In our experience, two of the biggest areas for improvement in senior teams (and their leaders) are delegation and performance management.
We’ve shared this simple, intuitive tool with dozens of executives, and the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. It provides a low-pressure but high-ROI starting point for conversations that really move the needle towards success.
Delegation
Delegation is more than just choosing which tasks to give to others.
Part of the delegation process is ensuring that the individual (or team) are equipped to get results: clear expectations, well-defined objectives, and an agreed process for implementation. This doesn’t mean micromanaging people to try and make your team carbon copies of you; and it doesn’t mean giving them an order and then leaving them to it.
Effective delegation means opening a dialogue with your employee to make sure they have the skills and the self-assurance they need to get the job done.
Performance management
Our observation over the years is that performance management systems are often backward-looking, and can degenerate into inquisitions – more about placing blame than improving outputs.
The key, in our view, is to focus on the employee, with managers aiming to understand the degree of challenge that each current or proposed business objective presents to the employee.
The Clarity Confidence matrix is a simple tool designed to help you structure that dialogue, by asking the employee to map out each of the objectives assigned to them.
- Clarity is a measure of how well they understand the task and know how to do it in theory.
- Confidence is a measure of how sure they are, that they can do it well.
Here’s the matrix. Its sophistication lies in its simplicity: simple to get the hang of, and easy to use.
Where employees map objectives in a yellow or dark purple box, they should be asked to suggest up to three things that they feel would help them overcome their concerns. The management approach to each objective will differ depending on which box it has been placed in.
High clarity, high confidence
Challenge level: low
The employee is very clear about what needs to be done to achieve the business objective they’ve been set, and is confident of achieving it. They will need minimum supervision, with the line manager monitoring performance and providing support should the employee request it.
Low clarity, high confidence
Challenge level: moderate
While the employee is confident of their ability to tackle the objective, they lack clarity on what it involves. Typically, this will be a proven performer (with most of their objectives mapped to the lilac box) who is being asked to take on an objective in an area where they have little experience, but where their current skillset is likely to succeed. Their line manager will need to invest time with the employee early on to ensure they are helped to make sense of the objective; as understanding grows, the support need will diminish.
High clarity, low confidence
Challenge level: significant
While the employee has a very clear understanding of what the business objective involves, they are not at all confident they can handle it, typically due to moving into an unfamiliar area that requires a new skillset. The line manager will need to provide coaching, training and ongoing support until the new skills are learned, and successes have improved confidence. For this reason, line managers should be clear why it’s a good idea to pursue an objective that worries the employee.
Low clarity, low confidence
Challenge level: high
This is usually the box chosen by recruits starting a new job. The line manager must devote time to explain each objective in detail, and ensure that high levels of coaching and training support are available. Contact with the employee will need to be frequent until understanding and confidence grow. Where an existing employee places most of their objectives in this box, we would recommend that the line manager meets them weekly to monitor progress.
Example of completed matrix
Background: Jamila, 25, is a good sales executive with five years’ experience, who one year ago stepped up to run her first team of six sales people. Due to a very recent merger with a competing firm, Jamila’s team now needs to expand its remit beyond telephone sales and into face-to-face selling at shows. This will require the hiring of two extra sales people for her team.
This matrix shows Jamila’s thoughts and concerns as she maps her objectives:
It’s a work in progress
It’s rare to see an employee map every objective to a single box; an employee undergoing good development will map objectives across two or three boxes, with established objectives moving from yellow to lilac over time, and fresh and stretching objectives being mapped to yellow.
Success in performance management typically arises from regular monitoring of the match between employee skills and evolving business objectives, and requires fine-grained thinking by line managers who regard their employees as a work in progress, and not set in stone.