Aligning Performance With Company Values
In order to evaluate executive coaching, performance and alignment with company values must be considered separately because there is no direct correlation between them. A high-performance organization depends on managers and employees both adhering to beliefs and exhibiting behaviors aligned with the company values.
Successful leaders must be able to navigate these two independent areas of leadership.
Leaders must take these steps in order to improve the performance of their managers, employees, and organization through proper talent management:
- Establish clear and measurable organizational values that translate into observable behaviors.
- Develop a talent management system that measures employee performance against your core values.
- Follow up on the results of your custom performance/values assessment by rewarding, coaching, or terminating your employees.
We must use organizational values to measure performance. It is impossible to achieve executive performance without such values. Because we cannot measure it, we cannot influence it.
Identifying and Measuring the Core Values of a Company
Organizational values give performance meaning, so we need to define and measure them. Despite all the information available on executive coaching, many organizations fail to translate their values into practical application through the definition of their values.
You should ensure that your organization’s values meet a few essential criteria to avoid this mistake.
- You should provide clear behavioral guidelines in your definition. In order to achieve full alignment with your organizational values, it should provide your employees with accurate information about how they should behave.
- These guidelines should help you translate your organizational values into observable behaviors.
- Establish a rating system to make these behaviors measurable. A minimum of three rating levels should be used, such as “below expectations,” “meets expectations,” and “above expectations.”
Performance Measurement Based on Company Values
As advocates of the values-based management model have emphasized, the relationship between organizational and individual performance is not as straightforward. The model suggests that executives, managers, and employees can improve their performance automatically if they implement organizational values through their behaviors.
The latest research shows that value-aligned behaviors do not directly correlate with performance.
Taking this problem beyond the values-based management model, I conclude that modern executive coaching should consider three variables. Three variables are important in executive coaching, as I explain in my books:
- Capability
- Alignment
- Commitment
In executive coaching, we need to evaluate performance and core values separately because they are separate leadership focus areas.
Using the Performance/Values Matrix, we can compare the impact of both variables independently. As a result, executive coaching can provide valuable information regarding potential areas for improvement. In addition to providing insight into how an executive performs, this evaluation model also tells us how that executive aligns with company values.
A comparison is made between the quality of the leader’s decisions and how these decisions are aligned with the values of the organization. It allows us to gain a very accurate and relevant picture of an executive’s capabilities, commitments, and alignments.
High performance combined with high alignment is the ideal outcome of a Performance/Values Matrix evaluation. Low performance and low alignment are at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Creating a culture of high performance and alignment at your organization requires the implementation of a performance/talent management system that rewards those who deserve it and identifies those who fall short.