Dr Jason Price Of Price Perrott Limited On 5 Tips For A Successful Performance Management Process
An Interview with Rachel Kline
A performance management process should drive success. An organisation can only achieve its objectives when the people working within it are achieving their personal results.
Performance management is notoriously difficult to get right, but not impossible. In this series we speak with experts to get their insights into creating an effective performance management system. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jason Price.
Dr. Jason Price is Managing Director of Price Perrott Limited, and an independent consultant specialising in workplace bullying, harassment and complaints management.
Jason provides insights and education that help improve his clients’ workplace culture and complaints performance.
He is an international speaker who has appeared at conferences in the UK, US, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. Jason’s experience includes roles as an operational senior leader and consultant in complaints management and customer service operations, covering sectors including Central and Local Government, Emergency Services, Technology and Financial Services.
His Ph.D is in Artificial Intelligence (Genetic Algorithms) from Aston University in the United Kingdom.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Before we drive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’ve always had a strong focus on helping people, from my family experience growing up. I learnt the essential lessons of great customer service as a graduate trainee with Ford Motor Company (UK) in their IT helpdesk, and these have stayed with me throughout my career.
My academic studies gave me a solid foundation in computing science and artificial intelligence that has proved invaluable in my project leadership career. I started out delivering early iterations of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, took that experience into Big 4 consultancy, then into UK Local Government where I had responsibility for customer service, contact centre and complaints operations.
Complaints can give deep insights into the failures of an organisation — and the real human consequences of service failure. Like many people who have worked in high-profile, high-pressure workplaces, coming across incidents of unacceptable workplace behaviour, bullying or harassment is, sadly, all too common.
It’s never acceptable for people to feel afraid of going to work, or for someone to cause others physical and psychological harm through their behaviour in the workplace. Organisations never benefit from a toxic culture and there’s a sense now that people have just had enough of it.
I’m fortunate that I’m now able to help leaders with the insights and education they need to improve the way they tackle workplace bullying and harassment — impartially and fairly — using world-class standards of complaints management.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started at Ford, I was given the task of wiring up some new telephones for the helpdesk. That means connecting the white/green, green, white/orange, blue, white/blue, orange, white/brown and brown wires to the right terminals.
I did my best. My supervisor checked in after a while and found every single one was wired incorrectly. That’s when (as a shy trainee) I mentioned that being a bit colourblind might be a factor. I thought I was managing, but clearly not!
I learnt three key lessons that have stayed with me:
- What seems like a performance issue to one person may have a genuine, underlying root cause. Specifying tasks and checking in with people on whether they’re able to do what you’ve asked is a vital leadership skill. Otherwise, you’re just going to set people up to fail.
- Managers that act with kindness and understanding get a lot more out of people. They build confidence in their teams. We worked out I probably wasn’t the best person for that job, and both of us learnt a few things about colourblindness.
- Roughly one in twelve men are colourblind! People should use colourblind-safe blue for highlighting text in their documents and data visualisations, instead of red, if you want to have more success reaching all the audience.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I think people who are prepared to give you opportunities, to challenge you and be there to support and guide you (especially when things are difficult) help you succeed in the future.
My manager’s leadership by example in my trainee role has stayed with me for life. When I made a mistake, he was supportive (not punitive) and provided constructive guidance. That didn’t mean he let poor performance slide, but he created an environment of psychological safety and I never felt nervous or silly when I needed to ask for help.
That means he got the best out of people, by showing “servant leadership” that encouraged better performance — as opposed to using hierarchy to rule by fear.
I think we all know managers who use that approach, but you always remember people for how they treated you.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
”Trust, but verify.” (Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States)
There’s one sure sign you’re getting older, and that’s when you speak at a conference and have to explain to some of the younger blank faces in the audience who Ronald Reagan was and what the Cold War was about.
You’ll learn lessons from every person you encounter. Some will be good lessons, and some — sadly — will be bad lessons, but they are lessons nonetheless.
I’ve found that approaching professional tasks on the basis of trust and a belief that people want to do their best, is the right place to start.
Unfortunately that’s not always the case, so it’s important to have processes and mechanisms in place to set standards and verify that what you’re expecting and trusting people to do is happening on the ground.
That’s common sense in quality and performance management.
Thinking back on your own career, what would you tell your younger self?
Trust your instincts, verify your logic — but always do the right thing. Act with integrity, especially when ‘group-think’ is pressuring you to take a path you can see is wrong, or unethical.
Leading with integrity doesn’t always make you popular. It might even take your career somewhat off your plan!
But you’re much better off being able to live with yourself, to say you did the right thing, even if it’s a harder thing to do at the time.
Why is performance management so tricky to get right?
