Powering Peak Performance

Powering
Peak
Performance
10 Minute Guide To:
Goal setting, 360, Appraisals,
Employee Performance
Development & Management
Saravana Perumal
Powering Peak Performance!
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Table of Contents
Dedication.................................................................................................................................................. 5
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 6
Intended Audience .................................................................................................................................. 8
Purpose of this book .............................................................................................................................. 9
Preamble .................................................................................................................................................. 10
Chapter 0 ................................................................................................................................................. 13
Employees First! ................................................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................................. 16
Performance Management vs. Performance Development ................................................... 16
Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................................. 20
Unravelling the myths: for and against Performance Evaluations ................................... 20
Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................................. 24
Current practices and shortcomings .......................................................................................... 24
Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................................. 27
Methods and Techniques: To Transform the Enterprise ...................................................... 27
OKR: the way of new generation of companies ................................................................... 28
S.M.A.R.T Goals Framework ..................................................................................................... 29
KRA, KPA & KPI: ............................................................................................................................ 32
Balanced Score Card (BSC): ...................................................................................................... 34
Competency..................................................................................................................................... 36
Performance Appraisals .............................................................................................................. 39
360 Feedback or Multi-Rater Feedback: ............................................................................... 39
Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................................. 42
Conclusion........................................................................................................................................... 42
Appendix A: Sample Policy.......................................................................................................................... 44
Appendix B: 31 Core Competencies Explained ........................................................................................... 50
Appendix C: Other topics LITMUS, Rewards & Recognition ....................................................................... 63
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Copyright & Notices
10 Min Read: Powering Peak Performance, 10 min guide to transform employee

performance management to performance development.
By
Saravana Perumal
The royalties from the sale of this book are being donated by the author to ‘TiE
Chennai’ for the startup and entrepreneur development programs in Chennai and
Tamilnadu.
Copyright © 2016 by Saravana Perumal

All rights reserved by author. Any part of this book can be reproduced in any form
without the written approval of the author solely for the purposes of development of
the employees and improving the performance of the organization. Author requests
you to mention the reference, and give due credit. Author is passionate about enabling
the employees around the world to understand, be aware of the organizational goals
through ‘Line of Sight’, to ensure the importance of Competencies required for their
roles and ability to get timely feedback from their colleagues. This will lead to the
success of the employees and the companies.
10 Minute Read series

Published by:
Sangitha Publications
Chennai, India
Proudly printed in Chennai, India
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Dedication
I dedicate this book to my daughter ‘Sangitha Perumal’, who is the

‘True North’ and who brings in curiosity in learning and inspiration
to live my life every day!
Thank you Sangitha! I am blessed.
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Acknowledgements
I like to thank my wife Geetha who takes care of everything at

home front, and lets me explore the professional interests, this
helps me to focus on writing, consulting and talking on
‘Performance Management and Development’. I must thank TiE
Chennai and our writing cohorts, specifically Pravin Shekhar, CEO
of KREA, Viji, CEO of Kelp HR. Thanks to Kiruba Shankar, the
author, coach, blogger and CEO of F5ive Technologies who assisted
all our cohorts in becoming an author.
I thank Gajendiran, Muthu, Praveen and entire team at FEGO
for their help with the cover page design, assistance with printing of
this book and I thank Nagarajan Ganesan, Kothandaraman for
contributing towards and permitting me use the real-life case
studies based on the ‘FEGO’1 customers.
Finally, Balaji Radhakrishnan, my longtime friend and
President of FEGO who had spent many hours in passionate
discussion on employee performance development, and his team
tirelessly working to transform companies from ‘Performance
Management’ to ‘Performance Development’.
1
FEGO – www.fego.us – a SaaS company with singular focus on ‘Employee Performance Development’
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“Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our
fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only
a small part of our possible mental resources. . . men the world over
possess amounts of resource, which only exceptional individuals
push to their extremes of use”.
(William James, 1907, pp. 322–323)
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Intended Audience
I want to address this to specific audience HR professionals and

business owners; however, this can be used by anyone who is
interested in helping the employees and thereby companies to
execute on their objectives at their peak performance.
The broad audience segment:

 The leaders in the organizations who are motivated with the
success of the company, its shareholders and their
employees.
 ‘Human Resources Development’ professionals involved in
‘Talent management’, ‘Performance management’, establishing
and implementing ‘Employee Appraisal’ process.
 The managers and employees in an enterprise who are
interested in improving their ‘performance management’ or
appraisal discussions and to booth their productivity,
increase their success.
 Anyone interested in the methods, techniques and process of
improving ‘Performance Development’ of employees and
companies.
 Anyone interested in turning existing dreary ‘Performance
Management’ or ‘Appraisal’ discussions into ‘Performance
Development’ discussion.
 And lastly the people involved in public administration,
politics and government in handling public money to deliver
citizen services.
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Purpose of this book
Let me begin with a small story. In one of the bustling office

complexes in India, a committed employee Shishya joined in a
leading software product company a year back. He has been
assigned tasks, and delivered on his responsibilities, and he took
part in many of the meetings with the teams and managers.
Months fly by, all has been well until the day he had to sit with his
manager Guru for the ‘Annual appraisal’. He was surprised to hear
the feedback from his boss about what all he could have done
better and differently, how far removed from ground reality he his
and the contributions he made didn’t align with the company’s
objectives and how others aren’t that happy with him. Shishya is
not only upset about knowing this at end of the year, as he has
been presuming that he has been doing a great job contributing
towards the success of the company but also frustrated not
knowing what the priorities of the company were or how his
responsibilities and goals were not aligned to that of company.
Guru, the manager is also equally uneasy facing this discussion at
the end of the year, as he should provide ratings and
recommendations for his direct reports which will play a crucial role
in financial rewards and their career advancements. This is
something most of you are aware, and plays out in most of the
companies in India and many other companies around the world.
Both Shishya and Guru have lost a valuable time and opportunity
over the year, if only they have this discussion as often it would
have been possible to make course corrections to achieve the
company goals.
This book is an attempt to look at current practices of
employee performance management or development and review
changes required for improvement for both employees & companies.
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Preamble
Executives in any organization aspire to achieve 3 core

business outcomes: Profitability, Productivity and Customer delight.
However, these can be achieved only when the organizations have
highly engaged employees. Gallup meta-analysis2 on employee
engagement reveals that only 32% employees are engaged,
alarmingly about half about 51% are not engaged, and about 17%
are actively disengaged.
The Gallup Q-12 methodology which is a 12-question set
survey interestingly has this as the first question: “I know what is
expected out of me in my company”, and ends with “I have enough
opportunity to learn and grow’. I have been wanting to write about
this topic for a very long time since I had been an employee working
for companies of all kinds since my early twenties. I presume, I am
a bit wiser now with 20+ years of experience working at various
levels, roles, with different managers, and importantly companies
that succeed and waver.
‘Performance Management’ or ‘Annual Performance Reviews’ or
‘Annual Employee Appraisals’ all means the same thing for many of
us. Many of us miss out on the core purposes of this process, the
purpose is twofold, first ‘employee development’ and second driving
‘business value’.
Another research by Bain Consulting shows that only 13% of
employees feel personal engagement with the work, it also
concludes that engaged employees are 3.5 times more productive,
self-motivated to solve problems and innovate by investing their
2
http://www.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-despite-gains-2014.aspx
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personal time. By not leveraging this, the company becomes

uninspiring especially in these times of millennial workforce. A key
role is played by the leaders, the best leaders always lead with a
clear vision, share their goals and big-picture, assist and coach
employees to succeed thereby assuring the success of the company.
One major reason that I like to share my experience,
knowledge and missteps is because that some of you won’t have to
repeat the same mistakes I had committed. There is also another
important reason that made me to write on this subject, which is
‘there are lot of news lately on this subject on how flawed the
performance management process is’ and that many of the
‘legendary’ companies like GE, Accenture, Microsoft, Adobe, SAP,
Deloitte and few others want to abandon the ratings3. Many
executives and HR professionals read this as a ‘Headline news’ and
make course corrections without full understanding, or pass
decisions which in my opinion is detrimental to millions of
employees and thousands of enterprises.
I want to emphasis that these companies are not abandoning
the ‘performance evaluation’ as commonly perceived rather
dropping only the ratings and forced ranking in bell curve, and
making it as often as possible. These changes are to adapt to the
fast-changing business environments and the current workforce.
They also advocate providing frequent, regular, timely
constructive feedback, surprisingly they suggest to offer more
positive ones. Another important change that these companies are
championing is to delink the performance reviews with financial
rewards like bonus, increments and promotions. To summarize,
the employee engagement is the critical success factor in any
organizations growth and financial success.
3
https://hbr.org/2015/09/why-more-and-more-companies-are-ditching-performance-ratings
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To achieve engagement, the enterprise must have to follow

