If you are a founder or a CEO or both then you are running a complex organism that requires an abundance of skill and character in order to cast off the training wheels and compete in the marketplace, wherein the competition eats companies like yours for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and at the cocktail hour.
It is a hard gig, but it can be made easier by embracing some simple character traits. One of those is consistency.
In a business context, consistency is the regular and uniform application of a process in a manner that ensures results with an eye toward fairness.
Sure.
One of my per peeves is the way companies spin up a cutting edge performance appraisal system — 360 degree systems are the worst — and then do them for a single iteration and forget them thereafter.
This, of course, impacts compensation, objective setting/attainment, employee motivation/inspiration, and morale. It is a huge time suck and therefore if it is done, it is done half ass.
Everybody gets frustrated and what could have been an energy builder becomes an energy sink sucking the life out of the company.
Take a second — does your company have a consistent performance appraisal system that works with your objective setting, training, and compensation programs?
Do your managers and employees look forward to recognizing hard work and re-setting objectives; or is it a painful chore that everyone hates?
OK, substitute hiring, acquisitions, sales objectives for “performance appraisal” and you can see the problem in all its ugly detail.
The very first thing to do is to identify all the “processes” both internal and external in your company and your business. There are likely fewer than ten right now.
Simply everything. Nobody can make a 360 degree performance appraisal system work because it’s too cumbersome and nobody really handles the compensation element correctly.
The worst thing in the world is to separate performance appraisal and compensation. The people are working for the money, y’all.
Schedule it and follow the schedule with a deadline for completion.
If you are a leader, your followers crave consistency.
Give them consistency and make it an energy generator.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.
Have a great weekend. Call somebody you haven’t spoken to in some time and chat them up.
