Performance Management Unit 2

Performance Management
Unit 2 – Planning Managee Performance and Development

Basic Concepts
Why set Objectives?
The reasons for setting objectives are,
 An improved understanding of individual roles, what is expected of each individual and the
respective role accountabilities.
 More effective vertical and horizontal integration of goals and tasks in the organization.
 Concrete and valid context to interpret inter-role communication vertical as well as
horizontal.
 Basis to build and expect commitment to integrated role objectives and outcomes.
 More optimal use of individual forte and potential by matching goals with capacities.
 Higher-level work motivation through self direction and control within the territory of
specified accountability.
 Well-founded bases for planning and control
 Reduced inter-role conflict, resulting in improved relations across the organization,
including those between a manager and her managees.
 Increased super-ordination, providing the role occupant with a sense of relevance to the
organizational mission and some socially – accepted purpose.
Organizational and Individual Performance Plans

Convergent goals and expectations in an organization for group and individual
performance would naturally flow from the organization’s performance plans, as follows,
 The organization’s mission and goals and its long-range or strategic plans normally spell
out:
 The organization’s annual operating plans, circumscribing the team or project-level
performance goals.
 Organizational values and work ethics to be observed in course of achieving the goals.
 Organization-wide job descriptions, indicating skills and competencies needed.
Dr.G.Bhuvaneswari,Professor, SNGIMS
 Annual Operating plans and work ethics of the organization feed into objectives and
strategies of the various organizational sub-units – departments, divisions, groups, branches,
teams, projects, etc., and the individual manage roles – their role description and
performance targets.
Job descriptions contain goals and responsibilities of each job. A suggestive basic job
description format is as follows,
Employee Name Job Title

Department Supervisor Title
Date Employed Current Grade / Level
I. JOB SUMMARY
II. RESPONSIBILITIES
III. TASKS
IV. AUTHORITY
• Spending authority
• Autonomy
• Supervision
V. CONTACTS & KEY RELATIONSHIPS (Key internal and external relationships and
contracts)
VI. WORKING CONDITIONS (Describe special working conditions, e.g. percentage of
travel, hardship locations, etc.)
VII. QUALIFICATIONS
• Education
• Experience
• Certificates / Licenses
• Competencies
• Languages (State whether “required” or preferred”)
Approved by: Date
Job description informs performance standards for the job and expected results in terms
of the levels of responsibility measured through the usual quality, quantity, time and cost
dimensions. Traditional job descriptions don’t adequately take into account the increasing
interdependence in organizational work where an individual’s effectiveness depends a lot on
what other people do and not merely on what she herself does, which is what most job
descriptions are limited to.
 Individual Objectives respond essentially to (a) annual operating plans of the organization,
(b) The managee’s special projects and her individual performance plan against which her
performance will be appraised and (c) Competencies required for fulfilling the objectives.
These competencies are usually the same as contained in the job description. Objectives
determine the individual’s indicators of achievement, which embody expected results in
terms of the tasks completed and measured, again, through the usual quality, quantity, time
and cost dimensions.
 Individual Performance Plans incorporate the tasks to be completed, performance standards
and the indicators of achievement.
Levinson suggests integrating goals of the organization with personal objectives of the
individual. According to him, the highest point of self-motivation is reached when personal
needs of the managee and objectives of the organization ‘mesh, interrelate and become
synergistic’. This does not, necessarily, mean compromising the organizational goals. This
means that within the scope of the organization’s vision and indealistic mission, the organization
sets objectives, which include motives of the managees for becoming part of the organization.
All these provide the logical basis for distinguishing ‘role description’ from ‘job
description’. Performance planning, systematically carried out, can make the managees more
committed to their role tasks and responsibilities. Since performance planning brings about
greater clarity as regards the;
 Tasks and their attributes,
 Performance standards and indicators,
 Fit between manage competencies and the role demands,
 Balance between the support and resources managees need to accomplish the planned
goals and those that will actually be available, and
 Bases for appraisal.
The managees can work with greater confidence and fewer errors or false steps.
Research Base for Performance Planning and Goal-setting

