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It's not a bad word--only badly done
Goals--yours, your team's, and your reports'
Execution
Yes, firing people is sometimes necessary
But so is promoting them
You are a team lead/manager of a team
You have hiring/firing authority
You are responsible for the team performance
... or you are interested in becoming one
Your primary interest is in growing your team
... even to the point of leaving it!
You understand the term "psychological safety"
"It's the part of the job that made me go back to being an individual contributor. So. Much. Stress."
Anonymous (personal conversation)
"... the process of creating a work environment in which people are enabled to perform to the best of their abilities."
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance-management-1918226
"Performance management is an ongoing process of communication between a supervisor and an employee that occurs throughout the year, in support of accomplishing the strategic objectives of the organization. The communication process includes clarifying expectations, setting objectives, identifying goals, providing feedback, and reviewing results."
https://hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/managing-successfully/performance-management/concepts
"Performance management is an interconnected set of tools used to measure and improve the effectiveness of people in the workplace. High-performing organizations use performance management to achieve three goals: to develop individuals' skills and capabilities, to reward all employees equitably, and to drive overall organizational performance."
Guide to Performance Management, Harvard Business Review
it's not about you (the manager); it's about your people
it's about making other people (your team) better
give them the guidance to grow
provide them the room to make mistakes
ensure a steady communication channel
Setting clear expectations
Holding the team and team members accountable
Providing consistent feedback
(And then taking action on those results!)
You meet with your boss; you're excited because you've been doing a lot of "extra" things this quarter
Your boss tells you that your performance hasn't been great
When you ask what you're supposed to be doing, they can't offer a clear answer
Or, worse, this isn't the same boss you had the last performance conversation with
Have you seen the job description for your job since your hire?
Ever seen a job description for hiring into your team or role?
Does it (either of them) actually reflect what you're doing on a daily basis?
Comprehensible
Measurable
Actionable
BAD: "Synergize with the latest upward trends in disruptive technology paradigms"
Explain to me like I'm 15
GOOD: "Display solid understanding of core CS fundamental concepts"
BAD: "Writes good code" -- what does good code look like? Seriously!
Measurable expectations have trackable numbers
GOOD: "Spend 5% of work time providing input on others' work"
WARNINGS:
Goodhart's Law: "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."
Campbell's Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
BAD: "Keep up with latest technology trends"
Does the employee have the ability to do the thing?
GOOD: "Use 10% of work time in discretionary technology learning"
Don't trust your gut; write it all down
Make sure your rubric has room above 100%
Write it such that anyone could evaluate using it
Exceeds expectatons: Code is well-organized: each method does one and only one thing, methods are named correctly, and length is less than 20 lines in length. Engineers who have never seen the code before can look at the code and understand it well enough to offer up a description of its implementation in less than an hours' worth of review. Comments provide implementation insight, not just re-stating the obvious.
Meets expectations. Code solves the problem it sets out to solve, but could be optimized (it uses a brute-force algorithm instead of something more efficient, it creates a number of temporary objects that could be removed, and so on). Other team members reviewing the code have questions about its implementation after less than an hours' worth of review.
Needs improvement. Code contains numerous violations of DRY (don't repeat yourself) or SOLID principles. Implementation does not conform to our coding conventions and/or requires significant fixes. Code contains comments that are either redundant, recursive (A says to see B, B says to see A), or non-existent. Other engineers require much more than an hour to understand anything about the code.