through various stages, however many who participate and
administer ‘performance management’ process see this as just
another HR process and not as critical factor for success. Another
critical inference to be made is to differentiate ‘Activities’ from
‘Outcome’. Some tend to document and track the activities, just
performing the activities alone doesn’t lead to success rather the
critical outcomes. For example, a criterion of ‘Meeting 10 customers
every week’ is not the perfect measure, rather it could be phrased
‘Meeting 10 customers every week and closing a minimum of 4 deals
a month’. There are some good reference materials4 from US
Government agencies5. Some of the important components of
Performance Management and Development are: providing the
clarity of what employees are expected to do, create awareness and
align individual’s objectives to corporate objectives which is
normally termed as ‘Line-of-Sight’ and provide frequents, instant
and regular feedback followed through with training, recognition,
rewards and opportunity for growth and development. This will
secure the engagement from employees, and ensure the success of
employees and enterprise.
4
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/opm/handbook_performance.pdf
5
http://www.hhs.gov/asa/ohr/manual/files/430-2.pdf
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Chapter 0
Employees First!
The Ground Zero or The Holy Grail of the success of any enterprise
begins with their ‘employees’. Employee’s make the product, provide
services, make sales, answer customer’s queries, keep customers
delighted and take care of finances among many other important
activities of the enterprise. Some companies even proclaim ‘Employees
First’ business philosophy contrary to ‘Customer First’ mantra, the
famous example is from the Indian IT company ‘HCL’6. Hence it is
important to put the focus on the employees, help them to set, monitor
and achieve their objectives, and provide timely feedback, mentor and
coach for development. This results in increased employee engagement,
motivation and alignment in achieving the enterprise objectives.
We shall be seeing, emphasizing the fact that many of the current
systems and process are complex, long, irregular, too infrequent.
Employees, managers and HR professionals all are spending too much
time, get tired and surprisingly don’t reap the benefits of flawed process.
Success is certain without iota of doubt, when the employees of a
company are aware of the company’s long term and short term goals,
and align their goals to the company’s. Sometimes among the successful
companies this is termed as having ‘Line of Sight’. It is therefore critical
for companies to have their vision and mission clearly drafted and well-
articulated to the employees.
The ‘truth’ is: all human beings have been ‘appraising’ others at all
time, at all situations, regardless of home or work relationships, only the
methods and techniques vary. It is not that some of the companies we
6
http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2012/05/14/employees-first-customers-second-why-it-really-works-in-
the-market/
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have seen are abandoning the ‘Appraisal’ but making changes, adapting
the existing practices to the current market situations and the workforce.
The market forces are dynamic and changing at a rapid speed, fueled by
the technological innovations like internet, mobile, social networks,
infinitely expandable computing power with cloud. Then there are
business model innovations and nimbler competitions.
I am thrilled at the opportunity to make an impact in a very
important area of an enterprise. Customers and Employees are in many
ways like two eyes; we need to ensure that the both eyes are at great
health. Most companies think about customers all the time, but many
misses to do the same for employees. However, those who take care of
their employee’s interest, employee’s growth and employee’s success are
rewarded in the marketplace significantly.
Every individual goes to work every day, wanting to succeed at the
workplace and give their best, in the same token all the companies want
to win in the marketplace, provide the best products and services, keep
their customers happy, and make profits, lots of them to reward their
shareholders. But then, there are these companies including the
employees who succeed spectacularly, and those who don’t. What is the
secret sauce? I want to share the experiences, knowledge and ideas that I
had gained over the years. These successful companies like Google (who
use OKR’s objectives and key results with frequent feedback) tend to
employ simple ways, and they aren’t that difficult.
Performance in the enterprises, public or private or social
enterprise is like a team sport. Let’s take ‘team rowing’ or ‘competitive
car racing’ or a symphony, everyone that is involved in these activities
should be aware of the destination, roles of others involved, the
coordination and most importantly instant, more frequent and regular
communication among them. If they don’t, no one can predict where they
would be heading. And this applies for any team sport, but conveniently
we forget about this at workplace. Everyone in the company must know
where the company is heading, every employee’s goals must be linked to
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the company goals, department goals and in some cases to their

immediate supervisor goals and communicate among them often.
The way we measure performance is not complete in many
companies, some use methods that don’t yield greater benefits. The
success of the employee and therefore the company depends on 4 main
areas, the hard skills, the competency, the performance and finally the
potential of the employee. The successful companies ensure that these 4
are taken care regardless of their processes and methods. I want you the
reader, ‘You’ to understand these and help yourself, your company or
talk about it passionately among your team and colleagues.
Chapter’s Key Points:

 Employees First Philosophy
 Market forces and workforce demographics are changing fast
 Appraisal process to be made simple, fast, frequent feedback
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Chapter 1
Performance Management vs. Performance Development
स तु दीर्घकाल नैरन्तर्घ सत्काराअदराअसेवितो दृढभूव िः ॥१४॥

sa tu dīrghakāla nairantarya satkāra-ādara-āsevito dr̥ḍhabhūmiḥ
॥14॥
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Success can definitely be achieved via sound and continuous
practice over an extended period of time, carried out in a serious
and thoughtful manner. ||14||
The Indian texts have deep and immense meaning covering various
facets of human life. Many of the concepts of management of the state
akin to enterprises, subjects akin to employees, and the ruler akin to the
CEO are detailed in texts like Tamil Thirukural by Thiruvalluvar, Vedas
by many scholors, Yoga shastra by Pathanjali, Vidura Neethi in
Mahabharatha, Gita in Bhagavad Gita, Chanakya neethi by Chankya,
the prime minister of Chandragupta and many others. The instructions
in these texts are no less to the western concepts promoted in America or
Europe by successful management gurus like Peter Drucker, Philip
Kottler, indian born C.K. Prakalad, Malcom Gladwell and many others.
Companies today place lot of importance on hiring employees, but
many companies don’t put lot of premium in keeping them engaged,
motivated and very few companies focus on employee development.
Performance management is a process developed during the early
industrial revolution to increase the productivity, reward employees and
promote employees. In the late 80’s and early 90’s General Electric (GE)
under Jack Welch inspirational leadership popularized most of the
characteristics of today’s employee performance management.
7
https://www.ashtangayoga.info/source-texts/yoga-sutra-patanjali/chapter-1/s
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This philosophy of performance management process places lot of

emphasis on performance evaluation at the end of the year, primarily by
the reporting manager. During the performance evaluation, the
managers provide ratings based on the employee’s accomplishments
through their observations, sometimes good managers by consulting
others who worked with the employees. HR compiles the rating of all the
employees within all the departments and across the organizations, and
ranks their employees. Many companies were proud in announcing that
they send home bottom 5 – 10% of employees after the rating and
ranking.
Companies have been using a concept of bell-curve and force fit
employees into 3 segments. As everyone knows, the categories are:
 Low performers who do not meet the expectations or the
targets set for them, say about 10% of the employees
 High performers who have exceeded the expectations and
targets set for them, say another 10% of the employees
 Wide band of employees, about say 80% meeting
expectations – meaning they are doing their job as expected
of them.
The percentages vary from company to company based on their industry,
and their company culture. This process worked fine in most cases
during the industrial age, and few cases even now. However most of the
workforce are changing, and about 60% of the work are done by
knowledge workers, and they are young, ideological, have access to
technological tools like mobile and more social than ever. The existing or
previous industrial age methods allow for one or 2 appraisal meeting in a
year. Taken to the process, many managers and organizations provide
feedback and inputs for development during those ‘meetings’. Those
year-end or mid-year meetings are dreaded by both employees and
managers. The process also expects managers to award various ratings
for the KRA’s (Key Responsibility Areas) or Goals, then rank their
employees within the team, within department and eventually the within
company. In many past instances, in legendary companies who pride on
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performance, the bottom 10% are shown the door at the conclusion of
year-end appraisal process. The popular parody on this phenomenon is
known as ‘Rank and Yank’. In these environments employees focus on
their individual survival and with prevalent competition among
co-workers, then the success of team and collaboration.
It is also visible through the interviews conducted among the
employees of companies of all sizes and customers of FEGO reveal that
the current workforce also demands more frequent interactions and
feedback. The process of providing feedback at the end of 6 months or a
year is riddled with problems as employees don’t get the feedback for
development at the right time and lose an opportunity to do course
correction. It should be acknowledged that even with the industrial age
process, there are good companies and managers who encourage and
provide feedback at regular intervals based on the outcome of a task or
project. But these are very rare and practiced by highly motivated
individuals who is interested in their team’s development and success.
For most of others it must be mandated and provisioned through a
policy.
The process of providing critical inputs by their managers for
employee development at the end of a cycle for the past performance,
rating them on a scale, then ranking the employees based on ratings can
be loosely termed as ‘Performance Management’. Research has proven
that many of these ratings are subjective and reflects the mindset of the
‘rater’ than the performance of the employees and at times riddled with
‘recent past’ effect. To avoid ‘rater bias’, some companies include
multirater ‘360 degree’ feedback in the process.
However, if we place importance on ‘employee performance
development’ then we need to move the needle of providing feedback for
past performance from the ‘end of appraisal cycle’ to the ‘during-the-cycle’
and increase the frequency say quarterly or monthly or by activity. In
the current business scenario, the employees also work collaboratively
among many stakeholders, it is only fair that they get 360 feedback from
the colleagues they work with. This helps employees at all levels getting
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the feedback on their work at the right time, from right set of relevant
team members to improve their performance holistically and develop
their skills and competencies.
Traditionally the employees are rated and ranked by their
managers. This doesn’t mean that managers only know everything about
the purpose of performance, doesn’t mean that they fully understand the
employee contributions over the assessment period, doesn’t mean that
the managers are fully engaged to achieve the company vision and
business goals. It can be argued that employees play equal role in the
successful execution towards company vision, therefore should and must
have an opportunity to provide their ratings as well if practiced and
feedback to their managers.
Although this is not traditional, many companies are coming to
recognize the benefits of 360, and it would be an eye opener for
managers to receive feedback on their performance from their
subordinates and peers in addition to regular supervisor review. This
process of getting feedback at right time, more frequently, from all
connected stakeholders and using it for learning and development by
delinking ‘performance appraisal’ and ‘financial rewards’ can be termed
as ‘Performance Development’.
 Focus on future performance than past performance
 Move from Performance Management to Performance Development
 Consider using 360 feedback for holistic employee development
 Delink financial rewards like bonus, increments, and promotions
from appraisal process.
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Chapter 2
Unravelling the myths: for and against Performance Evaluations
There are different schools of thought on the topic. Some take

extreme view to say ‘Performance Review’ is a waste of everyone’s time
and benefit no one. Some claim it is not democratic and employees on
the frontline don’t have a say in the process or outcome. Some recognize
that there is some value but complain the process is made archaic,
difficult, time consuming and complex. However, each one may be right
from their point for view given their business conditions and
circumstances but that view cannot be generalized. Nevertheless, the
process of assessing employee performance in the organizations is not
going to go away, sure it will go through changes.
For instance, in a startup, a team of 3 or 5 or 10 can sit around the
table every day to discuss on their deliverables, help each other, they can
be highly focused and connected. Their focus is to get the MVP (most
viable product) done, or demonstrate their proof of concept to customers
for product or service validation or raise money from investors. In this
case, the founders are talking to the team constantly, and everyone
knows where they are heading, what their individual and collective
objectives are and assisting each other all the way with active feedback.
In this circumstances they are focused on future and practicing
‘performance development’ actively. They neither need a complex
appraisal process nor forms, let alone HR professionals and software.
Let’s consider that the same company hit on a great idea,
supported by the sales, investments and proceed to grow at a
tremendous speed. Now let’s assume that their size is of about 100-200
employees. In this situation, not everyone will be emotionally connected
to the company as in the beginning of the venture when they were a
small close knit team. We must remember that many of us go to work to
get gainfully employed with monthly salary, benefits and to pay the bills.
There is nothing wrong in that approach, not everyone wants to be the
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entrepreneur or change the world. As a matter of fact, we need

