I see a lot of organizations taking the first step — or maybe even the first few steps — on performance development programs. They set up a continuous performance feedback system. They do a training. They bring in a consultant.

And nothing really changes. They don’t read the feedback they receive. They don’t keep up with the one-on-one meetings. They don’t implement the things they learned in the training.

Why? Because a change in behavior requires practice, reinforcement, repetition. And that’s not happening.

See: The Coaching Process: Coaching Your Team

The Three Cs of Good Management

If leaders want to see real change when they implement performance development initiatives, they need to follow the three Cs of good management.

Clarity
Communication
Consistency

Clarity is making sure we’re on the same page, that whatever we’ve decided is mutually agreed and understood — whether that’s in a one-on-one meeting, a group meeting, or a top-down message. It needs to be clear.

Communication is the ongoing process of having conversations about whatever needs to be discussed along the way. Communicating regularly is critical.

Consistency is about regular follow-through. Are we actually doing what we said we would be doing? Are we doing it the same across the whole organization? That consistency includes an assumption of accountability, which we’ll talk more about later.

Performance management fails when we’re not leveraging the three Cs.

I’ve worked with numerous organizations who have deployed continuous feedback systems for employee engagement but who haven’t stuck with it. They often set up good, effective programs through products like 15five or Lattice. The problem isn’t with the set up. It’s with the follow-through. No one holds the managers accountable if they miss their one-on-ones or don’t read the weekly feedback.

I’ve experienced similar dysfunctions myself.

One of the first management trainings I got in my career was how to do interviews (circa 1990). I still have the binder of the class because I thought it was really well done.

It was a program on how to do behavioral interviewing. They walked us through all sorts of practice sessions and scenarios, and it was a great one-day program. I think my boss was in the program with me — maybe even the whole department because we were an engineering team, and engineers can be terrible at assessing people skills.

It was a methodology to get us prepared and frame an interview in a way that we could get what we needed out of it. Except there was no follow-through. Nobody ever sat in on one of my interviews and said, Hey Mike, here's what you're doing well, and here’s what’s not so great.

The next few hires I made were terrible. They were really bad. It was my first manager job. I wasn't a very good manager when I started because I didn't have a coach. I didn't have a role model. I didn't have a mentor. So the training was sort of academic.

I never got the chance to put it into practice because there was no one to coach me through it. There was no one to hold me accountable. There was no one to give me feedback. It’s hard to be self-aware about a skill that we've just learned.

See: How to Give Feedback: Coaching Your Team

The fish rots from the head

The organizational leaders need to care about whether actions are being taken. They need to reinforce the value of the program and hold people accountable. If there are individuals that aren’t using it well, maybe they need support. Maybe they need coaching or additional training. Maybe they need to be partnered with someone who can help them manage some of the technicalities of administering a new system.

The trouble is that leaders sometimes initiate these programs because they check a box, not because they’re committed to truly engage with them.

It doesn't get systematized, and then it doesn't get followed up with accountability. No one is given the authority to ensure that everyone is complying with the agreed-upon practices.

Many organizations do have the best of intentions, but they haven’t thought it through. They’re trying that next shiny thing without connecting all the dots.

It’s like joining a gym. I don’t become more fit just because I’m now a member of a gym. If I want to be more fit, I actually have to use the gym.

Okay, so I join the gym and decide to take those first couple of free personal training sessions. They do an evaluation, and I get a plan. I’m on my way.

Of course, you know how this goes. I go a few times after that. It’s not a habit, though. I get busy. It doesn’t fit into my regular routine. I go to bed too late, so it’s hard to wake up at 5:30 and get there before work. Then I’m tired at the end of the day.

Nobody notices whether I went or not, so it’s easy to just stop showing up.

How would it be different if I hired a trainer to work with me twice a week? Or if I knew a buddy was going to be there waiting for me to work out together at 6:00 am every morning? What if I set alarms on my phone for an earlier bedtime?

We need that accountability. We need to recognize that adding something new usually means we have to adapt other things in our lives or our businesses.

What do I need to do so that I’ll be committed to it? Consistent about it? How can I track my progress to get feedback and motivation?

At Trajectify, we typically don’t offer training without follow-up coaching. That reinforcement is necessary. It’s why consistency is the third C in good management.

See: All Employees Should Have a Professional Development Plan. Do Yours?

What’s blocking success

I hear from CEOs that they’re busy. There are other important things they need to focus on. Sales. Launching products. Raising capital.

It goes back to Stephen Covey’s quadrants. Working with your team, doing performance management, is Quadrant II. You may think that “more important things” are Quadrant I. They’re not actually more important; They’re more urgent.

There is nothing more important than developing your organization. Because when you aren’t developing your organization, your employees are less engaged, you start having retention issues, and productivity goes down.

Performance management isn’t an event. It’s a continuous process. Leaders need to create accountability for their employees and team members. They need to check in on how the learning process is going and offer feedback.

Imagine someone goes to a training on how to create effective appraisals. They go back to the company, and the next quarter they focus on writing really good appraisals. They put a lot of effort into it. Unfortunately, nobody's looking at the work saying, Oh, those are really good appraisals. Here's what I think you did well. And here's where I think you've got maybe a gap.

They go and deploy those appraisals, and then three months pass before the next appraisals, because they're only doing them quarterly — or even worse, annually. And they forget half of what they learned about doing it. Nobody reinforced it. Nobody paid attention when they did it in the first place. So, what did they learn?

If you want to be a people manager, you have to focus on the growth of people.

Failures (like a manager missing several one-on-ones) should be treated like any other failure — a meeting to discuss how the manager didn’t meet expectations, whether they need support to be successful.

It’s a performance miss. As leaders, we’re also performance managers. Our team might miss. What do we do? We coach them, we offer support, we hold them accountable.

When performance management isn’t working, there are symptoms — lack of engagement, dwindling productivity, poor culture. If you’re not paying attention, you might notice them too late.

Final thoughts

One of the first tools I used when I went plant-based was to measure my body fat — so I could see a quantifiable change, and to get recognition, to get feedback on how I was doing.

It may have not been the best metric, but it was the metric that motivated me at that moment. I bought calipers, and I tracked it so I knew that I was making progress.

The same thing is true in performance management. We need that feedback — whether it’s from our boss or a coach. It’s one of the things I like about a system like 15Five. There’s a pulse check in the weekly check-in: on a scale of one to five, how was your week? You can track that data over time and know whether what we’re doing is working or not.

What happens if the company grows faster than the individuals? I’m helping a client with this now. In small companies, it happens all the time. If leaders aren’t focused on performance development and coaching someone’s growth, they’re going to cause it to happen. They contribute to the gap they end up needing to fill. And then they have to decide whether they have to replace someone or wedge a team member into a role they’re not ready for.

You need to be thinking about the future of your organization and making significant, real investments in your team so that when you get where you want to go, you have a team that can meet you there.

Clarity, communication, and consistency don’t cost anything.