"accountability" is not a bad thing
but it has become a bad word in CorporateLand
"I'm holding you accountable" is often a threat
we should all be held accountable for our efforts/choices/outcomes
there is no "I" in "TEAM"
... but teams are made up of individuals
where do we draw the line(s) between...
team accountability
individual accountability
in particular, never:
hold the team accountable to an individual's behavior
hold the individual accountable to a team's behavior
keep in mind: your accountability is the team's success!
can't hold people accountable to things they don't know
doing so only increases stress
and doesn't really accomplish much
peer pressure (between the team members)
listen to the team's chatter carefully
are they holding each other accountable?
are they blaming each other for failures?
psych-safe teams admit failure and embrace help
responsibilities owned by the team
project deadlines
outages/incidents
deployment failures
how does the team protect against mistakes?
team success doesn't mean every individual succeeded
and vice versa
high-performing teams cover for and help each other
psych-safety is paramount to collective behavior
individuals contribute to the larger whole
is that contribution clearly defined?
does that individual have the skills?
are they not communicating their progress?
do they have the psych-safety to ask for help?
ask lots of "why" questions
keep in mind not everybody is a 1% programmer!
much more likely to see a bell curve on a team
look for contributions in other areas on the team
look for team "chatter" about that individual
if they are truly a poor performer, you now need to:
converse: find the root cause(s) as best you can
coachprovide concrete and specific direction on what needs to improve
consider: look for evidence that the feedback and coaching is taking effect
again, don't leap to any immediate conclusions
don't just focus on "skill"
also look at "will"
actions speak louder than words
once identified, choose between:
"keep": if they're meshing well, they might pull the team up
"transfer": if the team is not responding, move the high-performer
... is more than telling your directs when they've screwed up
... is critical to effective performance management
... needs to be distinguished between team and individuals
... needs to be consistent, concrete, and clear
... and how well is that working for you?
How good is anybody going to be under that approach?
Formal reviews lack two elements of effectiveness:
Timeliness: way too removed from the moment
Concreteness/Specifificity: way too abstract
Constantly
Always be looking for opportunities/ways to provide feedback
(If it's good enough for software, why not people too?)
Half your time (as a manager) should be giving feedback
A: of course not
There's lots of different kinds of feedback
Use the appropriate approach for the moment
Formal reviews
usually as mandated by HR
often form the employee's "permanent record"
typically a prereq to promotions, raises, PIPs, etc
reserved for individual feedback
NOTE: these should never contain surprises
1:1s
not the only purpose of a 1:1
but an incredibly convenient time to do it
reserved for individual feedback
always make sure to follow praise or guidance with "why"
Standups
good place to put team feedback
keep the feedback short
if the feedback is team guidance, put that into a diff meeting
Team huddle
these are longer, weekly team meetings
generally more social, more news-based
also good for team feedback
Ad-hoc
seize the moment!
... but don't distract from it
"Praise publicly, criticize privately"
Keep in mind your target's personality
In a psych-safe environment, guidance isn't bad
Personal observations
Metrics
"Side-to-side" (their peers') feedback
"Up-and-over" (your peers') feedback
Self-review
Anonymous vs nominative feedback
Popular ideas
"Feedback sandwich"
"Radical candor"
Neither is great, honestly
"the research is clear: Telling people what we think of their performance doesn't help them thrive and excel, and telling people how we think they should improve actually hinders learning."
"The Feedback Fallacy"; HBR, March-April 2019
Theory of the Source of Truth
the employee may not realize the truth of what is going on, so it is your job to point out the truth to the employee
Theory of Learning
the employee lacks certain skills they need; they need the feedback to develop the skills they're missing, and you're in a position to be able to tell them how to get them.
Theory of Excellence
great performance is universal, analyzable, and describable; once defined, it can be transferred from one person to another, regardless of who each individual is
Each of these three theories is wrong
Each centers around our own self-centeredness
"They take our own expertise and what we are sure is our colleagues' inexpertise as givens; they assume that my way is necessarily your way. But as it turns out, in extrapolating from what creates our own performance to what might create performance in others, we overreach."
Look for outcomes, not process or approach
Replay your own instinctive reactions; "did you see what you just did there?"
Never lose sight of your highest-priority interrupt: find what somebody is doing excellently, and calling it out (the "avast" rule)
Explore the past, present, future
Ask them what is working for them right now?
Ask them what they did around this problem in the past?