committed employees who can execute on the ideas and vision and serve
multiple demands of the business. Given this marked change, the same
grown up company now requires some kind of governance to ensure that
employees contribute actively on the right priorities, get feedback and get
rewarded for their contributions. This also keeps employees engaged.
This change in growth requires simple performance management
process, oversight and administration by HR. In most cases, by the time
the company has grown to the size of 50 to 100 employees, the company
get someone to manage the HR function. The founders still working on
the core areas of the product or service offered by their company leading
to the growth of the company. They leave other support areas like HR to
someone, in most cases they take care of the mandatory government
compliance requirements. But in many cases, teams responsible leave
the ‘performance development’ at the door. The founders aren’t as much
connected to all the employees as they were at the get-go.
The HR may devise a simple method, get directions and ideas from
founders, leadership team, borrow ideas from internet or past
workplaces. Some of these outcomes will work but definitely not all of
them. The mode of completion varies from business to business such as
the manual paper based, or a document or spreadsheet based which are
filled by employees and managers then sent through emails to HR. They
may have defined timeline, policy or manager driven or 360 driven. In
some companies HR specialists prepare for this annual or semi-annual
event for 2-3 months from the start to finish of the process.
The process can be administered by KRA, KPA, KPI, Goals, OKR’s,
BSC and few other techniques. We will discuss on these acronyms,
meanings and suitability in later chapter. Many companies use KRA/KPI
which is well suited for employees performing routine jobs with defined
responsibilities. Manufacturing tend to use balance score card
historically. OKR’s are popularized by Intel, Google and many other
startups in Silicon Valley. SMART Goals are used in some organizations
in place of KRA/KPI based on their business environment which are
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goals driven. The administration of performance management process

based on the understanding of these dynamics, methods and techniques
require experience, guidance and executive support. Further the growth
of the company from low 10’s to the scale of 100’s and subsequently in
1000’s requires a process, policy, software automation and a defined
communication plan.
The simple approach that we have seen in the last chapter of
providing timely frequent feedback by stakeholders connected with the
employees works well without ‘numerical rating’ and are being favored by
scores of companies. This leads to correction in the current practices of
performance management process or appraisal process. The focus here is
‘Employee Performance Development’ for future performance not
‘Performance Management’ based on past performance.
The legendary GE has in fact took this approach and termed their
past ‘Performance Management’ process to “PD@GE” which is a moniker
for ‘Performance Development @ GE’. They also taken the workforce
demographics and technological shift into consideration for the new
method by adapting to mobile application, and taken it to social by
anytime feedback from stakeholders. The other companies that were
mentioned are also moving away from the traditional practices of once a
year, ratings based methods to the modern practices which is
necessitated by fast changing business environment.
This is contrary to the popular news and myth that companies are
dropping in droves their ‘PM’ process or ‘appraisal’ process. The truth is
far from that; they are only making changes to the process in fact
dropping only the ratings and increasing the number of conversations to
say 3-4 times in a year or even more frequent than the current once or
twice in a year. As always some organizations and media is making fool
of majority, and for those some, who don’t have fidelity towards
performance management, this has become another big excuse for their
company’s lackadaisical approach on this matter.
The performance management or performance development or
appraisal process regardless of the name is critical to the success of the
22
company. The companies who practice tend to measure, adapt, correct

and act. Hence it is important to define the policy that suits the size of
the company, the type of business, the company culture and focus on
future focused performance development. I urge, most importantly not to
think about abandoning the process, find an experienced consultant to
work with your teams to fine tune the process for your company. Please
understand different companies need different approach.
The employees want to feel that their work matters and they
contribute to the company’s core mission. They want to believe that they
are working to the fullest potential to deliver the best results. The
performance management process hence needs to transform into
performance development to help these employees, keep them motivated
and to execute on their goals, leading to accomplishing parts of the
company’s goals and achieving company success.

 Understand the need based on your specific circumstance.
 Define a policy suitable to your business, culture and teams.
 Don’t abandon appraisal or PM or PD, rather fine tune the process.
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Chapter 3
Current practices and shortcomings
The practices in many organizations still are driven by individual

philosophies of those at helm, rather than driven by scientific facts or
common sense, company’s vision and the enterprise long and short term
goals. Many a times, the broken or inconsistent process reflects the
general state of the enterprise, its weakness, its immaturity and lack of
determination from leadership to develop employee performance. The
major setback for those companies without the proper performance
development process implementation is the slackness in speed of
execution and thereby success. The first step in the right direction is to
define the ‘business performance’ and ‘employee performance’ manual or
policy.
There is a popular proverb in India, ‘The ways and means of the
King reflects in the ways and means of his subjects’. This is 100% true in
any organization as well, and especially with the performance
development or performance management. If the CEO of the company is
crystal clear about the company’s vision, purpose, goals, milestones,
short and long term business plans and the roadmap to achieve it then
the employees do thoroughly as well. If the CEO acknowledges that he or
she has them, then it is not only that CEO knows them, it is also equally
important that those is articulated among the employee masses and
everyone lives by it every day. Otherwise both the CEO and the
employees just face each day as it comes and react to the ‘business as
usual (BAU)’ events than driven by the goals which are critical to success.
Hence the ‘Performance Development’ needs full support of the CEO,
executive teams and they should lead by example themselves by
providing ‘Line of Sight’, set goals at all levels and provide feedback.
There are variety of names given by various organizations based on
their company culture, the persons at the helm, person responsible for
24
the performance management administration and the size of the

company. Great organizations, especially the ones voted for the ‘Best
companies to work for’, such as Intuit and other such companies succeed
in the market place better than their competition, and those that attract
prospective employees in droves, all have one thing in common. They all
run with vision, leadership that constantly communicates to employees
and have ensured that each employee understands what they must do
and when and how and why. This defines the classic environment where
employees know where their organization is heading, and their roles and
contributions required to achieve it. Only then, the organization can
align all their resources, employees at their disposal to achieve their set
targets meticulously.
In the companies that don’t excel in the marketplace, in addition to
lack of clarity, constantly changing priorities and strategies at the whim
of the executives leads to employees dabbling with unpredictable name
sake ‘performance management’ process. Even after knowing that
employee performance is key to the success, many companies ignore the
‘employee performance development’. The critical outcome from the
‘performance management’ is the feedback on employee performance and
inputs to his or her development. However, in the current setup, the
feedback is given either at the end of the year or at the end of 6 months.
In many cases, the managers aren’t trained to provide feedback and
positive reinforcements. In some organizations, the ‘performance
management’ also commonly called as ‘Appraisals’ aren’t program
managed, without any training to employees and managers and is not
executed to the full satisfaction of employees. The lack of communication
on the process, lack of policy clarity and timelines from HR leads to
employee disillusionment, disengagement and demotivation. One of the
major reason, is that companies link ‘Appraisal’ with the ‘bonus’,
‘increments’ and ‘promotions’. This expectation in the minds of
employees are not managed or clarified satisfactorily.
The learning so far leads to an understanding that the ‘performance
management’ or ‘appraisal’ process must be delinked from ‘financial
rewards’ and needs to be stated in the ‘Performance Management’ policy.
25
Other critical information to be included in the policy are: ‘well defined

timetable’, process, governance team, escalation matrix and importantly
your organizations philosophy on employee performance development.
The sample is included in the Appendix A.
All enterprises need transparency of vision, mission, big picture
with all the employees. Google’s vision / mission statement goes like ‘To
organize all worlds information and make it easily accessible’8 sums up
succinctly the company’s vision. The successful CEO’s or leaders always
make sure that they talk about the vision, shared their goals, and take
steps to make aware where everyone fits in the organizational vision.
This will motivate employees to self-assess, self-report, set self-goals to
achieve the company’s goal and make it their own. The company
environments cloaked in secrecy will suffer employee engagement,
therefore missing the success and stagnate in mediocre performance.

 CEO together with leadership team defines the company culture.
 Leadership team must understand and commit to employee
performance development, not just pay the lipstick service
 Communicate! Make ‘Line of Sight’ awareness among employees
8
https://www.google.co.in/about/company/
26
Chapter 4
Methods and Techniques: To Transform the Enterprise
AS we have seen in the last chapter, the various shortcomings lead to

confusion, unpredictability, disillusioned employees and stressed out HR
professionals, and frustrated employees and managers. Transforming an
enterprise is everyone’s job regardless of their job responsibilities and
duties. It requires not only the strong understanding of the business
fundamentals but also the precision and clarity on what everyone should
do, and creation of supporting environment for development. In this
hyper competitive business environment, no-one can afford to claim
ignorance on their roles, goals and how they benefit from the big purpose
of the organization. At minimum, the responsibility squarely lies with
CEO, leadership team and HR teams.
We shall see the methods and the techniques that are prevalent in
many organizations. Some will make the adaptations as we have been
discussing, however some may not need change given their conditions.
One must understand that these methods don’t yield results by itself but
success is determined by the spirit in which it is practiced by everyone.
We have already aware of the different terms such as:
 OKR – Objectives and Key Results
 Goals – S.M.A.R.T Goals with Outcomes
 KRA/KPA/KPI – Key Responsibility Area,
– Key Performance Area,
– Key Performance Indicators
 Competency – Behavioral, Skill or Knowledge based
 BSC – Balance Score Card
 360 – 360-degree or multi-rater feedback
There are organizations who use the methods that are not relevant to
their business, or use same method for different roles. More importantly,
they tend to make it rather complex, remember simplicity is one of the
27
best tool. The popular saying ‘KISS’, keep it simple stupid is not only
applicable here but required in performance management process. The
process and methodology should be simple, easy to understand, quick to
participate and finish. If done properly it shouldn’t take let’s say not
more than 15-30 minutes, this will work the magic combined with the
frequent multi-rater feedback. Companies and HR administrators who
have complicated the forms, data entry or questions miss to derive the
benefits despite implementing with the right intention.
The details of the above methods are described in the following pages.
These methods are popularized during different evolutionary stages of
the industry with changing practices at work, and with workforce. Many
famous fortune 500 companies use one or more of these methods. Let’s
begin with OKR, this being the poster child with large number of
companies adopting the method.
OKR: the way of new generation of companies
OKR9 have been used for setting goals or objectives at Intel, Google,
Asana, Zynga and many others. The history is that OKR’s are formulated
at Intel during their hey-days by Andy Grove. However, the folk lore has
it, that it was brought to Google by the legendary Silicon Valley investor10
‘John Doer’ of KPCB. Objective is something as the name says is the
thing that employee wishes to accomplish during a set period (Monthly,
Quarter, Half yearly or Annual). The ‘Key Results’ are the outcomes that
are measurable and quantifiable. Each employee can set OKR’s every
quarter or half year, and each of these objectives can have 4-5 key
results. It is always good and advised to have a maximum of about 3 – 4
goals aligned to their business. Too many key results or objectives will
only lead to missing them and demoralizing the employees which is not
the original intent of setting OKR’s.
9
https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs/steps/introduction/
10
http://www.gv.com/lib/how-google-sets-goals-objectives-and-key-results-okrs
28
Many startups and companies who celebrate efficiency and

