With the influx of so many talented applicants, it can be difficult to choose the right person. There may not be that one diamond in the ruff that just shines brighter than the rest and makes your decision that much easier. It’s a blessing and a curse. Having so many talented people to choose from makes the choice that much harder. Instead of having to choose between a ’96 Honda Civic and a 2014 Range Rover, it’s like choosing between a Lamborghini and an Aston Martin. Using the proper assessment tool can guide your company in the right direction.

According to Aberdeen.com, “While sourcing and job advertising are less challenging, screening and selection have become more difficult.”

Every company will use different assessments based on what is needed for their company, but let me provide a few suggestions that every company should consider:

Place less emphasis on the pre-selection process to screen out applicants
No one is challenging the fact that pre-selection tools are necessary to weed out the applicants who are obviously not going to cut it, but a one-size fits all approach to pre-selection tools can leave your business with a very homogenous pool of applicants left to pick from which does not allow for complimentary skillsets. Companies need to be diverse in both the products they offer and the people who design them. Having a company full of process implementers is great but your company will be missing those innovative types who could change the game by introducing the next big thing.

Focus on assessment tools that are tailored to a specific role
So you’re looking for an analytical thinker to lead your Research and Development team? Don’t use the same selection tool you used to hire your advertising team! Again, different roles require unique skills and tools to find the person who fits what you are looking for.

Don’t make your selection process long and time consuming
According to talentmgt.com (Talent Management Magazine), “selection assessments can be perceived as a hurdle applicants must successfully cross to gain employment”. While it is true that the assessment is an obstacle they need to cross, it does not need to be an agonizingly long process or a three day business simulation. John Morrison of talentmgt.com was correct in saying “it is very unlikely even the best candidates will thoroughly enjoy completing an assessment. Instead, talent leaders should focus on what’s reasonable and attainable when evaluating selection tools. This includes choosing a selection tool that’s most likely to predict the desired business outcome — sales, retention, etc.”

When choosing an assessment tool for selection, customize it to fit the unique aspects of the role.

Of the millions watching, many viewers will readily admit that they watch reality TV as a mental outlet, or escape, from their own realities. (After all, few of these shows actually resemble real life). However, most of these shows can teach viewers valuable lessons about life, particularly with regards to our conduct in the workplace.

To illustrate this, below is a compilation of some of the biggest hits in reality TV—the good, the bad and the ugly—and what they can teach us about getting ahead, managing others and making an impact at work.

Lesson #1, Bachelor Pad – An elimination-style game show, Bachelor Pad features contestants formerly eliminated from various seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, each competing to win a grand prize of $250,000. Toward the end of the series, when only eight contestants are left, the contestants are divided into pairs, and for the season finale, the eliminated contestants must decide which couple is most deserving of the $250,000 prize. However there’s a catch: The two final contestants must choose to “share” or “keep” the grand prize. If both contestants choose “share,” they get to split the money, if both choose “keep,” the money is evenly distributed among the other eliminated contestants, and if only one person chooses “keep,” then that person receives all of the money.

During Seasons 1 and 2 of the Bachelor Pad, the winning couples opted to “share” the money, each walking away with $125,000. However during Season 3, the winning male contestant chose “keep” while his partner chose “share,” resulting in him winning all of the money. Blindsided, the female contestant asked why he would do this—backing out of their verbal agreement to choose “share”—eliciting a long and bitter rant from her partner about never feeling appreciated for his contributions or as part of the team.

The Lesson: Never take your partners, team members or employees for granted. Doing so could result in harsh payback, including a lost friendship, a damaged reputation or even lost finances. It’s always important to recognize employee contributions and instill a workplace culture that promotes employee engagement and trust.

Lesson #2, The Real Housewives – A reality series that follows the lives of affluent women in various U.S. cities, The Real Housewives franchise features high-drama episodes often set in lavish, gated communities. Although many of the shows revolve around trivial subjects, the franchise is also known for delving into serious issues such as alcoholism, divorce, family feuding, bankruptcy and more. In addition, almost everyone featured on the show talks about one another behind their backs, leading to countless fights, broken friendships and nasty reunion episodes.

