When times are tough, you need your people performing at their best. So why don't people perform? There are five basic reasons:

• They lack the clear understanding to complete tasks quickly and accurately
• They are poor at planning task achievement or following processes
• They have insufficient skills or knowledge
• They respond ineffectively to problems they encounter
• They are reluctant or unwilling to complete the task.

Only one player in each market can be the price leader, so the organisations that are going to win through in tough economic times, are those that can:

• Maximise sales opportunities 
• Improve service, and
• Improve individual productivity to save time and money i.e. do more with less.

To achieve these goals your people need to be effectively managed, developed and motivated. This means that your managers need the skills to:

• Set clear expectations
• Ensure staff are willing to fulfil their accountabilities
• Monitor performance and identify the reasons why people are performing/not performing
• Give constructive feedback on performance which can be acted on to sustain or improve performance
• Coach staff in the knowledge, skills and behaviours to perform their tasks effectively and deal with problems as they arise.

Critical to effectively managing people, is not just understanding why people don't perform, but understanding that they actually choose how they perform. Assigned a task, an individual will choose how they plan to go about the task. This is a behavioural response to the situation - the assignment of the task. The approach they choose may be effective or ineffective.

Similarly they will choose what skills they apply into completing the task. Their choices may be limited by their current skills bank. This in itself may hinder the successful completion of the task. In addition, when confronted with a barrier to completing the task they may make an inappropriate response, or know the correct response but not have the skills to enact it.

In addition, their attitude towards the type of work involved in the task may see them choose to engage enthusiastically in the task, or alternatively, fail to give it the attention it deserves.

Let's look at an example of how choices around attitudes, skills and behaviours can play out. A staff member puts little or no value on customer service, therefore their attitude to it is negative. Consequently, although they have been trained and can apply good customer service skills, they choose not to, when the situation requires it. Instead they choose to behaviourally respond in inappropriate ways, fobbing off the customer, making promises they know they won't deliver etc.

Alternatively, a staff member with a positive attitude towards customer service will go the extra mile to satisfy the customer, choosing the most appropriate responses and choosing the best skills available to them to enact those responses.

Good people management means holding constructive performance discussions with staff which help the staff member understand the choices of behaviours, skills or attitude that they have made, that led to their performance, good or bad. Only when they understand and own their choices will they be prepared to take action to sustain good performance or improve poor performance.

One organisation, whose managers have mastered effective performance management and people development, has identified that it has impacted positively in the following ways:

• Improved sales performance
• Better service quality
• Time saving by managers in dealing with performance issues
• Reduced grievances
• Increased job satisfaction
• Lower turnover
• Improved knowledge and competence of staff
• Reduced time to competence for new staff
• Reduced time to complete tasks
• Less rework
• Improved task quality.

In the present difficult economic climate, the development of your managers and staff is not an option; it is a necessity for the survival and growth of your business.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Miller is the Managing Director of Development in Practice Pty Ltd.  He can be contacted through his website www.developmentinpractice.com.au