performance tend to use OKR’s. There are lot of literature on OKR’s in
the last few years. There are software companies who are making
specialized ‘purpose built’ software for setting and managing OKR’s.
Some of them are FEGO.us, Perdoo, BetterWorks, Synergita, WorkDone
and host of others. The tools can only bring in efficiency, ease of
administration and compliance, however the organization must be
committed to the concept of setting objectives, the way it will be
measured and reviews frequently many times in a year with the manager
and colleagues.
OKR’s is one of the simplest form to aid in the performance
development. OKR also encourages employees and teams to set few
stretch goals. The OKR’s can be transparent across employees, and it
creates an opportunity to understand what others work on. This enables
employees to approach right partners to advance and accomplish their
own objectives within the organization.
Transparency happens and is common mostly in matured
organization where employees focus on accomplishments and self-
motivated, where companies encourage taking risks, learning from
failures. This method of iteration of setting objectives including stretch
ones, reviews, learning from others, taking support from colleagues
create a buzzing environment with creativity to accomplish the objectives
of the individuals and thereby the organizations. This is visible from the
success of likes of Google, Intel, Zynga and others.
S.M.A.R.T Goals11 Framework
There are many Fortune 500 companies like Nokia, Microsoft,

Adobe, Exxon-Mobil, Ericsson and universities like MIT, Stanford and
others across the world use goals driven performance management. This
is very similar to the OKR’s but it requires a bit more details for each
11
http://hrweb.mit.edu/performance-development/goal-setting-developmental-planning/smart-goals
29
goal. The acronym SMART expands to Specific, Measurable, Achievable,

Relevant and Time bound.
The method ensures that employees and team set and achieve the
goals on time say in a year or quarter or month or certain target date, the
goals can include milestones. The minimum three things that should be
there are: the specific goal itself, the measurable outcome, and a target
date to achieve the goal. I must ring a cautionary tale here from the real-
life example, wherein the company uses multiple categories to group this
goal definition, and attaches host of parameters to the goal definition,
and insists on adding goals for all the quarters at the beginning of the
year or have it visible all the time.
In the above tale, the sample is something like:
<Parent Category>
<Sub Category>
<Goal>
<Milestone>
<Additional Parameters 1>
<Additional Parameters 2>
These are something that needs to be avoided as it will lead to
confusion increase the complexity and loses the essence and employees
disengaged from process.
A simple goal can be defined as:
Achieve 20% increase of sales by end of Q2
Continuing SMART goals, besides ‘Specific’, ‘Measurable’ and
‘Timebound’, the other two such as ‘relevant’ and ‘achievable’ is used as
a guidance to assess the goal and align to business goals. This is an
excellent method akin to OKR, however some experts have problem with
the words ‘Achievable’ and ‘Relevant’. I mentioned in OKR that the
general practice to take few ‘Stretch’ ones which challenges the
employees. Likewise, in SMART goals, the employees need to be
encouraged to set some ‘HARD’ goals. This helps employees to take
30
challenging goals, set strategy to achieve them, build relationships

required to achieve them, and more importantly begin to learn new skills
every time they set goals. Although goals must be ‘relevant’ and
‘achievable’ this only means that it should be aligned to the broader
department and business goals, and there is a fair chance to pull it off if
individuals associated with the goals try newer creative ways and work
hard at it. So, this method is also forward looking like OKR’s compared
to other methods that we are going to see.
The managers and HR must help and train employees to set the
SMART goals. There are hundreds of millions of people come into the
workforce and introduced to the process of goal-setting. Either many of
them are unaware of the ways of going about it and the purpose or the
core benefits of the process. They just treat it as a ‘task’ or ‘mundane
job’. In many companies, managers are the champions to ensure the
compliance and to set the course for the success. There are employees
and companies who take the goal-setting process very lightly and do it
for the sake of process set by someone in head office or executive suite or
HR. This is not only detrimental to the purpose of the business but also
demotivates the employees, and doesn’t bring engagement.
In many cases, it has been observed that employees setting goals during
the time of reviews at the end of the cycle (appraisals).
We can’t even find fault with those employees who see this as a
waste of time, in most cases the executive team and HR are to be
blamed, and they fail in not creating enough awareness on the process,
purpose and they don’t impress upon the employees as the organization
requirement to succeed in the marketplace. If there are 2 similar
organizations working at the same business, in the same customer
segment, the one who rigorously follows the process will definitely
succeed than the other. It also creates happier employees who feel good
on achieving their goals, including the HARD-stretch goals.
The frequency to set and review goals can be flexible suited to the
organizations. Goals can be created every six months with a quarterly or
31
monthly review. If the company or the manager follows regular 1:1

meetings with the employees, then monthly reviews can be skipped. It
would require a whole chapter to talk about the merits of the regular 1:1
meeting between the employees and managers. If you are serious about
the success and your team development, ensure your company includes
1:1 in the official performance management / development policy
document. This meeting helps in more than one ways, to catch up on the
employee’s progress and on informal topics about the employee’s career
plans, coaching and training requirements, other issues faced by
employees. This improves the relationship between the manager and the
employees, more importantly helps manager to see the early warning
signs if any than being surprised with unexpected happenings. The
suggested interval could be bi-weekly, but I have seen weekly catch-up
for 10 minutes in many leading companies.
There is one problem with SMART goals, is that people have
different meaning to the letters for example most controversial ones are
‘A’ & ‘R’ in the SMART. They can mean A for Achievable, Assigned,
Aligned, Ambitious, Agreed and many others, likewise R for Relevant,
Realistic, Results oriented, Reasonable. The people who are responsible
for the process must ensure that they choose the appropriate ones to
avoid confusion in the minds of employees and it serves the organization
purpose and goals. For example, the pairs of ‘Achievable and Realistic’,
and ‘Aligned and Relevant’ may mean same thing and duplicate. The
purpose is not to have a sophisticated process but a simple and easier
one.
KRA, KPA & KPI:
KRA expands to Key Responsibility Areas, KPA for Key Performance

Areas which essentially means that these are the responsibilities of the
individuals, and these terms KPA and KRA can be used interchangeably.
32
Examples can be:

 ‘Develop software matching the requirements’ or
 ‘Create, maintain and execute Marketing plan’
 Manufacture 100 engine components every month
 Increase employee engagement more than 90%
 Maintain server uptime of 99.999% for all customers.
 Service all customer requests within 24 hours by Q3
KRA or KPA can be thought of as objectives or goals by adding target

dates or making it very specific. In practice, these are derived directly
from the job description of the role, or in the absence of the ‘job
description’ these KRA’s can be used for describing the job, roles and
responsibilities. KRA is used in most places given its simplicity, however
it loses its importance in the absence of associated KPI.
KPI normally used for Key Performance Indicators, can be used in
combination with KRA. Ideally, each KRA can have 1 or more KPI to
ensure that the individual employees understand when a KRA is deemed
to be accomplished. KPI is like the ‘Result Areas’ in OKR’s which adds
additional criteria to evaluate the KRA. In the above examples if it can be
rephrased like the following:
KRA: Develop software matching the requirement

KPI 1: Complete software development on time
KPI 2: Ensure code review after development
KPI 3: Develop unit tests for the software
KPI 4: Develop software with less than 3% defects in a year.
KRA: ‘Create, maintain and execute Marketing plan’
KPI 1: Create a marketing plan at the start of every quarter
KPI 2: Review with the executive management for updates
KPI 3: Bring in about 60% responses through inbound
33
Balanced Score Card (BSC):
BSC is one of the widely-used management framework among

private and public sector organizations. Some of the companies that
have used BSC are Apple, AMD, Barclays, Analog Devices, Microsoft,
BAE systems, HSBC, Walmart, Shell, Marriot, Volkswagen and more.
There were times in history where the performance of the enterprise is
solely measured by the financial success or financial numbers. Even
though ‘financial outcome’ is one of the key responsibilities towards the
shareholder, there are other perspectives that can either enhance the
financial perspective or improve the overall performance of the
enterprise. These perspectives are stacked on top of another starting
with12 ‘Learning & Growth’, ‘Internal Process’, Customers, and Financial.
Financial Success
Customer Delight
Internal Process
Learning & Growth
The basic premise is that learning and growth of the employees will
lead to more engagement, innovation, which leads to improvement in
internal processes in developing and delivering products and services
that delights the customers resulting in financial success. These 4
perspectives were developed in 1992 at the beginning of the knowledge
economy, by Robert S Kaplan, Harvard professor and David S Norton,
12
https://hbr.org/1993/09/putting-the-balanced-scorecard-to-work
34
management consultant and founder of palladium group. Even though it