A. Goal setting Theory:
Setting goals at work can help a managee incorporate ways to meet her personal and
professional needs, thereby optimizing goal congruence between her and the organization.
Research confirms that goal-setting improves managee performance at all levels – managerial as
well as non-managerial – over extended periods of time, in different kinds of organizations.
Goals describe a desired future state. Well-articulated goals help focus managee
behavior, and motivate her to achieve the desired and stipulated end-state. According to Gordon,
goals vary on three dimensions: (1) Specificity, (2) Difficulty and (3) Acceptance.
Specificity of goals means the extent to which these are clear to all concerned, to which
their accomplishment is observable and measurable.
Goal Difficulty is the level of performance desired in relation to the managee’s
capability, and can vary significantly.
The managee’s acceptance of the goals that have been set, will determine her
commitment to accomplishing them. Imposed or assigned goals are generally less likely to be
owned by a managee, compared to those jointly set between a manager and her managee. A
managee will accept goals, depending on whether she perceived the goals as reasonable, is
herself self-assured, and has had previous successes in fulfilling goals. Accepted goals have
more chances of being achieved and fulfilled.
David A. Kolb and Richard E. Boyatzis have described their research work, which
provides a powerful rationale for performance planning and goal-setting. They rely on the cite
the work of several other researchers, and view the theory and research findings on goal-setting
in response to the following three questions.
A. Does conscious goal-setting facilitate goal achievement?
B. How does successful or unsuccessful goal-achievement affect goal setting?
C. How does goal-setting affect success in goal-achievement? What characteristics of
the goal-setting process are related to the subsequent success or failure in goal-
achievement?
Does conscious goal-setting facilitate goal achievement? Kausler suggests a positive correlation
between stating the level of aspiration and subsequent performance. Successful goal attainment
is related to conscious goal-setting, awareness of forces related to the goal, high expectations of
success, high psychological safety, a concern for measuring progress and an emphasis on self-
evaluation.
How does successful or unsuccessful goal-achievement affect goal setting? Studies carried out
by Festinger, Frank, Lewin and other show that success increases aspirations; and failure, to a
lesser extent, decreases aspirations. According to these findings, there seems a direct correlation
between goal-achievement and goal-setting.
How does goal-setting affect success in goal-achievement? What characteristics of the goal-
setting process are related to the subsequent success or failure in goal-achievement? For
performance management and planning, this is perhaps the most crucial issue. The following
characteristics seem to stand out as significant:
 Recognizing the Role of Causality:
According to Konrad Lorenz, while all life processes are directed at goals and purposes, they
are, at the same time, determined by causality.
 Non-Directive Facilitation and Organizational Data:
Carl Rogers’ client centered therapy considers that the therapist’s task is to create, in a non-
directive way, conditions, which facilitate self-inquiry and personal growth in the client.
 Self-Awareness:
Kolb, Winter and Berlew suggest self-awareness reflection on one’s own behaivour,
including task behavior in the context of performance improvement – as a major influence on
self-directed change. Self-awareness helps one select a manageable, well-defined goal, which
one strives to achieve.
 Pro-active Competence Motivation:
Several behavior change studies, reported by Kolb, McClelland, Litwin and Aronoff, support
that a dominant goal, or an achievement desire in one’s consciousness, causes an
achievement-related behavior towards that goal. Likert, and McGregor, hold that productivity
and satisfaction are greater when the worker sets her own goals.
 Aware Goal Focus:
By asking a managee to say what she is going to specifically do to improve her job
performance, the manager is in effect asking the managee to achieve the goal(s).
 Pygmalion Effect:
According to Goldstein, and Frank, one’s expectation of success or failure can in fact,
determine one’s actual success or failure.
 Psychological Safety:
Individuals who are successful in achieving their change goals, show in their initial goal
choice, more indications that they expect success than do individuals who are not successful
in achieving their goal. Maslow, Rogers, McClelland, and Schein, all consider the level of
psychological safety to be central to successful change.
 Measurability of the Change-goal:
According to Kolb, Winter and Berlew, measurability of the change goal, or information-
feedback related to one’s change goal is essential for achievement of that goal. It is
important, therefore, that one’s change goal be formulated such that feedback from others
and the environment could suggest modifications in it.
 Self-controlled Evaluation:
Individuals who are successful in achieving their change goals are more likely to consider
measuring progress toward their goal than those who are not successful. Self-controlled
evaluation helps the process of goal-achievement.
 Control of Reinforcement:
Individuals who are successful in achieving their change goals will be more likely to feel that
the control of reinforcement that they receive during the change process rests with
themselves than those who are not successful.
 Process of Goal Choice:
The process of goal choice used during the Kolb and Boyatzis research characterized:
I. Self-evaluation by the sample individuals, who were asked to
1. Identify your major strengths and weaknesses as you see them.
2. Identify areas in which you really want to change.
3. List why you feel these changes are desirable.
II. Focus. The participants were asked to
1. Describe as accurately and concretely as possible, one measurable goal that you have
chosen to work toward.
2. List considerations that influenced your choice of this particular goal.
3. List, how you plan to measure your progress toward this goal. How will you know
when you have attained it? What change will be observable to others?
III. Anticipating the change process through the following activity:
Given the choice of the goal as above, list the factors in yourself, in other people, and in
the environment which will help or hinder your goal achievement.
Cybernetic model of behavior-change process. Kolb et.al., found some characteristics of the
goal-setting process which are associated with successful self-directed change; and gave some
clues about the nature of the intervening variables in this process. These goal-setting
characteristics fit into a cybernetic model of the change process, as follows;
Psychological Safety
Behaviour Change Goal Awareness

Supportiveness
Collaborative
Manipulation
Goal-setting
Helping
intervention Emphasis on
Selective
s Self-direction
Reinforcement
Self Control
Feedback from the Environment
Behrviour Monitoring Manipulation

& Control of Expectations
Attempts to Achieve the Goal Expectation of Success
Implications for Helping Interventions: On the basis of this cybernetic model, Kolb et.al.,
suggest some intervention strategies that can create more effective helping relationships with
individuals seeking change. Seven types of intervention are suggested, which may help break the
self-defeating cycle of failure described above.
Characteristics of Goal setting process Helping-Interventions
1. Psychological Safety Supportiveness
2. Goal Awareness Collaborative Goal-setting
3. Self-Control Emphasis on Self-direction
4. Expectations of Success Negotiating Expectations
5. Attempts to Achieve the Goal Behaviour Monitoring and Control
6. Feedback from the Environment Selective Reinforcement
7. Behaviour Change Manipulating or Steering Results of Change
Behaviour Change and Helping - Interventions
Let us now understand the seven interventions suggested:

1. Supportiveness. In Carl Rogers’ work supportive strategy primarily means increasing
the client’s security and self-confidence through unconditional positive regard, empathy
and genuineness. Truax and Carkhuff also show that these three characteristics promote
constructive change.
2. Collaborative Goal-setting. The three variables – unconditional positive regard,
empathy and genuineness also promote intra-personal exploration by the individual.
Supportive intervention, aimed at increasing psychological safety, thus, also improves the
individual’s self-awareness via intra-personal exploration. A process of collaborative
goal-setting, using these three processes, becomes highly effective in increasing
awareness of improvement goals.
3. Emphasis on Self-direction. The principles of personal responsibility and voluntary
commitment to change are central parts of behavior change methodology. Sustainable
change does not occur until the changee overcomes her dependence upon the changer,
and achieves self-direction.
4. Negotiating Expectations. Research evidence on the impact of an individual’s
expectations on her chances for successful self-change has already been presented.
Rosenthal and Jocobson have shown that manipulation of expectations can produce the
desired behavior change.
5. Behaviour Monitoring and Control. Behaviour improvement attempts encourage
behavior consistent with a constructive personality. According to Schwitzgebel and Kolb,
etc., behavior change occurs in two ways – stimulus control and modeling. In stimulus
control methods, changes in environmental conditions which serve as stimuli for
behavioural responses are used to increase the probability of a desired response, or
decrease that of a response to be avoided.
Behaviour monitoring is another method, successfully used to elicit goal-directed
behavior. According to Zach, Goldiamond and Schwitzgebel, individuals are constantly
reminded of the goal they are attempting to reach when continuous feedback on progress
towards the specified goal is provided, producing more attempts to move toward that goal.
6. Selective Reinforcement. Schwitzgebel and Kolb, etc., have shown successful use of the
strategy of manipulating environmental feedback to provide positive reinforcement. As a
result, it has been possible to alter such insignificant behaviours as the use of pronouns,
and also major behavioural patterns sees as delinquency.
7. Manipulating or Steering Results of Change. It means interpreting or organizing the
achievements of an individual such that these provide a launching pad for better
performance and strengthen the individual’s motivation to accomplish better
performance. Past performance, in this manner, becomes a useful input for future
planning.
B. Goal setting as an Antecedent for Performance:

Goals become antecedents that elicit improved performance when, an reaching the goal,
 The individual is reinforced externally with praise and internally with self-reinforcement.
 Goal-setting plus self-feedback promote the learning of self-management and self-directed
behavior – supervisees learn to set their own task goals and to reinforce themselves for
reaching them, thereby functioning like true origins rather than mere pawns.
 The nature of the supervisor-supervisee relationship is critical to the success of a goal-setting
program. ‘High productivity crews had supervisors who were more accessible and who gave
more training, instruction and explanation.
 Supervisees ‘that participated in goal-setting set higher goals, accomplished their goals more
often, and produced more’ than those for whom the goals were assigned, or the ones who
were given vague goals like being urged to do their best.
 Formal goal-setting programs signify the supervisory as well as the top management support,
which provide ‘stimulation, counseling and encouragement’ to the supervisee.
 The supervisor plays a critical role in setting this process in action – a subordinate is likely to
set inappropriate goals (too low or too high). Supervisors can guide subordinates in setting
specific, appropriate (difficult but attainable) goals. The supervisor can also provide positive
consequences for improved performance. Once set in motion, self-monitoring provides
feedback which prompts self-reinforcement and additional goal-setting’, reducing the
supervisor’s role in maintaining the process ‘with intermittent reinforcement for setting
goals, recording data and improving performance.’
Components of Managee Performance and Development Plan
Four components of this process, i.e.,
(i) Role Description
(ii) Performance Standards or the Best Achievement
(iii) Special and Developmental Assignments and
(iv)Outcomes of Most Recent Stocktaking
Planning Managee Performance and Development
Establishing Mutual Expectations for Performance and Development
Performance Outcomes
Special and
Role Standards or The of the Most
Developmental
Description Best Recent
Assignments
Achievement Stocktaking
Role Description
Role Description is a comprehensive, yet precise, currently relevant description of a
managee’s assigned role in the organization, which must form a basis for planning the
performance and development of managees.
Minimally, a role description must set out:
 Purpose of the role, its overall aim – what the role holder is expected to achieve and
contribute. It is an essential basis for performance planning and expectation – setting.
 Primary responsibilities or key-performance areas of the role – it’s principal
accountabilities that describe the main deliverables, and against which objectives or
targets, and performance standards are mutually agreed.
 Key job competencies and behaviours. Key job competencies correspond to the
organization’s core competencies, competencies and behaviours required of similar other
roles, as well as those that are specific to the individual role being described.
Role ambiguity, according to Gordon, implies that a role holder is not adequately clear
about the organizational expectations from her task role. Kahn and his associates suggest six
types of information that reduce role ambiguity:
 Expectations of others,
 Requisite activities for a managee to perform – and how, and the interpersonal and role
relations needed to fulfill these expectations.
 The consequences of performing or not performing behaviours needed to fulfill
legitimate expectations of others.
 Formal reward and punishment system of the organization.
 Operational aspects of the formal as well as social norms that give a managee the
experience of being rewarded or punished for her behavior or attitudes, as also rewards
and punishments actually awarded.
 Valence of rewards to the managee’s personal needs – for which the managee has
undertaken a particular role, as well as the treat that punishments constitute.
Role Stress: Role ambiguity, as well as role conflict and role overload can create dysfunctional
role stress in a managee. These may occur on account of:
 Role holder and the relevant others in her role network, defining her role in different
ways.
 Lack of role clarity, including role holder’s clarity about role expectations.
 Role expectations from different members of her role network being in conflict.
 The extent to which the organization’s induction orientation of the managee has resulted
in successfully and appropriately socializing the managee in the organization.
Managees cope with role stress in a variety of ways. Some may experience varied degrees on
anxiety, dissatisfaction or disenchantment with their jobs, while others may make suitable
adjustments to overcome the stress.
Role Description Vs Job Description. Job description is more generic, usually covers a cluster
of similar roles in the organization, and works as an organizational standard for purposes like
staff development, recruitment and selection, and promotion. Role Description, on the other
hand, is a more specific, tailor-made description of a particular managee’s role.
Role Description Document: A detailed Role Description includes;
1. Role Purpose: It briefly spells out the overall purpose or objective of the role in an
organization, and its key responsibilities arising from the purpose or objective.
2. Position in the organogram: It locates the role in the organizational context, by defining
its vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, etc., relationships with other roles.
3. Role Responsibilities: These include overall accountability, obligation, answerability,
charge, duty, liability, onus, etc of the role occupant in respect of the tasks, goals or
functions included in the Role Purpose. Role responsibilities include the definition of
what is to be done (e.g., coordinate work of direct reports); and the outcomes of what is
done (e.g., in order to generate synergy for an efficient and economic service delivery,
optimizing the quality of service and satisfaction of all stakeholders).
4. Role Tasks: These include specific assignments, jobs, work, etc., that are attributed to the
role and which are required to be accomplished by the role occupant like, daily reporting
of sales to the branch office. Some of these tasks will respond to the core responsibilities
more directly and critically. These are sometimes called key-result areas.
5. Performance indicators: Performance indicators are those achievements, which signal
the completion of tasks that are central to fulfillment of the role responsibility –
significantly the key-result areas. Indicators are measurable areas of achievement,
without attributes of quality, numbers, time or cost. When these qualitative attributes are
added to the indicators, they become goals or targets.
6. Decision Making Function: Formally assigned powers, charge, command, control,
influence, jurisdiction, prerogative, etc., define the decision-making function of a role. It
lays down boundaries of the role, like limits up to which the role occupant can take
decisions to use finances or other resources, or to regulate staff behavior at work in order
to accomplish role tasks, or to fulfill role responsibilities. Different levels of autonomy,
i.e., decisions and actions that can be taken independently by the role holder and of
supervision – direct and indirect – may apply to different roles or to different role
occupants. Autonomy needs to be consistent with task responsibilities.
7. Network of Key Role Relationships: This network consists of critical and frequent
external and internal contacts and interactions, which must be maintained and brought to
use for achieving requisite role accomplishments.
8. Work Context: Work Context is described in terms of locations of work, extent of
outstation travel, job risks of the role, etc.
9. Academic levels: These include essential and preferred general or professional
educational requirements, memberships, certificates or licenses and language proficiency
needed for requisite role performance.
10. Previous Experience: Previous job experience levels are in terms of periods and the
levels at which the incumbent has worked in similar or relevant positions – special
achievements or awards, etc.
11. Competencies: These include core skills and abilities essential for the role; another set of
skills and abilities that are ideal – what a perfect role incumbent will possess. A
competency may be prescribed at a basic, intermediate or advanced level, depending on
the nature of a role.
Performance Standards
Organizations need performance standards, at the level of individual managees as well as
at the project or functional or programmatic levels because:
 Organizations want to standardize precise expectations.
 Managees need equitable and consistent standards for their individual performance,
comparable to others in the organization, to be monitored or assessed by.
 Managees expect that managers everywhere in the organization will use identical – at
least similar – standards to measure the performance of competing positions, e.g. an
engineering coordinator for one project will not be assessed very differently from the
engineering coordinator for another project.
 Organizations and its stakeholders, believe that predetermined performance standards do
demand a certain level of discipline and excellence from all concerned and thereby
enhance the overall quality of performance and product.
 People seem to give their best in situations where they are equitably gauged and held
accountable for measurable outcomes.
Setting Performance Standards:

