My partner nudged me in the middle of a song and dance routine we were watching and pointed out a pair of dancers. In the middle of the Mandovi river late in the evening on a cruise in Goa, India the troupe was performing local dances on the last night. The pair of dancers in question seemed to be going through the motions with little passion and interest. Like an obsessive itch that you can’t give up, I would search them out in all the performances that evening and was fascinated with their fixed smiles and disinterested moves.
We have all come across employees who are meeting the standard metrics. Like these two performers, they come on time, they dress the part and make the right moves but there is something missing. And our usual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of measuring goals would not fault these performers. Yet to the audience they missed the mark completely. And then there are employees who bring energy into their jobs and environment – the server who makes for a positive experience in a restaurant or the gas station attendant who makes you feel that they value your business.
Organization processes, policies such as standardized performance management models miss out on valuing the essential human passion that is the difference between an average performer and an outstanding one.
The rules and process burden creates culture in organizations of staying safe to survive. Managers and HR professionals looking for the missing spark that they killed then spend money and time in running ‘team building’, ‘innovation’ and ‘motivation’ training programs and build recognition tools which are doomed to fail since they are not addressing the problem. So instead of looking for the silver bullet – let us solve the root of the problem through three approaches about going back to basics.
1- Hire beyond the resume
look for the spark which tells that someone really wants to dance and are not just looking for a job. There will always be some who have more passion than others. Avoid hiring if you can, folks who just want a pay check. I hear clients complaining that this is all good for an artist but who will have the passion for being a check-out clerk in a big box store. And this is where HR folks can add real value to the business. Find out what is the key aspect that drives success in a role – for example, it is critical that a check-out clerk enjoys interacting with people and helping them. Look for this passion when you hire.
2- Let Managers Manage
Don’t kill the enthusiasm and passion that you worked so hard to find through standardized organization performance assessment forms and metrics that have little to do with keeping people motivated. Empower and enable managers to make the decisions on assessments and rewards which are critical to what is needed in their teams. Rather than using a standard form/template forced upon every part of the organization allow managers to identify what is valuable and hold them accountable for the results. Standardization leads to metrics which have little to do with the real reason that job exists. This is an opportunity for HR leaders to partner with the business managers in making this happen within organizational constraints like budgets rather than operate as the process police for a company wide approach.
3- Focus on the Real Reason a Job Exists
Train, build and develop the core skills that are the reason for that job to exist. Instead of making everyone drink the same cool aid of culture, allow managers to focus on the critical competencies for each job. Organizations will have a base line of values which are common but on top of that foundation allow managers the freedom to build their own high performing teams. Again, a tremendous opportunity for HR to make a real difference to the business by empowering managers and getting rid of company wide competencies which are motherhood in nature.
These three changes in approach can help save HR and businesses from marching towards the standardization in dealing with people which drives employees to boredom and monotony killing the very spark which could have made them a star in their role. The recommendations may seem revolutionary in the current environment where HRM technology, drive to lower costs and signing up to the lean six sigma process optimization is de rigueur but the essence is of going back to basics.
Author-Rajiv Burman has over 25 years of experience in Human Resources in North America and Asia, at Accenture, American Express and currently is the Head HR APAC at Kronos. He is a graduate from XLRI and University of Toronto and focuses on Diversity issues, Change Management and Manager Effectiveness.
