergent thinking about their leadership dilemmas and opportunities will build humility, empathy, and resilience making them an even better leader and collaborator to those around them. 

BuildRise can help you put this concept to work at your company. Set up a time to meet with us HERE.

Companies sometimes think that performance management is stifling and that performance reviews are outdated. As I’ve shared in previous blog posts, it’s not uncommon for organizational best practices to be written off as such, which becomes a challenge when no other reference points for clarity and accountability are put in their place.

What’s an alternative approach to performance management and reviews?

I think it’s less about an alternative as it is an evolution of our thinking about their purpose and how we use the information we get from them. What we know is that we want people to perform but what we don’t often assess is what information we want to measure to support their ability to perform. Consider the points below and see if they spark ideas about work, management, and feedback.

1. Determine the purpose and the process before exploring the tools to help you carry it out. Moreover, we often default to tools to help us become good at a process without having any insight into why we’re not good at the process to begin with. Don’t spend money on any platforms until you know what the platform is intended to accomplish for you and your unique process purpose. This may sound like a no-brainer, but an example I’ll use from my experience is that companies will buy task management support before addressing first how well their team collaborates on their own. They look to software to solve a problem they have yet to define and therefore don’t know what solutions they need the tool to offer. This gets expensive and convoluted and the tool may end up collecting dust… very, very expensive dust. The same goes for performance management software: understand what matters to you about performance and what cadence and practices your team will most easily adopt before determining what tools will help you achieve your goals.

2. Discouple reviews from compensation. Performance management must be a 365-day-a-year experience, not a couple-of-days worth of surveys and meetings that are executed simply to receive more money. While it’s advisable to maintain a process for performance metrics justifying a merit increase or promotion, you’ll want the substance of performance reviews to be based on work deliverables, quality of teamwork, and demonstrated alignment with company values. This drastically improves your ability to vet and cultivate team members who are committed to your company and who enjoy working there. It also lends itself to professional development for the employee and raises the stakes for managers to actually lead their teams and not just manage their work, increasing employee engagement and retention.

3. Treat performance management as a year-round high-priority initiative of your talent strategy. Everyone at the company has a role to play and it’s part of their job to play it, complete with repercussions for not doing so. Have a performance management philosophy, a playbook, training, a clear connection to your company values, and make sure that executives are also reviewing and meeting with their direct reports like every other manager.

This approach can be a significant value-add to employee experience, company culture, and leaders’ confidence in the people they employ. Inevitable outcomes are a stronger culture of ongoing feedback, more transparency and accountability, and significantly better collaboration on and across teams. 

While I understand that performance reviews that focus on generic ratings are neither exciting nor impactful, I don't think that the answer is throwing out the concept altogether. It’s just a matter of determining what performance you value and how you intend to measure it to hold people accountable and build a stronger culture of feedback, accountability, and collaboration. 

BuildRise can help you put this concept to work at your company. Set up a time to meet with us HERE.