Enforcing Team Culture AND Individual Performance

The Problem

Most businesses with more than one employee will put formalised reviews in place to monitor individuals’ performance. We’ve all been through them at some time or other and they will have been useful to a point (albeit usually a fairly blunt one!).

How many employers, managers and team leaders though take the time to critically evaluate each individual’s cultural contribution to the business? Not many, it is fair to say. It is usually taken as a given, that if a team member ceases to be culturally aligned, they will leave. Unfortunately this often doesn’t happen, at least not before some real damage has been don to the rest of the team and/or the business.

Almost unbelievably, it may even be the performance review (and reward) process a business has in place that may create the problem for the business and, rather than help the culturally UNaligned to self select and resign, may actually encourage them to both stay and up the ante with their culturally damaging behaviour.

Why?

Well, if we reward purely on the basis of performance – “He may be an unlikable SOB but he sure gets results” – then we encourage the culturally poor behaviour and there is no incentive for that individual to change.

Worse still under this scenario, the work environment for the good people in your team is likely become intolerable. And, as good performers are always in demand they will leave if they feel the grass may be greener elsewhere, or where at least they don’t have to share that grass with someone they can’t stand.

After all, if we are all going to spend 1/3 of every day at work why would you stay in a business with people you didn’t respect, if you didn’t need to?

One Solution

So what can we do about it? How can we pro-actively create a winning performance environment that also encourages a great internal culture?

Firstly, recognise openly with all of the team that culture is important and explain that positive cultural contribution will be rewarded – with an emphasis on the need to achieve both.

Secondly, actively rank every team member according to;
a) their individual performance and
b) their contribution to a positive internal culture.

We recommend ranking on a scale of -10 to +10 for each. Such that a zero score is effectively a ‘just pass’.

For example, if an employee scores a +2 for their cultural contribution and a +3 for their performance, they would be seen as making a positive impact upon both and therefore would be someone the business would definitely want to retain. Similarly if another employee scored a -1 for performance and an 8 for culture, they are great for the team but need a little extra training/help to get their performance up.

By ranking each staff member this way, you can then plot their combined scores on a graph which will then allocate them each into 4 clear, and very useful, quadrants. Two of which give a very clear action path and two of which can be a bit more tricky to deal with.

The top right quadrant – positive contributions both for individual performance and team culture are our Ideal team Members – these are the people we should hold up as an example to the others and should be where, ultimately we try to make sure ALL of our team reside.

The bottom left quadrant – negative performance and cultural contributions are effectively being treated as a charity by the business. By definition they are not contributing, yet they remain to the detriment both of the business’s performance and the rest of team’s enjoyment of work – they should be helped to find a job somewhere more appropriate NOW!

The bottom right quadrant is interesting. These are people who aren’t performing as we’d like but they do make a positive contribution. Train and educate if you can, give the the chance to get up into the top right quadrant as they are the type of people we want about. They will need a time-frame to get there though, and if they can’t then help them to find a more appropriate role, either within the organisation or elsewhere.

The top left quadrant is possibly even more interesting as these are the people who appear to contribute performance-wise but that have a negative impact upon the rest of the team. These people are sometimes referred to as terrorists because they can infect a business from the inside reeking cultural havoc and making the lives of the good citizens miserable. And most of the time, because they are high performers, the damage goes unnoticed until it is way too late. If you have any of these in the ranks, don’t despair, some may just need to be educated as to what is expected and manged accordingly – put a clear time-frame on an improvement and explain clearly what is expected and why, and if they respond positively you will have another member of the top right quadrant in no time. If they don’t, or can’t make the required changes then don’t be seduced by apparent performance, hiring costs as a result of others leaving will soon account for any profit they may bring in on their own.

An excel version of our Staff Culture & Performance scoresheet will be available for a limited time free of charge. If you’d like to see how your team looks, add a comment to this post or get in touch with us HERE.

Quick disclaimer;

This blog is provided as general advice only.
Please note that whatever action you choose to take with any of your staff members make sure that you are fully aware of the rules, regulations and relevant labour laws in your industry and jurisdiction and ensure your actions fully account for these. If in any doubt seek appropriate advice to ensure that you are doing the right thing – for you, the business, the staff member(s) and the relevant legal authorities.