The Lesson: Everything you say can and will be used against you. As many of the women featured on The Real Housewives come to realize, you can’t take back something you said on camera. This is also true of anything said using emails, social media platforms, and more. Even when deleted, it’s impossible to escape your online ‘paper trail.’ The show serves as a powerful reminder to act civilly in and outside of the workplace, as well as on- and offline. It also reminds us to confront others in a way that is productive and respectful instead of hostile and damaging.

Lesson #3, American Idol – One of America’s most successful reality shows, American Idol is a singing competition featuring a distinguished panel of judges (originally Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson). The judges critique the contestants’ performances and winners are determined by viewers. The winner of each season gets a recording contract, and the show has spawned several famous artists, including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson.

The Lesson: Take advantage of good mentors, and don’t be sensitive to constructive criticism. Each season, a handful of contestants are eliminated from American Idol not because of a lack of talent, but because they became defensive or even salty with the judges when presented with feedback. To move ahead, it’s important to have talent and a high propensity for learning and improving. Star performers learn from their mistakes, seek feedback from others and continually enhance their craft.

Lesson #4, Project Runway – Hosted by models Heidi Klum and Rachael Weingart, Project Runway challenges contestants to create the best clothes with limited time, materials and theme. Winners receive $100,000 to start their own fashion line, as well as several other prizes and opportunities. Some of the challenges have included making garments out of candy, items found in supermarket aisles, and items found in a flower store, as well as dressing drag queens and contestants’ mothers.

The Lesson: Creativity rules. Whether you’re the boss or the employee, maintaining creativity is key to success. This includes flexible thinking, meeting tight deadlines with limited resources, having the ability to work with different types of clients and projects, and quick problem-solving skills. Ultimately, people who exert creativity and excel at it will stand out in the workplace.

Lesson #5, Beauty and the Geek – Advertised as the “Ultimate Social Experiment,” Beauty and the Geek pairs young women who have relied on their good looks to get ahead with guys who have relied on their intellect. Each couple then competes for $250,000 by completing a series of challenges that bring each contestant out of their “comfort zones.” For example, female contestants might be challenged to build a sled while male contestants might be asked to get phone numbers in a social setting. By the end of the competition, most contestants walk away with new, beneficial views about working with people from other social groups, as well as new skills and friendships.

The Lesson: Diversity pays off. Individuals who surround themselves with people only similar to themselves miss out on the opportunity to learn new skill sets and ideas. Particularly in the workplace, embracing people of different backgrounds and skill sets is a great opportunity to learn new work styles and attitudes. Whether you’re a Baby Boomer learning a new technology from a Generation X employee or a marketing exec working with peers in other countries, it’s important to expose yourself to people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Making a Good Impression

As the ratings demonstrate, Americans love a good reality TV show. But while it’s great to unwind during an episode of The Real Housewives or Project Runway, it’s also important to recognize common trends in these shows and what we can learn from them. Ultimately, reality TV is about making a good impression, whether to win votes for a competition or to protect one’s reputation. However, more often than not, reality TV features contestants throwing one another under the bus, metaphorically speaking, and being successful at the cost of someone else. We can learn from their mistakes and advance in our own lives and careers by recognizing the accomplishments of others, learning from our mentors and peers, exerting creativity and conducting ourselves in a way that is always respectful of others and ourselves.

Instead, for a salesperson to be successful, he or she needs to be a couple of steps ahead of the customer. The preparation involved now requires carefully studying the customer’s business and researching the best ways the customer can make money, save money, etc. Above all, the key is to present new ideas and solutions that the customer hasn’t already considered.

So how does the modern day sales guru accomplish this? With more than 25 years of experience studying and profiling the behaviors and motivations of top flight sales professionals in the B2B arena, we’ve determined that the best sales performers display a strong combination of two selling styles: the Attack/Hunter and the Business Partner.