was primarily developed for the ‘organizational performance assessment’,
later companies tend to use it for employees with metrics. One of the
real-life example is that the manufacturing company uses the BSC for its
shop floor employees in the factory in measuring the quality and quantity
of production, repetition of errors, contribution the revenue, and host of
other parameters.
The application of BSC needs a sophisticated understanding and
the purpose in an organization. BSC is like a sledge hammer, it may not
yield desired results when used at the non-executive level employees or
for everyone in the company. The desired benefits can be derived if
applied from a holistic business perspective of the strategic direction and
outcomes of the company. This will lead to the understanding of the
training required, upgradation of processes thereby customer satisfaction
and financial success. The primary success lies from the fact that the
BSC is designed by the team inside the company rather than external
consultants who don’t have the intimate knowledge on the inner
workings, ethos and culture of the company. This BSC methodology have
given ideas to manage larger outcome by international non-profit
agencies like UN, ADB and others using RBM (results based
management). Both BSC and RBM are employed for strategic intent
than tactical where other performance measurement methods can be
employed.
As in other methods, there can be set of objectives defined with
measure and targets under each of those 4 categories: Learning and
Growth to uplift the organizational development through hiring, training
talents, thereby with those resources to build Internal Processes for
delivering quality services and products, this takes us to the third
dimension of creating delighted customers and building loyalty, finally
leading to financial success to the shareholders. These sometimes are
called ‘Strategy Map’ and needs to be articulated by the management to
the different departments or functions, and thereon to all the employees.
Again, we are coming to the point, where CEO or management should
shepherd the team and invigorate them with the constant deliberation on
the stated vision, mission, strategic objectives and intent.
35
Competency
The topics that we have seen thus far on OKR, Goals, BSC,
KRA/KPA/KPI primarily delves into ‘what the employee has to deliver’.
There is another critical component to the process of appraisal of
employees which is ‘how the employee has to deliver’. The competency
focuses on the behavioral and knowledge part of the employee. The competency
can be used in combination with one of these OKR or Goals or BSC or KRA.
One of the company from the field uses about 70% weightage to the Goals and
30% to the competency assessments.
Software like FEGO supports administering these in combination. The
maturity of the company is reflected from the approach that they take with
Competency, the more the company is matured they would have detailed sets
of competency for the myriad roles that they have in the organization. In
practice the company will have a library of competencies, and assign the
relevant ones to the roles in different functions like production, marketing,
sales, finance, human resources and others. This is generally called as
competency mapping.
Many consultants have built big business on creating the libraries of
competency suitable for common roles in the enterprises, and some customize
the library for specific needs. These consultancies license their libraries for use
by others. The prominent one being DDI (Development Dimensions
International)13.
Some of the samples from an erstwhile legendary Canadian networking
company is listed here. If you are curious why they are erstwhile that is a
discussion for another day which was caused by greedy CXO’s due to financial
misrepresentation & mismanagement. These competencies can be further
categorized into company’s core values. You could observe that these are
general and common sense.
This company called it ‘Performance Dimensions’, and it was such a
refreshing process in those days to choose areas to work on based on the roles,
and areas to build capability for career progression. The company trained most
employees through in-person and online sessions on the importance of the
performance management, competency, giving feedback and other aspects.
13
http://www.ddiworld.com/product-guide/appendix/competency-links
36
Each one of the above competencies can have multiple levels based
on the seniority of the employees. The performance dimensions or
competency are14:
1 Analysis Ability to analyze information from

different sources and make decisions or
solutions for the problems
2 Applied Creativity The ability to develop or introduce new
ideas or techniques in the workplace for
improvement
3 Building Trust Ability to align to core values of the
company, being fair and gain respect and
trust from others inside and outside
4 Business Acumen Knowledge of general business practices
and current business priorities
5 Change Management Ability to handle fast changing business
environments
6 Customer Orientation Ability to understand the problems faced
by both internal and external customers,
empathize and provide solutions to meet
their needs
7 Decisiveness The willingness to make decisions after
analysis without getting into analysis-
paralysis based on the best judgement
8 Developing Others The ability to foster the learning and
development of others, mentor, coach
and support.
9 Directing work through The ability to direct and influence others
others to get the work done in the best interests
of the company
10 Influence The ability to persuade other people to
accept one’s point of view, leading to a
decision or action for company’s benefit
11 Initiative The innate quality to act on own self
without external direction to meet the
demand or attend to challenges
12 Judgement The critical ability to arrive at a decision
or take an action objectively without any
bias towards anyone or anything
14
Courtesy: Nortel Networks Performance Dimensions
37
13 Listening and Responding Accurately listen to others, understand

their feelings, needs, points of view and
respond appropriately
14 Organizational Awareness Ability to quickly observe and understand
the power relationships in one’s own or
other organizations, identify who the
decision makers are and who can
influence them and predicting how
individuals or groups will react
15 Organizing work Establishing clearly defined course of
action to accomplish goals and to
organize work of others
16 Personal Drive The drive to work efficiently and achieve
results by competing against a standard
of excellence
17 Relationship Building The ability to create network of contacts
with people who will be useful in
information gathering or accomplishing
work related goals
18 Self-confidence A belief in one’s own opinions, decisions
and capability to accomplish a task
19 Team Leadership The ability to take up a role as a leader of
a group, taking actions to motivate team
members to achieve the business goal
20 Technical / Professional The ability and motivation to expand
expertise one’s own technical and professional
knowledge and share this to others
21 Visioning The ability to dream big, take stretch
goals, steward a large team towards a
noble business idea solving a big problem
for the society.
22 Working with Others Ability to work with others as part of a
team as opposed to working individually
or competitively for collective success.
The other simple terms one could use be:
 Teamwork, Responsibility, Initiative, Decision making, Motivation,

Reliability, Adaptability Communication, Leadership, Listening,
Trustworthiness & Ethics, Results orientation, Problem solving,
Planning and Organizational ability.
38
Performance Appraisals
Performance appraisals are different from performance management.

Whatever we have discussed so far are part of performance management,
to use a certain method, process, techniques or tools. This essentially
encourages employees and managers, in general companies to define and
agree on the goals, responsibilities and the outcomes, timeframe and
other parameters, and approach on how they will be measured and what
they will be measured against before committing oneself on doing their
job. The ‘Appraisal’ is the process that both the employee and manager
perform to review the progress, which can be done once in 12 months or
6 months or 3 months or even monthly.
It is generally advised that employees complete their self-appraisal
before their managers do the performance appraisal. This allows
individuals to learn and understand the different point of views and
deviations, determine areas of improvement, training requirements and
goal setting for next cycle. People generally confuse with ‘Performance
Management’, ‘Performance Appraisal’ and ‘Performance Development’.
However, as we have been constantly highlighting the focus should be on
‘Performance Development’ of the employees for the mutual benefits.
360 Feedback or Multi-Rater Feedback:
Traditionally during the performance review or appraisal managers

provide the ratings and feedback to the employee. We have discussed
this earlier, that employees should get feedback from all directions like
Seniors, Subordinates, Peers and external vendors / customers. This
provides a holistic view of the employee’s performance because it comes
from their colleagues who they regularly work with, this also takes away
the ‘rater bias’. The opportunities for individual and team development
are higher in this case. The companies can either choose anonymous or
non-anonymous way of feedback.
39
9-Box Method
So far we have seen predominantly the performance of the employees
both from their deliverables of job responsibilities and competency areas
like knowledge, skill and behaviors. Companies would also like to
understand the potential of the employees to take up the leadership roles
within the company. Not all employees will possess the high-caliber to
don the leadership roles in the organization.
In most companies with advanced performance management and
development this is the final step in the process to plot the employees in
the 9-box method, this will allow the company to enhance their
succession planning by evaluation their talent pool. This can be used to
determine the upcoming leaders, and people who need coaching, training
and formal mentoring for development. This can be used in resource
planning and alignment.
Top
Performers
P
e
r
f
o
r
m
a
n Slackers
c
e
Potential
40

 Companies to assess and choose the suitable methods (OKR,
Goals, KRA, Competency, 360, BSC) and tools appropriate for their
business environments.
 Focus should be on measuring the ‘Outcomes’ than measuring
‘Activities’ as only ‘Outcomes’ leads to the success.
 A combination of multiple methods, tools and techniques should be
considered for increased benefits like OKR + Competency or
Goals + Competency + 9-Box or Multi-rater KRA + Competency.
41
Chapter 5
Conclusion
There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach or template for the companies. As
we already discussed they vary from company to company. For the
smaller companies or startup where the founder and few others are
working in an agile mode across the table – the only thing required is a
daily scrum or discussions on the goals, progress and continuous
planning. They don’t need elaborate templates in XL or Word or any
sophisticated software.
When the company reaches a size of about 20 – 50 some form of
method and template is required. The CEO or founder is involved in
sales, finance, HR, marketing, fund raising, and spends more time
outside than building the core product or service. The close-knit team
approach may not be feasible, hence a reference document to help the
manager and employees is required. A simple OKR or KRA or
Competency or combination of this in a XL or Word is more than enough.
However, there must be the discipline to create and maintain individual
‘performance development’ document to ensure that every team and
every manager and every employee has understood the organization
goals, and how their individual contribution leads to organizations
success. This can be driven by the organizational culture and primarily
the founder(s) or CEO. There are companies who promote a model of
transparency in sharing the goals and achievements of every team
member across the company. This can be easily achieved with a
document on the cloud like ‘Google Docs or Sheets’. A simple approach of
3 -5 goals or objectives with ‘key results’ or outcomes is more than
sufficient.
Now, let’s consider a company which is about 100-150 employees
or a case where there are more than 200+, where everyone is not
intimately known to each other and more importantly not aware of their
objectives. In this scenario, a ‘method’, a standard template and a simple
software will become a requirement. At this level of growth, the company
would have acquired someone to manage their HRD processes. HRD
42
(Human Resources Development) must carry a goal to ensure the

company has effective strategies to have optimum employee engagement,
employee satisfaction and keep the attrition low to compete in the hyper
competitive business environment. Most of the time the people in HRD
do not realize the importance of their roles within the company, in many
places they either make or break the company. Worse, many new
entrants into HR consider HRD has Human Resources Department than
Development. Many companies focus on the operational activities and
miss to focus on the strategic methods and framework. So, it has become
an imperative to automate the process to avoid the human errors and
misses. The process and automation ensures that the goal setting, or
creating OKR’s with combined competency / 360 assessment happens
like a clock work. This also greatly helps and eases the work of HR in
ensuring the compliance of the process. If it is a manual XL, Word or
paper based process, it is difficult to monitor, and administer the
‘Performance Development’ process. In most companies, employees leave
the company because they are disenchanted with the HR than their own
manager or management teams. There is an absence of comprehensive
policy or proper communication on ‘Performance management’ or rightly
‘Performance Development’ and with the bad strategy of linking
performance linked incentives to yearly appraisals. It has become a norm
in those companies that employees use ‘resignation’ as a tool to demand
and extract ‘increments’ or ‘bonus’. This is a reactive approach and
brings down the morale of the employees who are core segment which
contributes to the success of the company as we have seen in the
Chapter 1. The key strategy that companies must employ is to first
delink the annual appraisal cycle and the linked increments. The
appraisal or performance development is an ongoing process within the
company with coaching and mentoring from the manager to assist
employees in making and achieving the goals or objectives.
Templates and case-studies are given as a bonus on www.fego.in/ppp
43
Appendix A: Sample Policy
1.0 GreatCompany Performance Policy

