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A classic story about time
In his new book "First Things First," the author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," Stephen Covey, shares with us a story about time management. The gist of the story is as follows: One day, a famous professor, before class, asked the students to bring some seemingly mysterious items. Among them, there was a tray of large rocks, a tray of small rocks, a tray of coarse sand, a tray of fine sand, a basin of water, and a large transparent glass cup. After the students had arranged these items, the professor said, "Students, today we will conduct an interesting experiment. The requirement is to fit all these stones, sand, and water into this glass cup. So, students, what order should we use to fit them in?" Instantly, the students' curiosity was piqued, and they started speaking up. Some thought that with so many items and such a small cup, it would be impossible to fit everything in, some thought the water should go in first, others thought the fine sand should be added first, and so on. Seeing the students' enthusiasm, the professor smiled and said, "First, you must understand that all these items can indeed fit into the cup; you just need to find the right order. Let's see what order allows us to complete this experiment." Then, the professor put the large rocks into the cup first, followed by the small rocks, then the coarse sand, next the fine sand, and finally poured all the water in. Everything fit perfectly, and the classroom erupted in applause. Finally, the professor summarized, "On the surface, we were performing an impossible task, but reality shows that following the correct order, everything here has been completely fitted into this glass cup. If even one step is out of order, the task cannot be completed. For example, if you put the fine sand in first, when adding the coarse sand, gaps will form between the coarse sand that cannot be filled because the finest sand capable of filling those gaps has already been placed inside the cup, directly causing part of the cup's space to be wasted. Similarly, if you add the small rocks first, the gaps between the large rocks cannot be fully utilized, also leading to waste. Through this experiment, what principle have we learned? That is, in time management, we should grasp the priority of various tasks and arrange our work according to their importance. Prioritize important matters and act on them immediately. Only by doing so can our work consistently maintain high efficiency."
The "Basket" Theory of Performance Management
This led me to think about performance management, much like the transparent glass cup in the professor's hand. Performance management is like a basket, with limited capacity, yet there are many things that need to be done well. Facing this basket of performance management, how should our managers decide, choose what, and in what order to fill this basket with things related to performance so that it can be most effectively utilized by the enterprise, better play its role, and help improve management efficiency and operational performance?
1. What kind of basket is performance management?
Before putting things into this basket, we must first clarify the question: what kind of basket is performance management? I believe this question can be answered from the structure of the basket.
1) The height of the basket —— the strategic goals of the enterprise
The height of the basket determines its depth and plays a key role in its capacity. Therefore, first, we need to understand the basket from its height, which is the strategic goals of the enterprise.
An excellent performance management system is inseparable from the strategic goals of the enterprise. The enterprise must design the performance management system from a strategic perspective. At the same time, the process of performance management always revolves around the strategic goals of the enterprise, effectively decomposing corporate strategies and implementing them layer by layer to each department and work team, and further to specific employees. This ensures that the company’s strategy is broken down, implemented, and executed at every level until achieving the company’s strategic objectives and obtaining the desired strategic results. The relationship between performance management and corporate strategy can be illustrated through Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1 The role of performance management in strategy implementation
Through Figure 1-1, we can clearly see the relationship between performance management and the implementation of corporate strategy, i.e., by effectively decomposing the company’s strategic objectives, allocating appropriate resources, and utilizing effective performance management tools, we ultimately achieve the desired strategic outcomes.
2) The width of the basket —— the enterprise's description of the role of performance management
Having only height does not fully guarantee the capacity of the basket; we must also manage the issue of the basket's width, which relates to the role of performance management. On the basis of strategic height, enterprises should have a more comprehensive understanding of the role of performance management, enabling it to play a comprehensive role at multiple levels.
To ensure the basket has sufficient capacity, enterprises should not merely view performance management as employee evaluations or simply define its role at the basic level of salary distribution. To fully leverage the role of performance management, enterprises should focus on their own strategic objectives, comprehensively considering issues at three levels: corporate performance, departmental performance, and employee performance. This aligns the company's performance management with the realization of strategic objectives, enhances corporate operational performance, improves the performance capabilities of managers and employees, fosters the creation of a performance culture, builds partnerships for performance cooperation between managers and employees, and pioneers new dynamics in performance communication. Based on these premises, enterprises can then consider how to use the results of performance evaluations for relevant personnel decisions, such as promotions...
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They raced from one city to another.