Here is a quick description of each:

The Attack/Hunter:
This style is all about driving activity and winning business. Strong Attack style reps typically possess that difficult-to-train, “fire in the belly” drive. They are extremely competitive, self-assured, intense and assertive.

The Business Partner:
Sales professionals who establish a business consulting relationship with their customers utilize this style. Business Partners understand the strategic issues and market conditions faced by their customers. They excel in helping their customers grow their business. Strong Business Partnering reps display excellent big-picture thinking skills, market knowledge, persuasive communication, learning agility and creativity.

If these selling styles already sound familiar to you, they probably are. A book titled The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation has made a lot of headlines recently, further supporting our findings on the top sales performers. In it, authors Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon argue that the most successful selling style is The Challenger: a provocative salesperson that can 1) teach the customer a unique perspective, 2) challenge the customer to make business decisions that are right for their business, and 3) take control of the sale. Equivalent to our Attack/Hunter and Business Partner styles, the Challenger offers a new approach to solution selling that focuses on “pushing [the customer’s] thinking and providing them with new and different ways to think about their business and how to compete.”

So what are your thoughts on the new wave of selling? Does your team have what it takes?

(Credit: Avinash Kunnath)

If you watch football or even if you don’t watch football, by now you have heard about the poor performance of the replacement referees. The 122 regular referees are locked out amidst a labor negotiation battle with the league. The replacement referees were brought in at the beginning of pre-season and there have been numerous flapped calls including a call Monday night that cost the Green Bay Packers the game.

The replacement referees on the field are not understudies like in theater. They haven’t been rehearsing and practicing under the lead actor waiting for their chance to step in. Instead, the replacement referees garnered their experience from Division II or lower college teams or even high school. To compensate for the lack of professional experience, according to the New York Times, the league is supporting them with training and supervisors at each stadium to help during games. Obviously, this is not working. Players, coaches, fans and the media have taken to Twitter to discuss their outrage. Even President Obama gave his opinion on Twitter with, “Is it just me or do we have to get our regular refs back?” I’m sure if the impact of every mis-hire in an organization was visible to the Chief Officer, succession plans would become a number one priority.

As my colleague, Geoff, mentions in his blog post, ‘Succession Planning: Maintaining Balance in Pivotal Roles’, succession planning entails understanding the challenges and critical responsibilities someone in the position would need to tackle and the key skills the person needs to excel in the role. I don’t know the exact process the NFL implemented to select the replacement referees but, based on their performance, it doesn’t seem as if they analyzed the key skills of the regular referees such as decisiveness, analytical thinking, functional excellence, and contextual understanding to select replacements that would be the best fit for the role. As W. Edwards Deming said, “you cannot inspect quality into the product” or, in this case, you cannot expect great results from the incumbent because they are well supervised and provided training after they’re put into the role.

After identifying the critical responsibilities and key skills, the beginning stages of a succession plan includes identifying employees with the potential to fill those critical roles and a development plan that gets them from where they are today to where they need to be to perform well. Fox Sports writer, Mike Pereira, said it best, “You can’t expect replacements to know the intricacies of the NFL rule book in two weeks on the job. It takes years. But it doesn’t take long — two weeks — to see this is not working.” It may not take years to develop your high potentials for the next role, but just like the NFL referees it’ll definitely take more than two weeks; and let’s not think about the amount of money your organization could lose in two weeks with the wrong person in that critical role.

What if 122 of your critical roles needed to be replaced today, is there someone on the bench that could step in? If you don’t have succession plans in place today start planning now.

Let’s take a look into the world into which the reps detail…years ago, the job of the sales professional consisted of memorizing a script, passing out samples, meeting with the physician (as frequently as possible) and getting the action to prescribe. Today, the job of the sales professional is an incredibly complex process that involves stringent regulatory guidelines, insurance providers, and increased competition from generic drug manufacturers and informed patients who get their healthcare news and information from Google.

