Melanie Gray and Peter Lawson offer some reflections about what performance management might mean to the HR manager struggling to keep up with the competitive realities of the global business.

What is performance management?  Reflections of an HR manager
I know that this is not an easy question to answer because it has exercised the minds of managers, and those interested in management, for the last 100 years and more.  In our company, finding an answer is an urgent priority as we face global competition in our sector and the competitive realities of business day to day are becoming ever more fierce.  And working across boundaries means that people management is ever more important.  Yes we have technology to aid us, but if our communication breaks down in this complex world, we don't have much chance.  We truly do need to maximise the performance our most costly resources.

However, this 'performance' for which we are responsible and which we so tirelessly seek to enhance is a shadowy, indistinct concept that is difficult to understand in organisational terms.

But, let's get back to basics - when I really think about 'performance' I realise that I know quite a lot about it.  I know that when Jonathan Edwards won his gold medal at the Sydney Olympics he did not just turn up on the day, do his event and walk off with the prize.  I am sure he had concentrated all his thinking, energy and resources on the 'Olympic performance' for many years beforehand.  He had a very clear objective in mind and he worked single-mindedly towards it, step by step.  In a way, preparing for the performance was part of the performance itself; it could not be separated from it.  No part of the preparation happened by chance.  And also his performance was closely managed by others.  But whilst this was the case, I am sure he took complete responsibility for it.

It is not difficult to imagine which aspects of his 'Olympic performance' were managed:  planning and preparing training programmes; setting training and performance goals, and targets; years of training and conditioning; expert coaching and feedback; achieving the targets set and then specifying new, more challenging goals; more training, more coaching and feedback.  Then there's diet, and also he probably needed quite a bit of administrative and secretarial support to make sure he was in the right place at the right time.  On top of this come the 'intangibles' - courage, tenacity, and commitment.  Not forgetting, of course, basic skills and aptitude.  And, the consequence of all this for him was worldwide recognition for outstanding achievement, rather than money in the bank.

Can I translate the sporting performance into the workplace?
Translating sporting performance management into a business context should be straightforward - but it isn't.  If managing performance for a single athlete is complex and complicated then imagine how much complicated it is to manage performance for several hundred people at the same time.  I suppose that it is this that makes the whole question of performance and its management a matter for controversy, contest and difficulty.  I think there would be great resistance to setting out to achieve this 'Olympic performance' in the workplace on the part of both managers and employees.  These points of resistance would revolve around:

• Accepting responsibility for performance
• The tendency to separate managing performance from managing the business
• Collapsing individual performance needs into the straitjacket of a generic approach to performance management
• The reluctance on the part of managers to engage in authentic performance feedback with their employees
• Providing adequate recognition for performance achievements

So, we're already moving some way away from our Olympian ideal.  We need to think through the whole process very carefully.  Perhaps the answers to the following questions would help me:

• What is performance, how is it to be defined?
• How is performance to be measured?
• Which factors influence performance?
• How do business processes impact upon performance?
• Does performance refer to performance of the business as a whole or does it refer to the performance of the people who work in the business?
• How do people at work influence overall business performance?
• What is the connection between business performance and people performance?
• What is the connection between business performance and people performance?
• What is the impact of organisation culture on performance and how is it managed?
• If each member of a workforce carries out their role effectively and efficiently, will this mean that the business will perform well?
• What have we learned about motivation and how much of that learning has been forgotten?

Of course, the answers to the above questions are likely to be different depending upon who is answering them.  Managers who reside at different organisational levels or in different locations on the organisation chart from my own will see things from a difference perspective and so will have varying wants and needs in respect of performance management.  Individual employees will also have their own individual views and ideas.  It seems to me that this idea of different perspectives adds additional complexity to the situation.  In reality, we are not dealing with one performance, but several, and we are not necessarily sure what the performance might look like.