Ask them future-facing questions: What do they already know to do? What do they already know works in this situation?
Repeat: "keep doing this"
Reward: "this was above and beyond"
Release: "this is not acceptable and requires correction"
Nobody enjoys giving corrective feedback
lots of people take it personally
lots of managers do it badly
lots of bad stories start out with it
But in a psych-safe team, corrective feedback is just as powerful as praise; more so, in many cases, because it means the employee can now take action to improve and get the review rating they want
Correction
informal
formal
... and its extreme, Termination
and Rewards
informal
formal
what is the root problem?
dissociation from tasks and responsibilities
reduced output and/or quality of work
recurrent tardiness or absenteeism
discouraged demeanor
unprofessional conduct
make sure you can substantively describe it
supporting evidence is necessary
don't assume the evidence is there; find it
be very aware of Fundamental Attribution Error
time for a more formal conversation
you may or may not want HR involved
if they are, this may be the first step in a formal process
if they aren't, you may still need to take that first step later
your direct needs to know this is serious
spend 25% talking, 75% listening; try questions like:
How well are you handling your current workload?
Do you see any areas where your performance could improve?
Do you see how your work benefits others or the organization?
Is there something "going on" outside of work?
What frustrates you about your job? Are there areas that you feel ill-equipped to handle?
Do you feel like you're playing to your strengths?
goal is to understand the situation, not find a solution
you are here to work with your employee, not fix them
reflect and consult
are you maybe at fault somewhat here?
have any of your peers been in a similar situation?
document, document, document: write everything down
your notes will be Exhibit A in any future performance conversation
if things don't improve after a (planned) time, get HR involved
if you need to fire somebody, you need HR involved
no ifs, ands, or buts about this
they are there to guide you through this
keep in mind, nobody likes firing somebody
except sociopaths
lots of managers have regretted firing "too late"
but no manager I've ever talked to regretted firing "too early"
again, except for sociopaths
then, when it's done, go out, get a drink, and reflect
what could you have done differently?
what did they need to do differently?
what signs were there that you missed?
then, get over it
you still have a team to run
Two basic flavors of rewards:
Official rewards -- requires HR's participation
Unofficial rewards -- no HR required (but may be desired)
Generally the unofficial are easier to disburse
Make sure to keep intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation in mind
Title
Salary
Bonus
Recognition
Promotion/Movement
Recognition/Kudos
Party!
Swag
New technology ("Scout") opportunities
Research spike/prototype
Conference/training
Choice of tasks or harder challenges
Mentoring
Working condition adjustments
Policy adjustment/interpretation
some will need to follow the company calendar
particularly promotions, bonuses, etc
others can be done at any time
be consistent, but be generous
... is not hard
it does require skills you (probably) were never taught
but these are skills, just like languages or databases
embrace that these are humans
and therefore nondeterministic
which means you're constantly learning
grow your people out of their jobs
"On Managing People" (Harvard Business Review)
HBR is one of the best resources any manager can have
"Five Dysfunctions of a Team" (Lencioni)
Lencioni is a well-known, well-respected management author
"Why Motivating People Doesn't Work (and What Does)" (Fowler)
by far the best book on motivation I've ever found
"Managing Humans" (Lopp)
very tactically focused on leading engineering teams
"Managing the Unmanageable" (Loehr, Kaye)
it's like Stephen King wrote a horror novel for managers
"Managing the Unmanageable" (Mantle, Lichty)
same title, same topic, very different perspectives
Who is this guy?
Architect, Engineering Manager/Leader, "force multiplier"
Principal -- Neward & Associates
http://www.newardassociates.com
Educative (http://educative.io) Author
Performance Management for Engineering Managers
Author
Professional F# 2.0 (w/Erickson, et al; Wrox, 2010)
Effective Enterprise Java (Addison-Wesley, 2004)
SSCLI Essentials (w/Stutz, et al; OReilly, 2003)
Server-Based Java Programming (Manning, 2000)