How many times have you been told you are unimportant?

All too often, we are told that we are unimportant by our bosses and our peers. It is usually not intentional which makes it worse. Evaluations are meant to identify problem areas and ALSO performance behaviors that the company would like to see continue! It isn't supposed to be just a failure building exercise.

IDENTIFYING WEAKNESSES

Clearly, when you go into a performance evaluation, you expect to hear some areas in which to improve your work performance. There is no perfect performance. There is no perfect employee. There is no perfect leader. But a clear criteria must be drawn and enforced across the board for the actions that a company considers good and bad. There has to be a metric to guide performance evaluations that can be used during these sessions. Without them, you are allowing your individual leaders to evaluate their teams independently and subjectively. This is a bad idea because everyone has a different idea of what "working hard" is and what should be "expected" from their employees and leaders. Don't cater to the lowest denominator, but definitively identify the characteristics and actions that are beneficial to your bottom line and encourage those while criticizing and changing those that are taking away from your company's ability to succeed.

WHAT ARE THE MAGIC ANSWERS?

There are no magic answers! Years ago people would have believed that the big, loud, bossy CEO who comes in and changes a business from the ground up, takes earnings to new heights, and leaves when he has hit his pinnicle was the right answer to make a company great! Today, with more study and books like Good To Great by Jim Collins, the exact opposite has been shown to bring a company to exponential growth. So what are the right answers? The truth is that they depend on the company being reviewed and the players involved. Big companies versus small companies have different dynamics that need to be addressed. An organization like the US Army is run very effectively by ensuring that all members of the organization are told the plan for every operation planned. Disseminating information to the lowest ranking individuals so that objectives and missions can be completed by the last man standing is one key element to all military operations. But does that work for all companies? Is that special to military planning and execution of those plans? I submit that it does not work for all companies, but it does work very well for most others. That is only one example, I am sure that leaders in their companies could come up with other examples of what works for them (list them in the comments section below please).

EACH EMPLOYEE MUST BE IMPORTANT OR FIRED.

In this downturned economy, when everyone is taking severe measures to ensure their business' survival, it is tough to talk about firing people. Laying people off, downsizing, reorganizing, reprioritizing assets -- whatever you want to call it -- it is hard to talk about now. But the main problem in any business is that people don't feel important. They don't feel like they are contributing. And they have no loyalty to their companies. Paychecks are the key to staying employed at one place versus another. Most people who get a better opportunity to work somewhere else will take it if it has better benefits or pays more. Of course, with this economy, that may be less true. People may want to stay where they think they have more seniority right now. But the truth is that there is very little loyalty in today's workplace. So evaluations are cold and mainly useless. People know that there are more important jobs, and "more important people", in positions higher then theirs. And they know for the most part who is on the chopping block first and next. Each slot must be evaluated in a way that identifies the need for the position, and also the kind of person that best fills the position. Any other way is unfair to the company and leads to excess personnel and other wasted efforts. I am NOT saying fire everyone. But I am saying that these tough times require another look at the evaluation processes from the top down.

KEEPING YOUR JOB

In any economy, the people who are most respected are those who can do a good job making their boss's jobs easier. In real terms, an employee who can do their boss's job is the most valuable asset in the company. But doesn't that lead to unnecessary competition? My opinion is that it leads to healthy competition and cooperation. A team with interdependence on one another can effectively do the work of many more individuals trying to accomplish the same tasks. You need all the work to be completed, but teams that cover each others' weaknesses and strengthen each others' performance will always outperform individuals. People working at their own pace with their own individual ideas of how the work should be done cannot compete. Building a team that operates efficiently together is the easiest way to keep your job.  Every successful company needs highly functioning teams and leaders who are capable of building those teams, keeping them motivated, and challenging them to perform well each day.

APPLYING THESE CONCEPTS

Every month leaders must evaluate which teams and team members are functioning the best. It is up to the leadership in each company to determine, in a very dilberate and non-biased way, who is contributing to the benefit of the company, who is just contributing enough to keep their job, and who is not contributing at all. That is how evaluations should be applied, not just by seniority and/or cost of employee's salary.