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Managers and The Performance Gap

Increasing the productivity of your team, raising the individual and overall performance levels, and keeping morale and motivation high, are the greatest challenges facing managers today. These challenges are the immediate consequence of the pervasive “do more with less” regimen most organizations - of necessity - live by.

What are the factors impacting team performance? How do you create an environment where your staff actually wants to do more, do better, be better?
Financial incentives, such as pay-for-performance, bonuses, and stock or options awards? A foos-ball table? Free coffee and soda? Pick-up and drop-off dry cleaning? Clear career paths? Discounts on company products or services? A voice at the table when decisions are made? What’s the key?

While all of the above can and do help, the single most important factor impacting individual and team performance is none of these “things”; it is “a person”. The graphic below illustrates the performance gap between low and high achievers.

Measured over time, the average minimum effort to retain their job (i.e. to not be fired for performance issues) is roughly 30%. Go below that, and they’re out. Looking at the top performers, we see that on average over time, the effort they put forward is roughly 80%. The difference between the two - 50% - is defined by the term "discretionary effort". This is the amount of extra effort individual team members may choose to put towards their tasks.

And the most influential person to affect that discretionary effort is the team’s manager, both in positive and negative ways.

All the extrinsic, i.e. external, motivators in the world cannot make up for a lack of intrinsic, i.e. internal, motivation. The expression “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” applies here, too. The team’s manager is responsible for “making the horse want to drink”. As the manager of your team, your job is to make your team members want to put in more than the minimum effort.

This means you will have to listen to your team, observe and probe to find out what motivates each one individually. It also means that you will need to learn to think like a coach - each player may have great individual skills, but what do you need to do to make them into a great team? A one-size-fits-all approach will never work, because as the then-coach of the Chicago Bulls famously said: "No, I don’t treat everyone the same - Michael Jordan shoots hoops against all odds and when we need it most; why would I rotate him through primarily defensive positions? He inspires the team, pulls everyone together, and then we all win”.

Making the switch from an operational, individual contributor role to a leadership role requires you to become the ex-player/coach. You know the game well enough to share your experience and insights with the players, but you no longer actively play the game.

The opposite of the manager as coach/motivator is the micro-managing, doing-your-job-for-you, controlling manager. The guy in the suit who jumps off the bench, races onto the court (in his dress shoes), takes the ball from Michael Jordan’s hands, aims ... and then misses the shot. Ridiculous in basketball. Ridiculously ineffective at the office, too. 

Last updated on Oct 15, 2010 at 07:31 AM
Category: Leadership Development Retaining & Motivating Human Performance Improvement
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