1.1 Background
GreatCompany through its history has been known for the agility and speed of delivery
to the business needs of the customers. The demographic of GreatCompany employees
is key to the success gained over the years. The "youth power' dominates through all
levels and every function in GreatCompany signifying not only the laurels it has achieved
but also those it can achieve during the coming years. This demands definition of key
priorities, action plan and commitment from each one of you. GreatCompanyities
display the boundless energy, enthusiasm and desire to achieve customer delight in
their everyday's work. Hence in this policy 'consistency' of performance through the
year is given premium.
1.2 Performance Philosophy

The GreatCompany Performance Policy is developed keeping all the above in mind and
the next 3 year (2016, 2017, 2018) organizational level goals and targets set by the
GreatCompany Board.
There is a subtle change in the way GreatCompany would assess the individual and
team performance both in qualitative and quantitative measures. All of us will explicitly
drive to set and achieve objectives for everyone in the company, and be aware of the
company goals and their managers. The term 'goals and objectives' are used in this
documents in most places interchangeably.
Every individual, their managers and team will carry SMART objectives with priority set
through weights, timeline and measurable targets. As most of you know, SMART stands
for "Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound". All
GreatCompanyites are encouraged to assess their objectives/goals through the prism of
SMART methodology, you must discuss with your immediate manager or HR if you find
it otherwise.
2.0 Performance Process

GreatCompany Performance Policy defines the Objective setting and Appraisal as 2
distinct process areas. The objectives are set for all employees by their managers and
reviewed by manager's manager, at the beginning of the appraisal cycle. All new
employees and those changing roles should create objectives within 1 month of the
event. The appraisal is conducted at the end of the appraisal cycle by the manager,
subsequently reviewed by the manager's manager.
The Appraisal cycle in GreatCompany follows the financial year which is October to
September, with the 'final ratings' used for incentives. There will be a mid-year review
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in April, and any change in objectives are discussed with the manager, the feedback for
the midyear is exchanged by them as well.
2.1 Frequency
The frequency of assessing one’s performance is one of the key factors that determines
the performance of the company. The frequent interactions allow the employees to get
the feedback that is required for them to improve their contributions, change and adapt
per the business need.
GreatCompany encourages the teams to set the interaction at their own pace for setting
up 1:1 time between manager and employees, recommended frequency is once in a
month. This exchange of feedback and review of objectives and performance helps
everyone to achieve their objectives with full potential and thereby overall
GreatCompany's corporate objectives.
However, GreatCompany mandates as an official process that the 'mid-year' review

must be completed for all employees in April, and the final appraisal in
September. The ratings from the 'year-end' appraisal is used for the incentives,
increments and promotions. The final ratings are verified and ratified by 'management
council' as described in the next section. In addition, quarterly reviews must be done by
all managers to provide feedback to employees. The company also advises to conduct
1:1 meetings with employees every 2 weeks or at minimum once a month.
2.2 The Management Council
GreatCompany Performance Policy ensures that any errors at various levels are removed
through 2 key process. First, all appraisals are reviewed by a reviewer who is a
immediate skip level manager, secondly a normalization process with deliberation from
'management council'. During these reviews "consistency" is the key factor that needs
to be kept in focus to avoid one off performance or to avoid "recency effect" or ambiguity.
At the end of the appraisal cycle, the ratings of the employees after reviewer signoff, are
reviewed by the management council to avoid any discrepancies and errors. This also
allows to recognize any extraordinary contributions by the employees across the
company and intra department contributions. This will also ensure to recognize those
employees who have performed and achieved targets not only set for them but also acted
at various instances beyond the call of duty to keep the GreatCompany business
priorities in focus and achieve them. Management council may recommend employees
to be put in PIP.
2.3 Timeline
Timeline for the appraisal process is managed by the GreatCompany HR-Talent

Management, timeline will have a predefined 'Start and End' dates. Any inputs defined
45
or received beyond those dates will not be considered for performance appraisal, and in
turn will have impact on the individual employees ratings, incentives and
promotions. Hence the GreatCompany Performance Policy encourages everyone
involved including those employees, their immediate managers and reviewers to adhere
to this strictly.
HR team defines, manages and administers the 'GreatCompany Performance Process'

with guidance and mentoring from 'GreatCompany Board' and 'Management
Council'. HR will send out reminders prior to 'Objective setting' exercise and also 'Mid-
year' and 'Year End' review / appraisal. Both 'Objective' setting and 'Appraisal' will have
a definitive start and end dates, to enforce the timeline 'HR' may prescribe that these
are done bottom up. Those employees who have completed 3 months must undergo
review process.
3.0 Performance Dimensions
There are 2 critical way to assess any individual's performance. It consists of the 'what
goals needs to be accomplished' and 'how those goals need to be accomplished'. This
closely follows the core values of GreatCompany which encourages employees to exhibit
'Exemplar Behaviors' in their work. For example, during the course of achieving ones
goal, one cares to carry along his team, and helps each other to achieve the broader
goals of the team or department.
GreatCompany defines key Performance dimensions or parameters in the policy

manual. Each employee and their managers are encouraged to review them and assign
relevant ones to the goals, or use them during the review process, or employ them during
the 360-degree feedback for those applicable.
In any case, it matters equally 'how an employee' achieves his objectives to 'what an
employee' requires to achieve. This encourages the team ownership, membership and
to recognize the achievements are only possible when the 'whole team is involved and
committed to objectives' and not by any single individual. This is core philosophy of any
effective performance appraisal process. This part of appraisal can be termed as
'Çompetency'.
Some of these sample parameters are shown below, each team is encouraged to choose
or include relevant ones for their function, roles and responsibilities in GreatCompany.
Creativity Analysis Building Trust

Customer Success Decision Making Team Work
Influence Initiative Listening
Judgment Relationship Building Self Confidence
Visioning Adaptability Directing work
Business Acumen Developing Others Personal Drive
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Technical Expertise Leadership
4.0 Conclusion
The GreatCompany Performance Policy is created to cater to 2 key stakeholders:
 Customers and
 Employees
This will enable to achieve the business results desired by the GreatCompany Board
and bring in 'Customer Delight' thereby increasing GreatCompany revenues and
influence in the Telecom solutions marketplace.
To achieve our 3 year goals, everyone is required to apply the following principles:
 'Business Acumen',
 'Build Strong teams',
 'Execute effectively',
 'Lead the Change', and maintain
 GreatCompany 'Culture and social architecture'.
The business acumen defines the way we think and act strategically to deliver
business goals by understanding both internal and external business
environment. We must live by GreatCompany goals and 3 year strategy by making
effective trade-offs between short and long term goals through process excellence.
Building strong teams demands that we search, target and acquire talented, spirited
individuals better than ours. Many research has shown that A players recruit A+
player but B players recruit C players. We must energize the GreatCompanyites in the
organization to align to GreatCompany initiatives and objectives, through team work,
partnerships among various departments and units. We should apply right
organizational design and structure required for 'Great Performance' with the 'Line of
Sight' for individuals and teams. We must self assess and continually improve with
various mechanisms like 360, skip levels to stay in touch with the connected
stakeholders.
Executing effectively is key to our collective success as an organization. We must

ensure that we all have set the right objectives with priorities, and cascade them
throughout GreatCompany. We must consciously understand 'effective allocation' of
money and resources to our various business priorities and initiatives so we spend our
time on the 'right priorities' aligning with the market situation and demands. Process
and Metrics play an important role in creating sustainable and repeatable processes
with human independence to drive continuous improvement.
Leading Change is expected of each and every one in the GreatCompany by being a
role-model by exhibiting exemplar qualities. This requires enormous initiative and
courage to make decisions with speed, quality, to achieve shared vision. Courage is
47
required to take prudent business risks and learn from mistakes by valuing creativity
and innovation. Leaders should communicate with an impact for effective change and
to challenge the accepted beliefs and assumptions.
Culture and Social Architecture GreatCompanyities are encouraged to participate,

influence the GreatCompany culture of motivated teams, self-driven, speed, agility and
customer delight. It is critical to embrace the culture of 'Learn-Teach-Learn'
methodology. We should become great learners and teachers through continuous
learning for yourself and others.
Appendix A
Section 1: Timeline
Performance Period: October to September aligns with the financial year.
Requirement: Minimum of 3 months in company.
Objective Setting: Beginning of the Cycle in October
Start & End Dates: October 1st to October 31st
Mid-year Review: April 1st to April 30th
Final Year Appraisal: September 1st to September 30th
Section 2: Process
Step 1: Employee to set self-goals with guidance from Manager, manager's goals,
company's goals.
Step 2: Manager to review, recommend change and approve goals
Step 3: Manager includes as appropriate monthly 1:1 sessions with the employees for
feedback.
Step 4: During mid-year review, employee does the self-appraisal, and send the form
to manager
Step 5: Manager completes the appraisal with employee, provides feedback for
improvement, ratings.
Step 6: Reviewer reviews the appraisal and provides feedback
Step 7: Management Council reviews and confirms the ratings
Step 8: Employee accepts the ratings, reviews all the feedback.
Step 9: HR Closes the appraisal for the year, and plans for next year.
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Section 3: Objectives
 Objectives must subscribe to SMART methodology with goals, timeline, targets
and priority.
 Objectives must include both the 'What s' and 'Hows’ as defined in the policy
Section 4: Incentives, Increments and Promotions

The final ratings of the year end appraisal is considered for the employee's
remuneration such as performance incentives, salary increments and
promotions. The promotion is governed by separate 'GreatCompany promotion policy'
in HR manual. However, the ratings of the immediately preceding 3 years will be
considered for the promotion, and employees should not be put into 'PIP' performance
improvement plan. Moreover, employees considered for promotions are ready to play
that role, and have played that role in the last 6 months to an year. In short the
employee performs a role prior to being promoted to that role.
Section 5: Arbitration
GreatCompany reserves the right to change the GreatCompany Performance Policy
from time to time, keeping in the employee welfare and business objectives and
business environment. There are various factors that influence both the external and
internal business environment, revenues, operating profit and thereby the financial
rewards and role progression. GreatCompany Board is the final arbitration body
within GreatCompany, with effective recommendation from Management Council and
HR Head.
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Appendix B: 31 Core Competencies Explained
September 3, 2002 by Edward J. Cripe15
The following is a summarized list of the 31 competencies listed by “cluster” (similar

competencies related to a common skill set). Each competency includes a definition
and the observable behaviors that may indicate the existence of a competency in a
person.
I. Competencies Dealing with People
The Leading Others Cluster
1. Establishing Focus: The ability to develop and communicate goals in support of the
business’ mission.
 Acts to align own unit’s goals with the strategic direction of the business.
 Ensures that people in the unit understand how their work relates to the business’
mission.
 Ensures that everyone understands and identifies with the unit’s mission.
 Ensures that the unit develops goals and a plan to help fulfill the business’
mission.
2. Providing Motivational Support: The ability to enhance others’ commitment to

their work.
 Recognizes and rewards people for their achievements.