Performance indicators and standards are those behavious or outcomes that,
 Have a palpable impact on task achievement.
 Help distinguish high performers from those who are not high performers.
 Are usually within reach of the managee.
Indeed, an important measure or standard is the accomplishment of task(s) as planned. Yet,
accomplishment of task(s) as planned not helpful in determining comparative performance
among comparable managees. Besides, for graduating progress at intermediate stages, it helps to
formulate indicators, which respond to distinct milestones in the process of task achievement.
While systematic job analysis more scientifically identifies performance indicators, a reasonably
current, accurate role description is a fairly reliable and simple basis for determining
performance standards and indicators.
In order to set performance standards, therefore, one needs to know the primary outputs of a
given role when its goals and responsibility are satisfactorily fulfilled, and develop indicators
that can be seen, measured and compared. The four well-recognized attributes of any task or role
are;
 The quantity of outcome
 Its quality
 The time taken to produce the outcome
 The resources used or the cost incurred to product it.
Two unresolved problems:
Given currently available technology, levels of knowledge and sophistication,
performances should not be hard to measure. Yet, there are two problem areas that remain
unresolved in quantitative terms;
1. Impact of environment in making achievement to targeting performance easy or difficult.
2. Sustainability of performance standards in a dynamic, fast changing context.
Parameters:
It is sometimes easier to develop standards, which combine two or three of the
parameters of quality, quantity, time and cost, e.g. twenty(quantity) corrected new columns
(quality) to be composed by a Composer (cost) in a newspaper press, in a shift of eight hours
(time). Managers and managees will need to determine in each case as to what combinations of
these four parameters will make the most appropriate standard.
Participatory Process:
It helps if performance planning is carried out with the involvement of the entire direct
reporting task group responding to a particular manger. This is even truer of the standards setting
process. Besides being a team-building event, it helps develop a sense of openness and equity in
the group. If carried out skillfully, this process may increase individual accountability for the
standards thus set, rather than dilute it. This process is useful in some other ways too;
a. It simultaneously helps set team standards, which in reality are part of the performance
standards for the manager.
b. In an interdependent work group, this process can ensure more connected and
coordinated performance standards among all team members, which can be monitored
laterally by colleagues as they impact their performance.
c. It provides for standards that are easier to verify, since there are more perspectives
available to develop standards and also measure performance during reviews. Standards
that are hard to verify, do not help the PfM process: on the contrary, these lead to
frustration, manipulation, and mistrust.
d. Additionally, the relevance of performance standards is understood by everyone more
clearly and holistically.
Special Assignments for Systems and Managee Development
These special or developmental assignments:
 Are non-repetitive, one-time, specific short-term projects built in the performance
plan.
 Aim at improving systems, procedures, competencies and other conditions
surrounding the role tasks, so that the role objectives are better achieved.
 Like other components of a performance plan, result in specific, time-bound
accomplishments by the individual managee during the performance year.
 Are beyond the call of the role description; and its ongoing activities carried out
directly in pursuance of the primary role responsibilities: these ongoing, integral
tasks – core of the role – are business as usual.
 The high point of these projects is their innovativeness and creativity.
System-oriented issues:
In the course of Annual Stocktaking, or during periodic review discussions, the manager or the
managee may come across problems or obstacles that seriously retard the latter’s performance.
These obstacles or problems may be local to the managee’s role; or originate from the legitimate
performance of other roles within the manager’s unit, or from the organization at large; or even
emanating from the relevant role environment external to the organization. At the time of future
performance planning, it is mandatory for the manager and the managee to seriously explore how
these problems and obstacles to the managee’s performance can be toned down, if not got rid of.
Quite a few of these problem situations could be avoided or handled better through new or
improved systems, procedures or processes.
These special assignments can, thus, be in the nature of some of the following;
 Studies to diagnose a major problem or obstacle.
 Review of existing systems, procedures or processes, where causes of problems or
obstacles are known; and modifying these such that the impact of these problems
or obstacles on the mangagee’s role performance is substantially alleviated.
 Designing hitherto non-existent systems, procedures or processes to effectively
meet certain specific contingencies.
Self-development issues:
Annual Stocktaking or review discussions might reveal areas where there is a mismatch
between competences of an individual managee and requirements of her role. This means that
the managee must learn, relearn, unlearn or update certain knowledge areas, skills, attitudes,
behaviours. This need is what the self-development issues must address. Professional self-
development aims at expanding, enhancing or improving abilities of individuals to fulfill their
roles better. Non-job related training or development activities are not undertaken as part of
performance planning, unless these are seriously impeding current performance. Self-
development activities may be on-the-job, or off-site. Off-site events invariably involve financial
support or time away from the job. Where such events are included in the performance plan,
specifies of funds and compliance with organizational policies and procedures must be insured.
Outcomes of Most Recent Stock taking:

i. Stock taking Performance:
The major focus of stock taking concern ascertaining the extent to which the performance
plan has been achieved and fulfilled. From the perspective of both the organization as well as the
managee fulfillment concerns the extent to which the performance plan has been able to use the
managee’s potential for achievement. If the performance plan has, in reality underutilized the
managee’s potential, it has neither served the organization effectively nor has it served the
managee.
From the managee perspective, it is important that a performance plan fully address her
potential. The primary mechanism for this is the role description. If the role assigned to the
managee substantially overlaps with her forte, she will be able to deliver optimal performance
with a healthy level of stress. To the extent the role description fails to use her potential
optimally, she loses the opportunity to get recognition for what she worth. To the extent that role
description exceeds her potential, the chances are that the managee might either fail to meet the
demands of the performance plan or meet these by incurring unintended costs in terms of high
stress and / or loss of developmental opportunities.
ii. Stock taking potential:
This exercise corresponds to those planned activities, which are intended to serve
managee development. These activities are incorporated because both the organizations as well
as the managee hold important stakes in the taker’s continuing development The purpose of
stocktaking is to ascertain if the anticipated development has occurred and the extent to which
this can be counted in planning future performance. For the organization, managee development
is like enhancing its productive capacities. For the managee, it enhances her likelihood of better
career prospects within the organization, or elsewhere.
The current potential of a manage is an important threshold level for basing her future
achievement on stocktaking potential as such provides an important for the next planning cycle.
Organizations use the data thus generated for future. Organization planning in terms of human
resource planning, succession planning etc.
The more enterprising of organizations use managee development to generate a

storehouse of talent so that they can more effectively capture likely opportunities when the
environment or circumstances offer these.
iii. Appraising for recognition and reward:

In stocktaking performance and stocktaking potential, a managee compares herself with her own
past performance or potential. The attempt is to improve over the past. Here, it is only in the
perspective of securing recognition or rewards that a managee completes with her roles.
Managers are called upon to appraise managees in order to decide on the relative value that a
managee holds for the organization.
When appraising, performance factors must link with the format of performance planning
and refer to concrete outcomes and actions that are directly verifiable through visible behaviour
or measurable outcomes. Potential factors will deal more with attributes like dependability,
integrity, initiative which are personal attribute of the managee, contributing important inputs for
her performance.
Appraisals can be unilateral, where a managee appraises a managee on the basis of the
perceptual and quantitative information available, and sends the supervisors for finalization,
record and reward or punishment.
The organization culture of most organizations places high value on relevant
involvement, and thus, their appraisal processes consider both the managee input and input of the
manager and other stakeholders (managee’s peers and / or clients).
After the managee, with the involvement of other actors, has arrived at her appraisal of
the managee, it is time to place it on record and for its follow up. The final outcome is
communicated to the managee in a manner that the organization considers appropriate.
Setting Mutual Expectations & Performance Criteria:

Mutually set expectations sometimes called performance agreement or contract, contain
objectives to be achieved by the managee, as well as how her achievement will be measured.
These include:
 Results to be delivered by the managee in terms of Objectives, targets and standards of
performance – quantitative and qualitative.
 Performance indicators – which list out key areas of performance achievement and
performance measures – which describe the units for measuring achievement in these key
areas. These help gauge the extent to which the objectives and standards of performance
are fulfilled.
 Profile of essential attributes – competencies and behaviours – that the managee must
display to effectively perform her role, and the evidence and measures by which these
will be assessed.
 Core operating principles or organizational values and norms, which the mange must
practice and uphold in the course of her work. These may include environmental health
and safety, product or service quality, cost-effectiveness, customer service, team
effectiveness, self and peer learning, etc.
Attributes of Useful Goals:

 Managee goals must flow from organizational goals, and also link with goals of other
related segments of the organization. Ideally, every goal in an organization must connect
with every other goal. At the very least, the managees’ goals must feed into her
manager’s goals.
 Goals are the ultimate outcomes or impacts of performance, not its activities. As such,
goals must describe these outcomes or impacts. A useful goal always aims at improving
some key result(s). Organizations define these results in terms of quantity of output,
quality of goods and services, cost, sales figures or development of new products, etc. An
additional dimension is the time taken.
 In order to be meaningful, outcomes or impacts should be measurable. These enhance the
essential control dimension in an organization’s functioning. Measurability of goals is
linked to the way that organizations define their goals or results. The most worthwhile of
goals are quantifiable and measurable some may need more effort and creativity.
 Goals become exciting if they challenge and stretch the capacities of the performer. Yet,
if they are not achievable in the estimation of the performer, they tend to discourage,
even frustrate the performer and she may give up.
 Where goals are set in a dyad, between the manager and the managee, these must be
mutually agreed upon. The acceptance of goals is a basic condition for high commitment
to accomplish them
 Goals are powerless, if they are not uniformly understood. Written goals enhance shared
understanding and are more sustainable.
 Goals must carry an optimum commitment of all concerned in the goal-setting process.
Yet, changes made elsewhere in the organization, in its environment or in the work unit
itself, may call for changes in goals as time passes.
Planning Dialogue:
As an essential preparation for the goal-setting process, the manager:
 Talks to the managee about the benefits of goal setting.
 Explains the organization’s overall goals and plans.
 Describes her own goals of the coming year.
 Invites the managee to suggest how her efforts will support the efforts of the organization
and the manager.
 Reminds the managee about what a useful goal should look like.
 Asks the managee to write about six goals for her role which she believes might be useful
in the current context.
Preparation is following by actual Planning dialogue – also sometimes called the Expectation
Setting Meeting. During this meeting, individual objectives for the managee are set. The
manager and the managee, together, look at what the managee will do during the ensuing year,
what indicators will measure her effectiveness, on what support from the manager will the
managee performance be contingent, etc.
Objectives of Planning Dialogue:

1. Develop a basic framework to ensure shared understanding of expectations what both
manager and the managee will legitimately and realistically have of each other during the
coming performance year and their respective areas of accountability to each other.
2. Share at least a minimal functional clarity about what must be accomplished through the
managee’s role in the context of the organizational goals and strategy for the year. This
should be of help to the managee in effectively micro-planning how to achieve her
allocated objectives.
3. Establish standards, indicators or other bases for measuring managee performance on the
performance plan developed.
Output of Planning dialogue:

A successful planning dialogue must result in the following:
a. A statement of objectives for the individual managee.
b. Support and resources, to be available to the managee to meet these objectives.
c. Standards for measuring performance – signposts and milestones or indicators or success
– in each objective.
Information Needed:
The information needed to develop a good performance plan is listed below;
 Job description and role description of the individual managee.
 Goals for the manager and her team.
 Organizational procedures and guidelines for performance planning.
 The organization’s format for appraisal, applicable to the managee.
 Immediately preceding appraisal of the managee, for information that may be relevant to
planning.
 Any other relevant information that either the manager or the managee, feel the need for.
Performance Planning Process:
Name of the game is involvement. The manager must get the managee fully involved in
the planning process. This is important because:
 The managee’s own knowledge and perspective used in the plan makes it more realistic
and acceptable to the managee.
 The managee is more likely to be committed to successfully achieve the plan.
 The managee will more likely approach the tasks enthusiastically if she knows the
rationale for the tasks, and how they fit into the larger organizational picture.
Performance planning process takes off, invariably, from the outcome of the previous year’s
stocktaking. At the start of the performance year, the manger interacts individually with each
managee. Towards this interaction, each of them prepares a performance plan for the managee.
 Review and update the managee role description. Ensure that both manager and the
managee have a shared understanding of the purpose, accountabilities and tasks in the
role.
 Consult the just-concluded stocktaking discussions for relevant inputs.
 Use the organization, department, project and unit objectives and performance targets to
maintain relevance and link between these and the individual performance plan.
 Prepare a tentative plan following brainstorming, or some other suitable method.
Scrutinize the means for easy verifiability of intermediate results and their cause-effect
relationship with the ultimately expected role outcomes. Be specific as for as possible.
Don’t just say – the managee will turn in regular progress reports. Specify periodicity –
weekly, fortnightly, bimonthly, etc.
 Establish individual performance indicators and standards for the plan. High standards
and expectations: challenging and achievable.
 Include personal and professional growth plan for the managee, keeping in view her
career goals, long as well as short-range.
 Develop a performance improvement plan, including improvement in systems, processes
and procedures related to the managee’s work.
 Ensure that expectations implicit in the plan are realistic. Examine feasibility in terms of
o Available time.
o Available resources.
o Support available for implementing the plan.
o Other commitments or events that may be organizationally planned, that makes
demands on the managee time.
o Managee’s strengths and limitations.
o Constraints imposed by the managee’s internal and external work environment.
o Avoid clustering several activities during the same time.
 Check that manager and the managee are clear on what support the manager and others
will provide to the managee in executing the plan. Clarify any ambiguities or doubts on
this behalf.
 Articulate concerns, if any, regarding the quality and quantity of output.
 Explore any other issues, e.g. personal styles of leadership or followership, coaching and
mentoring; general modus operandi for communication between manager and the
managee, formal and informal feedback; timings of periodic review; deadlines, etc.
 Finalize the individual managee plan and document appropriately. Include the level of
autonomy that the managee will exercise with regard to different tasks and
responsibilities and the support that the manager will ensure for her.
Sample format for a summary as a quick reference to plans:

Support
Activities Objectives Measures Timing
Required
Role Description Tasks
System-oriented Projects
Self-development Projects
Others
Sum up the discussion to make sure that the dyad have a shared understanding of the
agreed annual plan; especially on managee accountability and expectations, and as regards the
organizational support assumed for achieving the plan.
Customizing Plan for the Managee
To prepare an average managee to plan, it may be enough for the manager to share with
her,
 Organizational and department or unit goals in single language.
 Business information that may impact on, or provide the rationale for organization,
department or unit goals, such as forecasts on product or service, or changes proposed in
product or project or program line.
 Organization structure, or the staffing pattern and relevant parts of the organization’s
financial budget for the year, if known.
However, many a time, there will be managees with special needs, requiring- particular
kinds of attention. For newly-hired managees for example, who are still finding their feet in the
organization, this may be their first experience with the PM system. Some of them may feel
enthusiastic about the organized way of arriving at their assignment, while some others might
feel threatened by its rigour and formality. The manager must appropriately deal with their
enthusiasm or anxiety, so that they are able to approach this new task with a sense of realism,
rather than that of over expectation of threat.
Then there will be those known to be somewhat weak performers. A major responsibility
of the manger is to first try and reclaim them. They are presumably not so poor as to merit
separation. So, while they are with the organization, it expects as little gap between their
economic contribution and their cost to the organization. The one likely reason for their retention
is that the organization believes that they are capable of substantially better output. Their goals,
tasks and responsibilities must manifest this additional objective. The will to contribute more has
to be reinforced in the managee. The manager will have to carefully mix her managerial styles:
be directing sometime, coaching at others, and supporting when the task falls in the area of
managee’s forte.
Then, there may be managees who are excessively aggressive, or excessively passive.
They will need to be appropriately controlled or encouraged during the participation in the PM
processes – planning, to begin with. Managees, who are experienced in PM, high performers and
high on self-confidence, will require much lesser attention or effort on the manager’s part. Hence
the manager can use the delegating style, which should suit both the manager and the managee
better.
Criteria for a Good Plan
A good performance plan is satisfying for the managee as well as the organization. What
does a managee expect from the role? Maximum reward and fast career progression that the
organization offers for good performance and development. In concrete terms, it means that the
managee interalia gets favourable personnel appraisal. For favourable assessment, the tasks,
targets, and responsibilities should be within the managee’s competence to perform and fulfill.
For this, her first concern is plan feasibility in relation to available resources – the people, the
money and the infrastructure. The manager must know;
 Budgetary allocation for the managee’s plan.
 Organizational difficulties, compulsions and constraints, such as workplace rules and
regulations, personal, professional or occupational expectations of other stakeholders, etc.
 The extent to which these constraints are known to the managee.
 Measures that the manager can take to help the managee in this environment.
Like any strategic plan, a useful performance plan invariably includes:
 Role Objectives: Where am I going?
 Role Strategy: How do I get there?
 Role Schedule: When do I get where?
 Role Stakeholders: With whom, or with whose help, and for whom do I get there?
 Role Resources: What resources can I use or consume to get there?
To make role interdependencies explicit, it helps to include a section on support needed.
That way, the manager, the managee, and the concerned others remain constantly reminded that
there are certain activities and targets that can’t be completed without certain resources, which
are beyond control of the focal role. While it is legitimate that such support is provided at
appropriate times, it must be emphasized during all stages of the PfM cycle, that using the lack
of support as an alibi to justify delays or non-performance, is not the idea.
Visual Timelines: Normally, a performance plan includes a visual timeline. A timeline;

 Acts as ready reckoner for the plan.
 Shows the numerous and varied planned activities in relationship to each other.
 Ensures a balanced distribution of activities over time – highlighting, preferably
avoiding, pressure points arising from too many activities clustering at the same time.
 Lays down a sequence in which activities will normally be undertaken.
 Facilitates periodic reviews.
 Helps plan the point in time when resources for a particular activity will be needed,
thereby facilitating their economic use.
Timelines are updated in the course of review discussions to indicate changes made to the
plan. Quite frequently, standard systems – like Planning, Evaluation and Review Technique
(PERT) or Critical Path Method (CPM) – are used, which provide greater sophistication and are
usually compatible with current information technology.
Writing Performance Goals and Standards:

