Performance Management: Second-Lowest Only To Colonoscopies In Terms Of Popularity

As much as we talk about talent here at Pythia Cyber, or the NIST CSF, or AI, eventually you need either to perform, or manage performance, or collaborate with other executives to calibrate performance across the organization.

That's right, it's time to talk performance management. In this post we'll discuss the 'why,' and in a later post we'll discuss 'how.'

Let's start with the baseline. Maybe 1% of anyone who has been an employee or contractor at any organizational level wants to discuss performance management. 

At the same time, it's a business-critical conversation -- maybe existential -- in a field such as cybersecurity.

Here's is my friend Steve Hunt on performance management. Steve was a VP at SAP at the time he wrote this piece, probably the best ever written on performance management. The key part is here (quoted at length):

Performance management is both difficult and necessary. Performance management is difficult because it addresses the reality of performance differences. Employees do not all perform at the same level and most people believe employees who contribute more to the organization should receive more in return.  But addressing performance differences requires managing issues that can quickly blow up if not dealt with appropriately. Performance management is necessary because it impacts business-critical and legally sensitive decisions around pay, job assignments, and employment. Leaving managers to make these sorts of high stakes decisions based on intuition is not a good formula for long-term success.  When you consider the sorts of activities and decisions involved in performance management it is not surprising that companies have struggled to do it well.

Let's emphasize this part: "Performance management is necessary because it impacts business-critical and legally sensitive decisions around pay, job assignments, and employment. Leaving managers to make these sorts of high stakes decisions based on intuition is not a good formula for long-term success."

Here is how performance management helps you.

Scenario 1: you just started your new career as a cyber-defender. If you're right out of high school, college, or the military, you're used to clear-cut assignments, deadlines, chains of command/advisors, etc. What now? How can you get traction, make a name for yourself, maybe enjoy your job?

Scenario 2: you just hired a high-flying, hot-shot computer science grad from the right 'elite' university with all the right credentials; did they end up metaphorically caught in a tree? How can you tell? How can you discuss this? What if this person decides that all that elitism trumps ending up in a tree vis-a-vis performance, i.e. it's your fault?

Scenario 3: as Steve notes and we concur, an executive needs to justify their bonus structure and promotions relative to other executives. You probably think your people are excellent...aside from that one in the tree...and you may believe you need to shower money and promotions on people to keep them from leaving. And so does every other manager. Except you don't have that much money or positions. What now?

An alternative to scenario 3 is the "there's not enough accountability here" drone. I've had leaders tell me with a straight face that this is "the biggest problem in this organization," not, you know, ineffective leadership. (Hint: the two are related.) Well, what evidence is there to back this up?

An analogy to performance management is cooking a big celebratory dinner, maybe Thanksgiving as an example. The dinner you serve is kind of like the performance management review/rating. That is, the rating (or Thanksgiving dinner) itself is not performance management. Instead, the cooking/performance management process results in dinner/a rating. 

Don't confuse process with outcome in performance management.

Ask us how you can manage performance better (for colonoscopies, though, you're on your own).