How have I traditionally responded to this complexity?
I don't think that I am different from many managers who, when faced with complexity respond with simplicity.  When faced with difficulty, too often, I respond with facility.  The history of management is littered with examples of this reductionist tendency - scientific management, management by objectives, and quality circles, are all examples of simplistic and impermanent solutions to management's age-old problem.  I am not pointing the finger at managers here - this tendency to reductionism seems to be part of the human condition.  Just think about how we deal with complexity and difficulty in our personal livers!

Of course, if we tried to deal with all the complexity, we would end up completely swamped.  We need some elements of reductionism.  However, when engaged in reductionism, we need to work from the position of a number of perspectives.  It is often precisely because we find it so easy to view things from where we are and so difficult to see things from where other people may we that we resort to easy answers.

Another way of thinking about these issues may be in terms of 'personnel' as distinct from 'human resource' management.  I am this company's human resource manager.  We have shifted our focus from personnel management.  I am no less concerned about the individual, seeking to enable each person to make his or her own best contribution to the success of the enterprise, both as an individual and also a member of a working group.  My focus now is the more holistic, organisation-wide and integrationist concerns of human resource management.

Our human resource management focus is on co-ordinating and managing all the resources within the business in pursuit of our business plan targets and goals.  The human resource model seeks to establish clear links between the development and management of the people within the business and the achievement of planned results.  The self-conscious intention of our human resource management policies, practice and initiatives therefore is to draw the organisation together so that it more fully 'punches its weight' in respect of its pursuit of goals and objectives.  This human resource perspective requires that I take a more rounded view of the business and the needs and wants of the people who populate it.  I need to ensure that all perspectives are listened to and understood.  If I am not doing this then the change in focus from personnel and human resource management is indeed purely cosmetic.

The wider, more rounded, perspectives of human resource management may be useful in clarifying, informing and expanding my understanding of what may be the most useable approaches to performance management.  Any or all of the following may be seen as an aspect of performance management:

• Individual management behaviour:  for example. Leadership behaviours
• A business-wide process
• Individual business processes; for example selecting and recruiting the right people or training and developing those people we have selected
• An organisational and / or a cultural initiative
• The ongoing relationship between manager and employee which includes feedback and learning
• A company policy relating to discipline or other aspects of employee behaviour
• A reward or recognition process

None of these behaviours, processes, policies, initiatives or relationships are mutually exclusive and, indeed, in our human resource ethos it would not be surprising if some or all of these approaches were useful in pursuit of the achievement of our organisation-wide goals and objective.  By its very nature, the human resource perspective demands that the successful and effective management of performance would be best achieved by a multi-pronged approach.

How can I integrate these into organisational performance?
Of course, usually when 'performance management' is spoken of, it most often refers to a business activity and effort towards pre-determined company wide goals.  This all needs to be underpinned by effective relationships and timely administrative procedures.

In our 'HR' environment our processes should support our business manager's 'can do' attitude and approach.  Rules and procedures, which inhibit action, initiative and therefore performance, get short shrift. Manages in this atmosphere want to have more direct relationships with their direct reports.  They are intolerant of anything or anybody, which gets in the way of this relationship.  Trade unions and collective agreements may be seen as such inhibitors.  Managers now see their role as changing things and to do this they will take initiatives, not perhaps the piecemeal initiatives of old, but rather integrated approaches, which have clear and demonstrable links to business plans and objectives.  The focus shifts from isolated processes and procedures to cultural and structural interventions.  However these interventions would themselves be embraced by a performance management process, which would track its implementation, placing responsibility and accountability for all its different aspects where it belongs and measuring and assessing individual or team success in achieving its goals. Other supporting processes such as reward and recruitment would also be in place to ensure that the right people are in the right jobs and also that those people are properly rewarded for achieving the organisation's performance objectives.

But after all this thought, if anyone asks me who is accountable for the management performance of our business, my response would be:  "I am, you are, she is, he is, we are, and they are.'

For more information contact:  Peter Lawson