The objective truth about a team member’s performance should be revealed by the metrics most linked to success. Good leaders and teams are diligent in their measurement and review of individual performance metrics for a reason. They know an ongoing scoreboard is both motivational and instructive. Elevating individual and team performance depends on it.
Those with sub-par performance, as reflected by the metrics, usually receive some coaching or are asked to follow a personal improvement plan to flip the numbers. Those who excel are often applauded and receive more attention and praise from leaders to reinforce what they are doing successfully. In effective organizations, this process is perpetual and is foundational for driving results.
But the next step is equally important. Creating a high-performing team requires leaders to make these metrics transparent to the entire team. This transparency creates the unique optics of peer pressure that go unspoken but have a tremendous influence on individual results. No one wants to underperform in the eyes of their peers. Leaders be damned. The view of peers carries much more weight.
Too many leaders are reluctant to create transparency for fear they will embarrass low performers and demotivate anyone not performing at the top. These fears are well-founded. But if performance really matters, these fears need to be ignored. Nothing equals the power of peer pressure to drive results and elevate the motivation to succeed. Low performers will find a way or leave the team, as should be the case. No one said creating a high-performing team was going to be painless.
The real problem leaders face is not whether to make individual performance metrics transparent, but in how to do so. Going from no transparency to full transparency is indeed a recipe for reactive disaster.
Team members need to warm up to the idea that comparing performance metrics for everyone on the team is both a good idea and highly motivational over the long run. This means displaying metrics slowly, perhaps without names attached or metric-by-metric, over a period of time, until full transparency is achieved.
Once a team is comfortable seeing everyone’s performance metrics on a regular basis, illusions of performance disappear, as do the conversations surrounding it. No longer do leaders have to disconfirm a team member’s self-image or sense of contribution. The metrics do that instead. The numbers don’t lie.
In a metric-open workplace, team members can’t hide from the data. It exposes the top and bottom performers and everyone in between. In performance cultures where the metrics carry incredible weight, leaders sometimes rank order team members by design, hoping to jump-start those on the bottom to get moving.
The best leaders don’t discuss the metrics openly with the team, but rather let the numbers do the talking. They get to spend more time helping low performers develop a plan for success and less time arguing over perceptions of high performance that have long since lapsed.
Truth be known, the pressure to perform is created almost entirely by the desire to meet the expectations of peers, not leaders. This peer pressure exerts a tremendous influence on individual performance and team results. Because we are social creatures that most respect group status, no leader can apply the influence that peers can. Peers define the true standards of any team culture.
Why not let the transparency of performance metrics raise the standards on your team? Everyone is always asking for more transparency, so why not give it to them? Let the power of peers work for you.