Because you’re dealing with people, and they’re human beings — not “human resources”. Everyone has their own life experience, their own values and differing personal goals and objectives.
Performance management has to balance the needs of an organisation, its culture and values, with something that supports each individual in their own personal and professional path.
Organisations won’t succeed without people being motivated in their personal goals and supported where they are struggling. As leaders, it’s something we need to get right for effective performance management.
Where do you see a lot of organizations go wrong with performance management?
I’d like to approach this question from the perspective of workplace culture, bullying and harassment, if I may, because this is such an important issue right across the globe today.
Performance management can contribute to organisations inadvertently reinforcing a toxic workplace culture. Too often, performance management is used as a punitive tool against people who’ve had the terrible experience of being bullied in the workplace.
Being bullied is not the victim’s fault, but research studies of bullying incidents clearly show that use of performance management is a tactic which bullies (supported by organisation HR departments) adopt to silence and remove their targets.
More worryingly, the psychological effects of stress caused by bullying are shown to lead to cognitive impairments that cause people to underperform. So in effect, bullying leads to performance failure, and a performance improvement process is then applied punitively — re-victimising someone who’s already suffering from workplace bullying.
That’s not right, so it’s vital that an organisation’s performance management process is transparent, reasonable and focused on positive improvement using clearly defined, realistic objectives. Fairness in representation and taking people’s circumstances into account during the process mitigates against bullies abusing the performance process.
On the other side of the coin, there are, of course, examples where people who are justifiably being taken through a performance improvement process may claim this is bullying. In many jurisdictions, guidance on bullying clearly states that reasonable and valid performance management is not considered bullying.
But the key words here are “reasonable and valid.”
Managers and organisations must ensure their performance management process is fair, balanced, transparent and impartial. This helps them prevent vexatious bullying complaints by people who are trying to avoid accountability and valid performance management.
To be fair and transparent, your performance improvement process must be evaluated from the perspectives of the people it is being applied to — not just from the viewpoint of your legal team or HR department.
Based on your experience and success, what are your top 5 tips for a successful performance management process?
1 . 360 degree view of feedback — above, below, inside and outside
The value of a 360 degree feedback process can’t be understated. 360 degree feedback means gathering views of your performance from a representative range of people that you’ve interacted with whilst doing your job.
This goes well beyond your line manager, and it should include:
- your customers (internal or external)
- your peers
- and (most importantly for leaders), people who report to you.
You can combine this feedback with a self-analysis of your own performance. This gives you a real opportunity to identify your strengths and development areas, and set some challenging and realistic goals for your future development.
It goes a long way to supporting the fairness, transparency and objectivity required of an effective performance management process.
When feedback is provided for a performance review, it must be taken into account. I’ve experienced a previous manager in a performance review looking at a client feedback submission, putting it to one side and dismissing it by saying that “clients will say anything if you ask them to.”
That was disrespectful to the client, who’d taken the time to give genuine, objective feedback — as well as being highly demotivating. It also served to undermine trust in the integrity of the organisation’s stated performance management process.
I don’t think that’s a great leadership example for people to follow.
2 . Fairness and transparency
For people to have confidence in a performance management system, they have to believe it is fairly applied — to them, and across the whole of your organisation.
People need to know what method is used for measuring performance, how it works, and that it’s been properly calibrated.
Fairness applies to both the organisation and to the individual. The organisation has to be able to manage employee performance, so it can achieve its business objectives. Individuals are looking to their employer for support in their career growth and skills development.
Now let’s consider the performance improvement situation. This is an area where it’s absolutely vital to have fairness and transparency and it’s really important in cases involving workplace bullying and harassment.
Performance improvement cannot, ethically, be used as a punitive mechanism to “manage people out” without first giving them clear, realistic improvement goals that they have a genuine chance of meeting by improving or developing their skills.
Research has identified patterns of behaviour, where perpetrators of bullying use their management position — supported by HR departments — to target and remove people who’ve made complaints against them, by using the performance improvement process against them.
If your performance improvement process lacks fairness and transparency, it’s open to being “weaponised” for retribution against complainants.
This is just one of the things that allows bullies to create and sustain a toxic workplace culture and it’s never acceptable.
3 . Objectivity and impartiality
You can’t evaluate performance if you’re starting from a position of bias and pre-conception.
The Dunning-Kruger effect (in which an individual may over-estimate their abilities in an area as a result of their limited competence or knowledge) is a something both evaluators and recipients of performance management need to take into account.
People may self-assess their performance as better than actual — either in an attempt to ‘present a good picture’, through optimism bias, or just a desire to ensure their evaluation (and associated remuneration) is advantageous.