A good performance plan, therefore, has well written goals. Stephen Covey’s Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People include being proactive and establishing clear-cut goals.
Achievable goals must spell out certain requisites that provide helpful guidance to the goal
seeker;
 Person, or the role, which has primary responsibility for achieving the goal.
 Key activities or means for achieving the goal.
 Measurable indicators, targets or levels or achievement for key-result areas.
 Completion date.
Applying these four specifications, a typical goal might read as:
 HR Manager completes Report of the Climate Survey by October 1.
(OR)
 Salesperson delivers consignment to the customer within 90 days of accepting the order.
(OR)
 Project Coordinator commissions school building before the next academic year starts.
Business goals can be strategic, tactical or operational. PM involves writing all kinds of
goals – short-term: achievable within a few days, and long-term: achievable in a few months,
sometimes years, at all organizational levels, for greater task clarity and coordination. Fully
explicit goals contain all the four requisites; viz., person – or the role – which has primary
responsibility for achieving the goal, key activities or means for achieving the goal, measurable
indicators – targets – or levels of achievement for key –result areas and the completion date.
Standards, goals, and targets should best be concise, focused, manageable and limited in
numbers; and must represent role priorities, rather than a laundry list of to-dos. The plan must
include all those activities which, if carried out, effectively fulfill the role objective for the year.
On Writing Performance Goals, Michael Maslanek suggests how goals link actual
performance with role responsibilities, which are the primary and results expected from a role or
a managee. Taken together, these constitute the role purpose.
Goals, according to him, are written statements of measurable conditions that will exist
when a job is satisfactorily done; they describe how accountabilities are actualized. He visually
expresses this relationship as follows;
1 2
Job Content Performance Performance on the
(Accountabilities) Requirements (Goals) Job
4 3
Arrows 1 and 2 show how job content or accountabilities are translated through goals into
actual job performance. Arrows 3 and 4 show how performance on the job in turn fulfills job
content or accountabilities.
Accountabilities, he points out, are timeless while goals are temporary or temporal.
Accountability may require no goals, one goal or more than one goal for a given performance
plan period. According to him, accountabilities should be combined where possible, to limit the
number of goals to no more than five or six. To the extent that it is done, the role will be more
integrated. He also suggests that as far as possible, the goals set should be within the managee’s
control and not dependent on external factors for accomplishment.
Prioritizing Goals: Goals or objectives must cover all the important aspects of a managee’s role.
SMART Goals: To elaborate this acronym,
S means Specific, with Standards. The goal specifies what and how much is to be done and
describes the level of performance and outcome that will meet expectations. It tends to stretch
the managee and is clear, an ambiguous, easy to understand and challenging.
M means Measurable and Mutual. The goal provides shared measurable indices for meeting
standard in terms of quantity, quality, time, cost etc.
A means Adjustable and Achievable. The goal states how flexible it is to meet unforeseen
contingencies. While being challenging, it remains within the reach of the managee –
effectively using her competencies and demonstrating high commitment – and is thus
achievable in the normal course.
R means Relevant and Realistic. The goal is within the managee’s control, involves some
important accountability and addresses results that concern her role responsibility. It is
relevant and aligned to organizational objectives.
T means Trackable and Timely. The goal can be tracked and reviewed periodically, and indicates
the time-frame for completion.
A well written performance goal has two parts: Operational and Outcome. The
operational part consists of the accountability, specific activity and the time frame, while the
outcome part has the measurable standard.
Writing the Goal: A well written set of goals must respond to the following minimum
requirements;
 Inform what the most important things to do are.
 Inform what the managee is expected to achieve with respect to each of these.
 Specify how the managee – or relevant others – will know whether or not what was
expected has been achieved.
A three-step goal writing process has been suggested:

Step 1: Decide which accountability or accountabilities (where more than one accountability is
combined) the goal will respond to.
Step 2: Specify activities to be undertaken and the time frame for execution.
Step 3: Provide a measurable indicator or standard. Describe it by stating ‘when Outcome meets
expectations ’.
Using a Career Development Consultant’s position as an example, Maslanek formulated
a description to satisfy the above three steps.
Step 1: Develops appropriate training plans based on identified training needs; conducts training
courses and / or coordinates their delivery / implementation with outside consultants,
ensuring a curriculum that best meets staff needs (Accountabilities).
Step 2: Develop and deliver five management – training workshops (Action) by a specified date
(Time Frame).
Step 3: Performance meets expectations when 75 percent of the participants’ evaluations indicate
the workshops are above average (Measurable Standard).
Combining the three steps, the goal statement would read as:
Develop and deliver 5 Management Training Workshops by a specified date.

Performance meets expectations when 75 percent of the participants’ evaluations indicate the
workshops are above average.

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Performance Management

Unit 2 – Planning Managee Performance and Development

Organizational and Individual Performance Plans

Employee Name Job Title

Approved by: Date

Research Base for Performance Planning and Goal-setting

Behaviour Change Goal Awareness

Behrviour Monitoring Manipulation

Attempts to Achieve the Goal Expectation of Success

Let us now understand the seven interventions suggested:

B. Goal setting as an Antecedent for Performance:

Setting Performance Standards:

Outcomes of Most Recent Stock taking:

The more enterprising of organizations use managee development to generate a

iii. Appraising for recognition and reward:

Setting Mutual Expectations & Performance Criteria:

Attributes of Useful Goals:

Objectives of Planning Dialogue:

Output of Planning dialogue:

Sample format for a summary as a quick reference to plans:

Visual Timelines: Normally, a performance plan includes a visual timeline. A timeline;

Writing Performance Goals and Standards:

SMART Goals: To elaborate this acronym,

A three-step goal writing process has been suggested:

Develop and deliver 5 Management Training Workshops by a specified date.

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