Raise the bar. This tactic involves raising the bar, that is, setting more difficult performance standards.
In my consulting practice I frequently encounter managers who say that they’ve made efforts to raise the bar for their teams but have seen few payoffs. Upon closer observation, these failures can always be traced to one of these factors:
• The manager’s message that the team must raise its performance level wasn’t credible. This manager is like the angry parent who, upon receiving a poor report card from his child, issues vague threats that “this better not happen again,” only to forget entirely about the incident until next time it occurs. The child, knowing the game well, learns to lay low until the entire situation blows over and things return to normal.
• The new performance expectations were unilaterally presented by the manager with no input from the team.
• The new performance standards were too vague or addressed performance factors that were well outside the team’s control.
• The team felt that the manager’s new performance standards were completely unattainable.
• The manager created consequences that were at odds with desired performance.
To overcome these roadblocks, consider these two steps. First, dramatically raise your expectations on a few key performance measures. Focus your efforts on the vital few performance areas most important to your teams survival.
Second, select performance goals that can be measured. The performance goals you select should include a definite time frame, focus on discrete performance areas, be quantifiable, and be worded in such a way as to be relatively free from ambiguity. If you aren’t sure whether your performance goals meet these criteria, ask your team and a trusted associate to help you troubleshoot them.
