Stop Confusing Performance with Behavior
It can lead to grave errors in judgment!
Hi friends,
I was chatting about measuring performance effectively with a few peeps in my network (see also my course here). And as we went on, I realized that most people talk more about behaviours and personality (more stable disposition) rather than actual outcomes:
This person displays grit
They are helpful
They make my life easier
None of these words actually tells you if behaviour mattered!
Did this behaviour affect revenue?
Was there an impact on the delivery of the engineering work?
Was this person a good leader who completed projects on time?
The reality is it’s easy to confuse the two.
The first one is observable and is available in the wild. We also have many preconceived notions about how the behaviour translates into actual business outcomes.
On the other hand, the latter needs effort.
It needs a definition of outcomes, knowing what was before, what it is now, and the delta. On top of that, we need to start considering the behaviour here—how did this person deliver: were they an ass while hitting their revenue target, or did they display your company values openly.
It really requires us to use our brains. Ugh!
Hence, our brain uses the default: perception must mean reality.
Your brain is right to make this assumption because it will yield fairly accurate predictions most of the time.
Indeed, if you see that someone is gritty and conscientious, there is no reason to believe they would not produce results. Most studies would predict that this would be the case.
And you know it.
Your brain knows it.
And it does not want to waste time.
So, you start talking about performance. Your brain gives you behaviour as evidence. And with so many great examples, you cannot help but conclude the person is doing well.
Here is where performance expectations and metrics become handy.
Suppose you put a number on performance based on the goals and targets set. No matter the behaviour, you reduce the error in judging performance.
It simply becomes:
Did this person hit the target, or did they not?
Did they fall short, and by how much?
Did they exceed, and by how much?
Perceptual biases are hard-wired in all of us humans.
Hence, we need to counteract them with facts. This means clear goals, clear performance standards, and explicit behaviours associated with performance done well.
Now that we got the theory out of the way…
Here is a Talent Acquisition Case:
Suppose you are hiring a tax accountant for your organization.
You have seen that being gritty has predicted “success” in different parts of the organization.
Sales folks who are gritty seem to be doing quite well. People with grit in finance have not quit their jobs for a career elsewhere. You are pretty gritty yourself and feel like you are successful.
Do you see how easy it becomes to justify hiring for grit?
But each evidence point is flawed:
For sales, grit makes sense; does it make sense in tax where a different skill set is valued? When optimizing for quitting their finance jobs, are you optimizing for performance? Does your success in your role translate to the success of the tax accountant coming into the people organization?
Instead of looking for grit alone, you need to get actual evidence:
Examples of delivery
Samples of work
Quantifiable data on performance
I am not saying don’t hire for grit; I am just saying to challenge your thinking and think about the actual outcomes.
After all, if you have a bunch of people who are gritty and trying and trying and trying and trying but don’t produce any outcomes, you will be in a whole bunch of trouble.
That’s it for today!
K
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