 Acknowledges and thanks people for their contributions.
 Expresses pride in the group and encourages people to feel good about their
accomplishments.
 Finds creative ways to make people’s work rewarding.
 Signals own commitment to a process by being personally present and involved at
key events.
 Identifies and promptly tackles morale problems.
15
Courtesy “The Value-Added Employee,” by Edward J. Cripe and Richard S. Mansfield, © 2002 by Workitect Inc.
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 Gives talks or presentations that energize groups.
3. Fostering Teamwork: As a team member, the ability and desire to work

cooperatively with others on a team; as a team leader, the ability to demonstrate
interest, skill, and success in getting groups to learn to work together.
Behaviors for Team Members
 Listens and responds constructively to other team members’ ideas.

 Offers support for others’ ideas and proposals.
 Is open with other team members about his/her concerns.
 Expresses disagreement constructively (e.g., by emphasizing points of agreement,
suggesting alternatives that may be acceptable to the group).
 Reinforces team members for their contributions.
 Gives honest and constructive feedback to other team members.
 Provides assistance to others when they need it.
 Works for solutions that all team members can support.
 Shares his/her expertise with others.
 Seeks opportunities to work on teams as a means to develop experience, and
knowledge.
 Provides assistance, information, or other support to others, to build or maintain
relationships with them.
Behaviors for Team Leaders
 Provides opportunities for people to learn to work together as a team.

 Enlists the active participation of everyone.
 Promotes cooperation with other work units.
 Ensures that all team members are treated fairly.
 Recognizes and encourages the behaviors that contribute to teamwork.
4. Empowering Others: The ability to convey confidence in employees’ ability to be

successful, especially at challenging new tasks; delegating significant responsibility
and authority; allowing employees freedom to decide how they will accomplish their
goals and resolve issues.
 Gives people latitude to make decisions in their own sphere of work.
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 Is able to let others make decisions and take charge.

 Encourages individuals and groups to set their own goals, consistent with business
goals.
 Expresses confidence in the ability of others to be successful.
 Encourages groups to resolve problems on their own; avoids prescribing a solution.
5. Managing Change: The ability to demonstrate support for innovation and for
organizational changes needed to improve the organization’s effectiveness; initiating,
sponsoring, and implementing organizational change; helping others to successfully
manage organizational change.
Employee Behaviors
 Personally develops a new method or approach.

 Proposes new approaches, methods, or technologies.
 Develops better, faster, or less expensive ways to do things.
Manager/Leader Behaviors
 Works cooperatively with others to produce innovative solutions.

 Takes the lead in setting new business directions, partnerships, policies or
procedures.
 Seizes opportunities to influence the future direction of an organizational unit or
the overall business.
 Helps employees to develop a clear understanding of what they will need to do
differently, as a result of changes in the organization.
 Implements or supports various change management activities (e.g.,
communications, education, team development, coaching).
 Establishes structures and processes to plan and manage the orderly
implementation of change.
 Helps individuals and groups manage the anxiety associated with significant
change.
 Facilitates groups or teams through the problem-solving and creative-thinking
processes leading to the development and implementation of new approaches,
systems, structures, and methods.
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6. Developing Others: The ability to delegate responsibility and to work with others
and coach them to develop their capabilities.
 Provides helpful, behaviorally specific feedback to others.

 Shares information, advice, and suggestions to help others to be more successful;
provides effective coaching.
 Gives people assignments that will help develop their abilities.
 Regularly meets with employees to review their development progress.
 Recognizes and reinforces people’s developmental efforts and improvements.
 Expresses confidence in others’ ability to be successful.
7. Managing Performance: The ability to take responsibility for one’s own or one’s
employees’ performance, by setting clear goals and expectations, tracking progress
against the goals, ensuring feedback, and addressing performance problems and
issues promptly.
Behaviors for employees
 With his/her manager, sets specific, measurable goals that are realistic but
challenging, with dates for accomplishment.
 With his/her manager, clarifies expectations about what will be done and how.
 Enlists his/her manager’s support in obtaining the information, resources, and
training needed to accomplish his/her work effectively.
 Promptly notifies his/her manager about any problems that affect his/her ability to
accomplish planned goals.
 Seeks performance feedback from his/her manager and from others with whom
he/she interacts on the job.
 Prepares a personal development plan with specific goals and a timeline for their
accomplishment.
 Takes significant action to develop skills needed for effectiveness in current or
future job.
Behaviors for managers
 Ensures that employees have clear goals and responsibilities.

 Works with employees to set and communicate performance standards that are
specific and measurable.
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 Supports employees in their efforts to achieve job goals (e.g., by providing

resources, removing obstacles, acting as a buffer).
 Stays informed about employees’ progress and performance through both formal
methods (e.g., status reports) and informal methods (e.g., management by walking
around).
 Provides specific performance feedback, both positive and corrective, as soon as
possible after an event.
 Deals firmly and promptly with performance problems; lets people know what is
expected of them and when.
Communication and Influencing Cluster
8. Attention to Communication: The ability to ensure that information is passed on

to others who should be kept informed.
 Ensures that others involved in a project or effort are kept informed about
developments and plans.
 Ensures that important information from his/her management is shared with
his/her employees and others as appropriate.
 Shares ideas and information with others who might find them useful.
 Uses multiple channels or means to communicate important messages (e.g.,
memos, newsletters, meetings, electronic mail).
 Keeps his/her manager informed about progress and problems; avoids surprises.
 Ensures that regular, consistent communication takes place.
9. Oral Communication: The ability to express oneself clearly in conversations and

interactions with others.
 Speaks clearly and can be easily understood.

 Tailors the content of speech to the level and experience of the audience.
 Uses appropriate grammar and choice of words in oral speech.
 Organizes ideas clearly in oral speech.
 Expresses ideas concisely in oral speech.
 Maintains eye contact when speaking with others.
 Summarizes or paraphrases his/her understanding of what others have said to
verify understanding and prevent miscommunication.
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10. Written Communication: The ability to express oneself clearly in business

writing.
 Expresses ideas clearly and concisely in writing.

 Organizes written ideas clearly and signals the organization to the reader (e.g.,
through an introductory paragraph or through use of headings).
 Tailors written communications to effectively reach an audience.
 Uses graphics and other aids to clarify complex or technical information.
 Spells correctly.
 Writes using concrete, specific language.
 Uses punctuation correctly.
 Writes grammatically.
 Uses an appropriate business writing style.
11. Persuasive Communication: The ability to plan and deliver oral and written
communications that make an impact and persuade their intended audiences.
 Identifies and presents information or data that will have a strong effect on others.
 Selects language and examples tailored to the level and experience of the audience.
 Selects stories, analogies, or examples to illustrate a point.
 Creates graphics, overheads, or slides that display information clearly and with
high impact.
 Presents several different arguments in support of a position.
12. Interpersonal Awareness: The ability to notice, interpret, and anticipate others’
concerns and feelings, and to communicate this awareness empathetically to others.
 Understands the interests and important concerns of others.

 Notices and accurately interprets what others are feeling, based on their choice of
words, tone of voice, expressions, and other nonverbal behavior.
 Anticipates how others will react to a situation.
 Listens attentively to people’s ideas and concerns.
 Understands both the strengths and weaknesses of others.
 Understands the unspoken meaning in a situation.
 Says or does things to address others’ concerns.
 Finds non-threatening ways to approach others about sensitive issues.
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 Makes others feel comfortable by responding in ways that convey interest in what
they have to say.
13. Influencing Others: The ability to gain others’ support for ideas, proposals,
projects, and solutions.
 Presents arguments that address others’ most important concerns and issues and
looks for win-win solutions.
 Involves others in a process or decision to ensure their support.
 Offers trade-offs or exchanges to gain commitment.
 Identifies and proposes solutions that benefit all parties involved in a situation.
 Enlists experts or third parties to influence others.
 Develops other indirect strategies to influence others.
 Knows when to escalate critical issues to own or others’ management, if own efforts
to enlist support have not succeeded.
 Structures situations (e.g., the setting, persons present, sequence of events) to
create a desired impact and to maximize the chances of a favorable outcome.
 Works to make a particular impression on others.
 Identifies and targets influence efforts at the real decision makers and those who
can influence them.
 Seeks out and builds relationships with others who can provide information,
intelligence, career support, potential business, and other forms of help.
 Takes a personal interest in others (e.g., by asking about their concerns, interests,
family, friends, hobbies) to develop relationships.
 Accurately anticipates the implications of events or decisions for various
stakeholders in the organization and plans strategy accordingly.
14. Building Collaborative Relationships: The ability to develop, maintain, and

strengthen partnerships with others inside or outside the organization who can
provide information, assistance, and support.
 Asks about the other person’s personal experiences, interests, and family.
 Asks questions to identify shared interest, experiences, or other common ground.
 Shows an interest in what others have to say; acknowledges their perspectives and
ideas.
 Recognizes the business concerns and perspectives of others.
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 Expresses gratitude and appreciation to others who have provided information,

assistance, or support.
 Takes time to get to know coworkers, to build rapport and establish a common
bond.
 Tries to build relationships with people whose assistance, cooperation, and support
may be needed.
 Provides assistance, information, and support to others to build a basis for future
reciprocity.
15. Customer Orientation: The ability to demonstrate concern for satisfying one’s
external and/or internal customers.
 Quickly and effectively solves customer problems.

 Talks to customers (internal or external) to find out what they want and how
satisfied they are with what they are getting.
 Let’s customers know he/she is willing to work with them to meet their needs.
 Finds ways to measure and track customer satisfaction.
 Presents a cheerful, positive manner with customers.
II. Compentencies Dealing with Business
The Preventing and Solving Problems Cluster
16. Diagnostic Information Gathering: The ability to identify the information needed
to clarify a situation, seek that information from appropriate sources, and use skillful
questioning to draw out the information, when others are reluctant to disclose it
 Identifies the specific information needed to clarify a situation or to make a

decision.
 Gets more complete and accurate information by checking multiple sources.
 Probes skillfully to get at the facts, when others are reluctant to provide full,
detailed information.
 Routinely walks around to see how people are doing and to hear about any
problems they are encountering.
 Questions others to assess whether they have thought through a plan of action.
 Questions others to assess their confidence in solving a problem or tackling a
situation.
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 Asks questions to clarify a situation.