Oh, and did I mention that the % of ‘no-see’ practices is increasing.

Now let’s take a look how pharma companies are determining what rep they want…I have the sense that there is a big struggle out there. It’s much like a boxing match really. In one corner you have the Relationship Sell Contender the other the Assertive Contender. The promoters (pharma sales execs) are all placing their bets on one or the other, hoping that their contender becomes the true champion, the one that will deliver the big pay day.

The supporters of the Relationship Sell argue that being nice and personable goes a long way in establishing a positive relationship with the practice. These types of reps put people at ease, are good communicators, outgoing and friendly; all good characteristics to have. Detractors would say that this approach leaves RXs on the table, doesn’t address key issues and control of the call is lost.

The supporters of an Assertive Sell say it’s not the time to be nice but to challenge physicians; to steer the conversation heavily in favor of their product, pushing all the way. They say that seeing as many physicians as possible, no matter how, will yield positive results. Skeptics point out that assertive behavior in this environment is abrasive and a big turn off that will lead to an increase of no-see docs.

Add to this fight is the ring itself (the market)…it’s ever changing. Clearly the life cycle of the product comes into play here. A 15 year old drug with no new indications leaves a rep with very little new to say and the physician bored and seeing the call as a complete waste of their time.

So which one on these contenders is going to score the knockout? The answer is neither. In fact, it would be a good idea to place a table in the middle of the ring, serve coffee and pastries and let both sides talk through how they can best fight the fight together instead of banking on one to beat out the other.

Here’s what we know…

It’s a brutal sales world out there; not only for pharma sales but all sales types. It wasn’t long ago when a buyer’s sources of information were relatively limited. Now, through the advances in search, filters, social media, networking, and many more techniques, buyers can organize information in effective and efficient ways. The face-to-face call now is played more on an equal basis with the buyer knowing just as much as the seller.

In pharma, in addition to what was detailed previously, there is an influx of corporate buyers that have their own decision making processes for which drugs will get prescribed by their practices, and the physician groups that band together to increase buying power and drive down costs make it tough for reps and the traditional sales model to succeed as it has in the past.

As in life it’s best to run with well-balanced skills, not depending on solely one but the ability to call on many to adapt to changing situations.

Here’s what we found in a recent study completed targeting pharmaceutical representatives:

Highlights of Top Performer Success Factors:

• Top performers possess the difficult to train “fire in the belly” and intense work ethic.
• Top performers also possess the more sophisticated selling skills in which they leverage a broad and deep understanding of the customers’ business to best meet their needs.
• These two attributes are the key drivers that allow top performers to successfully differentiate themselves from an “average” performer.
• When they meet a physician, top performers show themselves to be a valuable knowledge source regarding disease states and their business.
• Top performers ask purposeful questions to unearth the motivations, needs, and fears of the physicians. They use this knowledge to better target physician interests and needs during sales calls
• Their Attack skills (e.g., tenacity, competitive, self-assured and assertiveness) help them to bring the physician toward a mutually beneficial goal.
• While they place less emphasis on pure product knowledge and relationship selling, top performers display solid capabilities in these areas.

In Contrast:

• Average representatives displayed very weak Business Partnering Skills.
• These representatives also displayed rather modest Attack-style skills.
• They lacked the energy level and competitive spirit of the top performers, and they displayed little understanding of the market, business issues or unique needs of the physician.
• The one consistent quality found among these representatives is friendliness.
• The Relationship Selling Style is in strong evidence; they rely on their amicable demeanor and social conversation to gain support for their products and company
• This group knows how to detail, but is slow to ask questions aimed at uncovering the broader needs or concerns of a physician; therefore, the relationship never goes beyond surface-level rapport.
• These representatives simply lack the more effective selling strategies.

