You’ve been there. I have too. You’re on a road trip, a long one, and eventually someone asks “Are we there yet?”  I’m in my fifties and I remember asking that question, over and over again, every time we traveled from downstate NY to Lake George up in the Adirondack Mountains.

When I got a little older and asked the same question, my mom or dad would point to the huge paper atlas (remember those?) on the back seat and tell me to figure it out. I would look for mile markers or exit signs, find where we are on the map and then try to guess how close we were.

Forty-five years later and I see organizations in an analogous situation; the destination is one or more strategic goals, employees are the passengers, and the mile markers are combinations of quantifiable metrics and lists of tasks.

The problem is, for many organizations the journey has some bumps in the road. Ask yourself these questions about your organization:

1. Does everyone know where the organization wants to go? Its short and long term goals?
2. Do employees know where the organization is on the journey to achieving those goals?
3. Does each employee know what they can do to help get to the destination?
4. What conversations happen along the way to help make the journey smooth and keep everyone aligned on where you’re headed?
5. How do you periodically (e.g., every six months or annually) document the trip? What are performance reviews like?

Today’s long car trips are a bit smoother. You plug the destination in to your GPS and off you go. Anyone who can see it can tell exactly where you are, where you’re headed and the estimated time of arrival (ETA). Along the way, some apps even help you circumnavigate “bumps in the road” (like accidents or construction), by suggesting slight changes to the route – while always keeping the shortest path to the destination as a top priority.

Upcoming Live Webinar:
Taking the Pain Out of Performance Reviews
Date: October 15

Register Here

The organizational equivalent of a GPS is Continuous Performance Management (CPM). Meeting once a year or every six months to set goals and document results in a performance appraisal is old school – it’s the huge paper Rand McNally Atlas compared to a GPS. Leading organizations know that. It’s why companies including Deloitte and Adobe have adopted CPM strategies.

CPM is a continual holistic process, as opposed to those based on traditional annual appraisals. CPM processes take place throughout the year on an ongoing basis. These processes include near-term objective and goal setting, regular one-to-ones (i.e., coaching sessions or “check-ins”) and real-time feed­back.

• Everyone knows where the organization wants to go – its goals. And there’s a clear understanding of what measurements, either tasks or quantifiable metrics, will be used to determine success. In road trip terms, they can see what’s been entered as the destination in the GPS.
• Employees understand what they need to do to help reach the destination. They have goals and measures to show how they are doing to help contribute to the overall trip. In road trip terms, they have mile markers and those markers are frequently (perhaps even automatically) updated.
• Frequent Conversations – Coaching Sessions – Keep the goals in site while helping employees circumnavigate any obstacles that may come up. In road trip terms, the GPS tells you to get off the highway, take a back road, and then jump back on the highway, so you’ll avoid construction.
• Documenting the journey is critical. It’s how an organization learns from its past to be even more successful in the future. It’s how employees know how well they did and what they could do better. Sometimes, the documentation about performance is critically important – ask any HR person who has been involved in a performance improvement plan or involuntary termination. Waiting to document the entire trip once you’ve arrived is difficult. It’s part of the reason why managers hate doing performance reviews. With CPM, you take notes as you go, making the final write-up a breeze.

These are just some of the concepts that make up a continuous performance management strategy. There are many tools to help an organization leverage these concepts to maximize performance and achieve results; paper and pencil, office applications like documents and spreadsheets, or dedicated CPM applications.

Now the question is, what tool is right for you? Do you still use a paper atlas on a long road trip? Or do you use a GPS, like Waze, to help make the journey go smooth?

Let’s continue the conversation. Join me on Thursday, October 15, at 1PM EST. You can register to attend at the link above. I’ll talk about more questions you can use to evaluate how well your organization is fueling success with continuous performance management. And I’ll show you miviva – a new software solution that gives you one place for everyone to manage their goals — set them, track progress against actual results, capture feedback, and evaluate performance — so you can keep focused and achieve what you’re striving for.