In cases of workplace bullying and harassment, many people find themselves in the awful position of being performance reviewed by a manager who’s been bullying them. That kind of bias leads to unfair results, and it has implications for psychological safety, and people’s physical and mental health.
Performance management must always be objective and impartial. The best example of this I’ve experienced was an organisation where an individual’s performance reviews were not carried out by the line manager, but by a mentor who supported them in their career development.
This ensured objectivity and impartiality, with 360 degree feedback from their line manager and others used as the basis for the review.
It goes without saying that people’s performance objectives (or improvement targets) must always be realistic and achievable. Setting people up to fail is another example in the list of known workplace bullying behaviours.
4 . Focused on improvement and tailored to the individual
A performance management process should drive success. An organisation can only achieve its objectives when the people working within it are achieving their personal results.
As individuals, we all have our own aspirations and goals. We bring our own experiences, culture and desires to our jobs. Some people might want to climb the career ladder, others may just want to do a great job and go home to their family. Let’s be honest, some people are there because they have to be — and work is just a means to an end.
A performance management process should ensure people’s individual development goals are supported — and link their contribution to the organisation’s outcomes.
That’s how you can get the best out of people. Allow them to grow in their own career journey and support their goals with realistic and personalised performance objectives.
“One-size-fits-all” performance management, forcing everyone to hit a target without regard for their personal experience, skill or competence is a recipe for demotivation and increased attrition amongst your people.
5 . Open to continuous improvement
Like all your business processes, performance management needs to be open to continuous improvement, based on feedback from participants and independent reviews.
If your process isn’t serving the needs of your people, if it’s not supporting their development or it’s not helping your organisation deliver its business objectives, then it’s flawed — and you need to do something about that.
Don’t just shrug your shoulders and leave it to next year — do something about it!
I’ve also talked about how performance management can be used by bullies as a weapon against their targets.
If there’s any inkling that people involved in raising bullying complaints are subsequently being targeted by performance management action, that should raise a very big red flag with the organisation’s senior leadership and Board. It requires immediate action.
How do you approach performance management in your organization? Do you tie it to compensation for example?
As an independent consultant, I’m responsible for my own professional development. I seek regular feedback from peers, colleagues and clients and I use this to reflect on areas of strength and to identify where I need professional or personal development.
In corporate environments, I think performance management can provide an objective basis for remuneration decisions if it’s applied fairly, consistently and transparently.
However, I’ve also seen it applied less ethically, where favouritism and a lack of objective evidence leads to promotions and bonuses that don’t relate to a transparent and consistent evaluation across the employee base. If that happens, it causes a spark that grows into smouldering resentment, and beyond that into a firestorm that can enable workplace incivility, bullying or harassment.
Transparency, objectivity and fairness in performance management processes is a critical success factor.
Which tools do you use for your performance management?
I think one of the most under-used tools in performance management is 360 degree feedback.
It’s something people can implement for themselves if it’s not part of their organisation’s formal performance development process. That’s exactly what I’d recommend people do. Seek feedback from a wide range of sources.
I’ve always found it builds trust and confidence in performance evaluations, providing valuable information to help identify personal strengths and development needs.
How do you measure and improve your performance management process?
As well as obvious quantitative indicators like timeliness, completion percentages and organisational performance, a key feature of continuous improvement must be qualitative feedback from participants.
Managers should be able to feed back the extent to which the performance process supports them in helping to develop and grow people in their teams. Equally, employees should be able to provide feedback on the way the performance process works for them and how it supports their own development goals.
Measures such as employee satisfaction with the process and the extent to which the performance process contributes to employees’ sense of organisational loyalty are just two examples that can provide useful insights.
The last point to make on measurement and improvement is about impartiality and objectivity. People won’t be keen to provide open and honest feedback if the corporate owners of a poor performance management process are conducting the survey!
Consider using an impartial business area (like an internal audit function) or engage an external specialist assessor to conduct a genuinely impartial feedback survey, if you want to give people trust in the process and get to the truth.
Don’t forget to do something with all the feedback you receive as well. If you don’t act, or select only feedback you like, people will see through you like a window and you’ll find employee participation, engagement and trust heading out the door.
We are very blessed to have some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have a private lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this.
Sir Richard Branson.
He manages to lead a business empire of over 400 companies with a consistent brand identity across a wide range of very different industry sectors. He’s dealt with setbacks and successes alike.
I’ve also had the privilege of seeing a private reply that Sir Richard sent to a friend of mine in the UK military who received a poor service experience from one of his companies, which ended up in the media.
He took the time to respond personally, and the humanity in the response he sent was a superb example of best-practice in providing an apology in complaints management handling.
Lunch would be a great opportunity to learn the many lessons he must have to share.
How can our readers further follow your work?
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Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