 Seeks the perspective of everyone involved in a situation.
 Seeks out knowledgeable people to obtain information or clarify a problem.
17. Analytical Thinking: The ability to tackle a problem by using a logical,

systematic, sequential approach.
 Makes a systematic comparison of two or more alternatives.

 Notices discrepancies and inconsistencies in available information.
 Identifies a set of features, parameters, or considerations to take into account, in
analyzing a situation or making a decision.
 Approaches a complex task or problem by breaking it down into its component
parts and considering each part in detail.
 Weighs the costs, benefits, risks, and chances for success, in making a decision.
 Identifies many possible causes for a problem.
 Carefully weighs the priority of things to be done.
18. Forward Thinking: The ability to anticipate the implications and consequences of
situations and take appropriate action to be prepared for possible contingencies.
 Anticipates possible problems and develops contingency plans in advance.

 Notices trends in the industry or marketplace and develops plans to prepare for
opportunities or problems.
 Anticipates the consequences of situations and plans accordingly.
 Anticipates how individuals and groups will react to situations and information and
plans accordingly.
19. Conceptual Thinking: The ability to find effective solutions by taking a holistic,
abstract, or theoretical perspective.
 Notices similarities between different and apparently unrelated situations.

 Quickly identifies the central or underlying issues in a complex situation.
 Creates a graphic diagram showing a systems view of a situation.
 Develops analogies or metaphors to explain a situation.
 Applies a theoretical framework to understand a specific situation.
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20. Strategic Thinking: The ability to analyze the organization’s competitive position
by considering market and industry trends, existing and potential customers (internal
and external), and strengths and weaknesses as compared to competitors.
 Understands the organization’s strengths and weaknesses as compared to

competitors.
 Understands industry and market trends affecting the organization’s
competitiveness.
 Has an in-depth understanding of competitive products and services within the
marketplace.
 Develops and proposes a long-term (3-5 year) strategy for the organization based on
an analysis of the industry and marketplace and the organization’s current and
potential capabilities as compared to competitors.
21. Technical Expertise: The ability to demonstrate depth of knowledge and skill in a
technical area.
 Effectively applies technical knowledge to solve a range of problems.

 Possesses an in-depth knowledge and skill in a technical area.
 Develops technical solutions to new or highly complex problems that cannot be
solved using existing methods or approaches.
 Is sought out as an expert to provide advice or solutions in his/her technical area.
 Keeps informed about cutting-edge technology in his/her technical area.
The Achieving Results Cluster
22. Initiative: Identifying what needs to be done and doing it before being asked or
before the situation requires it.
 Identifying what needs to be done and takes action before being asked or the
situation requires it.
 Does more than what is normally required in a situation.
 Seeks out others involved in a situation to learn their perspectives.
 Takes independent action to change the direction of events.
23. Entrepreneurial Orientation: The ability to look for and seize profitable business
opportunities; willingness to take calculated risks to achieve business goals.
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 Notices and seizes profitable business opportunities.

 Stays abreast of business, industry, and market information that may reveal
business opportunities.
 Demonstrates willingness to take calculated risks to achieve business goals.
 Proposes innovative business deals to potential customers, suppliers, and business
partners.
 Encourages and supports entrepreneurial behavior in others.
24. Fostering Innovation: The ability to develop, sponsor, or support the introduction
of new and improved method, products, procedures, or technologies.
 Personally develops a new product or service.

 Personally develops a new method or approach.
 Sponsors the development of new products, services, methods, or procedures.
 Proposes new approaches, methods, or technologies.
 Develops better, faster, or less expensive ways to do things.
 Works cooperatively with others to produce innovative solutions.
25. Results Orientation: The ability to focus on the desired result of one’s own or
one’s unit’s work, setting challenging goals, focusing effort on the goals, and meeting
or exceeding them.
 Develops challenging but achievable goals.

 Develops clear goals for meetings and projects.
 Maintains commitment to goals in the face of obstacles and frustrations.
 Finds or creates ways to measure performance against goals.
 Exerts unusual effort over time to achieve a goal.
 Has a strong sense of urgency about solving problems and getting work done.
26. Thoroughness: Ensuring that one’s own and others’ work and information are
complete and accurate; carefully preparing for meetings and presentations; following
up with others to ensure that agreements and commitments have been fulfilled.
 Sets up procedures to ensure high quality of work (e.g., review meetings).

 Monitors the quality of work.
 Verifies information.
 Checks the accuracy of own and others’ work.
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 Develops and uses systems to organize and keep track of information or work
progress.
 Carefully prepares for meetings and presentations.
 Organizes information or materials for others.
 Carefully reviews and checks the accuracy of information in work reports (e.g.,
production, sales, financial performance) provided by management, management
information systems, or other individuals and groups.
27. Decisiveness: The ability to make difficult decisions in a timely manner.
 Is willing to make decisions in difficult or ambiguous situations, when time is

critical.
 Takes charge of a group when it is necessary to facilitate change, overcome an
impasse, face issues, or ensure that decisions are made.
 Makes tough decisions (e.g., closing a facility, reducing staff, accepting or rejecting
a high-stakes deal).
III. Self-Management Competencies
28. Self Confidence: Faith in one’s own ideas and capability to be successful;
willingness to take an independent position in the face of opposition.
 Is confident of own ability to accomplish goals.

 Presents self-crisply and impressively.
 Is willing to speak up to the right person or group at the right time, when he/she
disagrees with a decision or strategy.
 Approaches challenging tasks with a “can-do” attitude.
29. Stress Management: The ability to keep functioning effectively when under
pressure and maintain self-control in the face of hostility or provocation.
 Remains calm under stress.

 Can effectively handle several problems or tasks at once.
 Controls his/her response when criticized, attacked or provoked.
 Maintains a sense of humor under difficult circumstances.
 Manages own behavior to prevent or reduce feelings of stress.
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30. Personal Credibility: Demonstrated concern that one be perceived as responsible,

reliable, and trustworthy.
 Does what he/she commits to doing.

 Respects the confidentiality of information or concerns shared by others.
 Is honest and forthright with people.
 Carries his/her fair share of the workload.
 Takes responsibility for own mistakes; does not blame others.
 Conveys a command of the relevant facts and information.
31. Flexibility: Openness to different and new ways of doing things; willingness to
modify one’s preferred way of doing things.
 Is able to see the merits of perspectives other than his/her own.

 Demonstrates openness to new organizational structures, procedures, and
technology.
 Switches to a different strategy when an initially selected one is unsuccessful.
 Demonstrates willingness to modify a strongly held position in the face of contrary
evidence.
62
Appendix C: Other topics LITMUS, Rewards & Recognition
Companies can work towards employee engagements by employing rewards

and recognition, this can be monetary or non-monetary based on the occasions
and various categories. Companies should think about various awards during
the year and end of the year. Many organizations are doing well in this front
with ‘Thank you’ cards, Spot Awards, Quarterly Awards, Hall of Fame, Most
Valued Team and imagination is the only limit for doing these awards which
will motivate employees to perform well in a competitive environment.
Companies can also gather feedback from employees on various matters,
issues both anonymously and non-anonymously, allow them to vote or like the
posts by other employees and take actions with communication updates. This
will make employees feel at home and loved, when they take part in the
collective success to effect change within the organization. In the absence of
these mechanisms, sometimes employees take it outside the organization in the
third-party 16websites which damages the brand & reputation of the company
in the potential eyes of the new employees, customers and in market.
16
www.glassdoor.com, website for employees to post the feedback and grievances anonymously.
63
Notes
64
Notes
65

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Copyright & Notices

10 Min Read: Powering Peak Performance, 10 min guide to transform employee

Copyright © 2016 by Saravana Perumal

10 Minute Read series

Proudly printed in Chennai, India

I dedicate this book to my daughter ‘Sangitha Perumal’, who is the

I like to thank my wife Geetha who takes care of everything at

(William James, 1907, pp. 322–323)

I want to address this to specific audience HR professionals and

The broad audience segment:

Purpose of this book

Let me begin with a small story. In one of the bustling office

Executives in any organization aspire to achieve 3 core

personal time. By not leveraging this, the company becomes

To achieve engagement, the enterprise must have to follow

the company goals, department goals and in some cases to their

Chapter’s Key Points:

Performance Management vs. Performance Development

स तु दीर्घकाल नैरन्तर्घ सत्काराअदराअसेवितो दृढभूव िः ॥१४॥

This philosophy of performance management process places lot of

Unravelling the myths: for and against Performance Evaluations

There are different schools of thought on the topic. Some take

entrepreneur or change the world. As a matter of fact, we need

goals driven. The administration of performance management process

company. The companies who practice tend to measure, adapt, correct

Chapter’s Key Points:

Current practices and shortcomings

The practices in many organizations still are driven by individual

the performance management administration and the size of the

Other critical information to be included in the policy are: ‘well defined

Chapter’s Key Points:

Methods and Techniques: To Transform the Enterprise

AS we have seen in the last chapter, the various shortcomings lead to

OKR: the way of new generation of companies

Many startups and companies who celebrate efficiency and

S.M.A.R.T Goals11 Framework

There are many Fortune 500 companies like Nokia, Microsoft,

goal. The acronym SMART expands to Specific, Measurable, Achievable,

challenging goals, set strategy to achieve them, build relationships

monthly review. If the company or the manager follows regular 1:1

KRA, KPA & KPI:

KRA expands to Key Responsibility Areas, KPA for Key Performance

Examples can be:

KRA or KPA can be thought of as objectives or goals by adding target

KRA: Develop software matching the requirement

Balanced Score Card (BSC):

BSC is one of the widely-used management framework among

Learning & Growth

management consultant and founder of palladium group. Even though it

1 Analysis Ability to analyze information from

13 Listening and Responding Accurately listen to others, understand

The other simple terms one could use be:

 Teamwork, Responsibility, Initiative, Decision making, Motivation,

Performance appraisals are different from performance management.

360 Feedback or Multi-Rater Feedback:

Traditionally during the performance review or appraisal managers

Chapter’s Key Points:

(Human Resources Development) must carry a goal to ensure the