Motivating Employees and Creating a Performance Culture
Issue 13
June, 2013
Global recession has taken a toll on companies and employees. Pay freezes, fewer
people to do the work, and high rates of unemployment create stress and uncertainty
for everyone. So as a leader, what can you do to create a positive environment that
demonstrates appreciation to your team and fosters commitment and productivity?
AON Hewitt reports that for North America, the top two drivers for positive employee
engagement are career opportunities (is there growth potential) and performance
management (clear expectations and feedback).
Deloitte highlighted other performance management trends including:
Traditional Approach
Emerging Trends
Hierarchical Authority
Networked Authority
Directing Leader
Coaching Leader
External Rewards
Internal Rewards
Fixed Organization
Matrix Organization
Annual Cycle Feedback
Just-in-time Feedback
Weakness Based
Strength Based
Bound by Location
Work Globally
Knowing the emerging trends can help you evolve and enhance your leadership style
as you seek to create a supportive and engaging performance culture.
"Start with good people,
lay out the rules,
communicate with your
employees, motivate them
and reward them. If you
do all those things
effectively, you can't
miss."
Lee Iacocca - American
businessman and author
Leadership Actions to Grow a Performance Culture
So, how consistently and/or effectively are you doing the following:
 Creating tight alignment between individual work and organizational
objectives to promote greater context, commitment and pride in
accomplishment
 Ensuring clarity of outcome which is foundational for increased employee
performance and on-going measurement of progress and feedback
 Considering coaching conversations as a critical part of your role
 Using stretch assignments to ensure talent is fully utilized and maximized
 Providing necessary tools/resources and removing barriers to
performance
 Creating an on-the-spot feedback culture from a variety of sources
including peers, customers, etc.
 Maintaining a fair and valid assessment process employees can trust
 Seeking multi-layered views with customer feedback, peer reviews, social
media comments, operational data and/or business partner feedback
 Providing tools to encourage peer recognition and strength-based
feedback
If you would like to explore becoming a stronger performance coach or developing a
performance culture in your organization, please contact me at
tambryharris@bellsouth.net or 704-281-9637.
Virginia Community Capital needed to
kick-start and institutionalize a culture
around performance management.
We needed to systematically identify
the goals, results and expected
behaviors for each team member. As
the CEO of a fast-paced, rapidly
growing company, finding the time and
resources needed to create a this
culture was problematic. Through
Tambry's leadership, we articulated
success for each employee at VCC and
are managing our teams through
clearly articulated goals and
measurable outcomes. Many
managers worked with Tambry one-onone to further utilize her expertise
around the mechanics of preparing an
effective performance plan. Tambry's
tailored approach allowed leaders with
30 years of supervisory responsibilities
to learn more effective ways to coach
employees!
Jane Henderson,
CEO and President of Virginia
Community Capital