Executive Summary: If you measure it, it is addressed. If you document it, it is serious. If you use a living assessment instrument on a regular basis, our individual and team performance becomes significantly more proficient. Using personnel assessments is a hallmark trait of the best organizations, and when not used breeds a multitude of organizational problems!

The adages of the “Squeaky wheel gets the ….” and “When the cats away the mice will …” are unfortunate realities in most work place environments today. Then add a system or culture that protects the lowest performer at the detriment of the organization, the contributing peak performer within the organization, and the customer that the organization serves, and you have a recipe for organizational implosion, interpersonal tensions, and ultimately bankruptcy!

The business place should take a lesson from the leading sports teams today. A professional sports organization not only tracks every performance via documentation, it also video records every game, every play, and every player. From this assessment, objective analysis can be made by both the player on how to improve every time they do their job, the managerial-leadership team also reviews this assessment material to do two things:

1. Assess and determine what behaviors work, and then they interact with the player to reinforce why those actions are appropriate and then what actions must be maintained for continued performance success!
2. Assess and determine what behaviors do not work, then craft interaction action plans for how to improve on those ineffective behaviors for increased efficiency the next time they do their job and why it is critical that those behaviors be adopted and adapted into their skill set!

Most organizations unfortunately have bastardized the purpose of Personnel Assessment instruments to such a combative level, that no one looks forward to these personnel performance improvement sessions. Organizations that conduct these appraisal sessions on an annual or bi-annual basis have only one intention, to protect themselves legally because their HR and/or Legal colleagues have directed them to do these. You would be better off not doing them at all.

Benchmarking personnel performance for real results that really matter to the purpose of the organization is a critical must for any organization of the future. Personnel assessments should be seen as living, fluid tracking instruments and should have as a minimum several sections, with as many sub measurement fields as necessary for your organization. Never be concerned that there are too many measurements in your assessment instrument. And recognize the differing generational segmentations in your work place today will view these assessments in differing ways, so make sure you communicate to “everyone” why you are doing them.

The measurement fields that should be on your personnel performance assessment instrument as you begin your year could be:

1. General INTERPERSONAL measurements
2. General INTERACTION measurements
3. General COMMUNICATION Measurements
4. General ORGANIZATIONAL performance measurements
5. General-to-Specific JOB/POSITION performance measurements
6. General LEADERSHIP measurements
7. General-to-Specific ATTITUDE measurements
8. General-to-Specific DRESS/CONDUCT measurements
9. And any behavior or performance issues that come that derail what people are being paid to be on the organization to do, should be clues for additional future areas to be added to the assessment instrument

Imagine the level of effectiveness an organization could experience, the level of stress-free operation people could experience if these instruments were utilized? Imagine the level of eliminated tattle-telling, union-instigated, and just unethical driven individual litigation spurned by the lack of use of these instruments?

Just as with the best athletic teams (remember that sports is a child’s game, yet they are taken more seriously than the business jobs of a society, which is where most people live!), if you want to attain true peak organizational performance you should administer thorough, objective assessments on a regular basis (the more often the better!). The participants for this data collection could be:

1. Actual written completion and administer should take place on a monthly basis!
2. Every member of the organization should complete one on them self each recording period in advance and submit to their supervisor, boss, team-leader, employer, etc.
3. The colleagues that interact the most with one another, should also complete an assessment on one another and exchange, with a copy going to the managerial-leadership team.
4. Have external input, like from a major client that interacts with an organization’s key personnel to extract their feedback on what they experience and ways from their perspective to continually improve the performance from the individuals interacting with them.
5. The leader responsible for the performance output of an individual player would use all of this collected input to more objectively and aggressively complete their final report.

Keep in the mind that the primary intent of the assessment instrument is to benchmark their performance against what they are on the team to contribute, and continually provide them behavior based performance improvement action plans (For a template Personnel Assessment instrument get your copy of THE MANAGERIAL-LEADERSHIP BIBLE at your local bookstore or www.JeffreyMagee.com/library.asp; and for a sales position tailored copy built as a composite from the top Fortune 100 firms instruments, contact Jeffrey@JeffreyMagee.com). This also allows all parties the documentation trail to see poor performance issues and trends and work to address them early on, or remove the player from the organization all together!

In building your assessment instrument, make the scoring section real simple, it should only allow for one of three grading assessments:

1. MEETS EXPECTATIONS, which is what they are supposed to be doing within the organization and thus is a great score.
2. DOES NOT meet EXPECTATIONS, which indicates in the eyes of this person completing the assessment, what the player in questions is doing, is not what they were added to the team to deliver. With this score, an action plan for improvement should always be detailed out on this instrument.
3. EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS, which indicates that this candidate is doing more than the expectations of the job or position they were hired for.

Those that do not wish to participate should be given the immediate opportunity to resign and enjoy the benefits of the free open market society we live within. Others, as the adage says, “Put up or …”!

Quiet-Leadership is about always being solution oriented and when it comes to personnel assessments the intent is always to recognize what works, highlight that, and always identify areas for improvement and recognize them with action plans as well. Being open to the same performance improvement input from people around you to improve your leadership behaviors is the starting point to getting others to accept this new culture.