Sharkey and Eccher in the book, Optimizing Talent: What Every Leader and Manager Needs to Know to Sustain the Ultimate Workforce, defined strategic alignment as the situation in which “talent management strategies and initiatives are aligned to the broader strategic plans and objectives of the business.”  While theoretically, organizations understand the importance of planning comprehensive and strategic talent initiatives, most companies would still agree that they don’t do this well or at all.  Instead, many companies make talent decisions in a vacuum–rushing to assess their people or create a high-potential program simply because it seems like the right thing to do.  But although these programs are “nice-to-do,” the danger lies in not aligning talent initiatives with the direction the business is heading.

Similar to a company’s business strategy, a company’s talent strategy should be based on market dynamics, current objectives, future trends, etc.  Factors such as patent expirations, product launches, potential mergers or the opening of global offices all have an impact on an organization’s talent activities. Just as companies react differently to various challenges or opportunities in the market, these marketplace changes can also determine a company’s talent approach (i.e. whether to hire new talent, downsize, etc.).When a talent strategy is created with various business needs in mind, an organization is better equipped to hit the ground running when a new product launches or a shift in business strategy occurs.

Consider this example of a company The Vaya Group studied, who had the foresight to plan their talent needs in advance:

A Fortune 50 supplier made a decision to shift their go-to-market strategy away from working exclusively with distribution channels to working directly with the end-user/buyer.  To achieve this vision, the company recognized that a very different skill set was needed for their sales people.  With the new objective in mind, the supplier created a talent management strategy to help prepare employees for the shift in their target audience. First, they built a competency model that included the skills necessary for selling directly to the end-user. Second, they set out to assess their current talent to determine who in the current field force had potential to succeed with this new strategy and who may be better suited for staying with their current sales model.  Third, they used this model to identify new sales candidates for these roles to ensure that they had the right skill set to succeed. Once their talent strategy was implemented, the organization was able to more successfully deploy people into the right roles, further develop individuals in need of skills enhancement and hire new, well qualified people to fill vacant roles.

This example demonstrates the importance of aligning business strategy with talent strategy.  Without taking the time to prepare for the new direction their business was heading, the supplier could have continued hiring people that fit their outdated sales model, perhaps leading to lay-offs or unnecessary training expenses down the road.

To read more download the full Talent Optimization White Paper Series covering the eight levers of the Talent Optimization Framework.

This we know: the role of the pharmaceutical sales professional is changing rapidly—and with it, the complexity of the front-line manager’s job. Ten years ago, the job of the sales professional consisted of memorizing a script, passing out samples, meeting with the physician (as frequently as possible) and getting the action to prescribe. Under this landscape, the manager’s main focus was to drive call activity and keep everyone in line. They usually arrived at the position by being an outstanding salesperson—energetic, charismatic and noticeable—but generally lacking training or preparation on how to manage other people.

Today, the job of the sales professional is an incredibly complex process that involves stringent regulatory guidelines, insurance providers, and increased competition from generic drug manufacturers and informed patients who get their healthcare news and information from Google. As a result, the job of the front-line manager now demands much more than simply driving call activity.

With these realities front and center, pharmaceutical companies are finding it necessary to invest in human resource (HR) programs and talent management processes that help identify and better
develop “high potential” employees for front-line manager positions. For years, the industry’s program of choice has been the assessment center—generally an annual one- or two-day event in which candidates are assessed against the “next” role’s needed skills and demands.

However as the industry becomes more challenging and the demand for high potentials increases, many companies are finding that their assessment center falls short of expectations. At issue isn’t the quality of the assessment center, but rather the lack of preparation and development plans leading up to and following individuals’ entry into the program. The assessment center ends up serving as a stand-alone event—instead of a capstone—with poor or non-existent selection criteria for entry. Without being a part of a larger, corporate-wide talent development plan, assessment centers deliver very little, if any, return on investment and often results in discouraged or demotivated employees—a danger to the company’s wellbeing moving forward.

Building an Effective Assessment Center

(Hint: It’s all about the sequencing…)

The good news is that when installed within a larger talent development sequence, assessment centers can serve as an engaging event that will inspire employees, boost productivity across the organization and benefit the bottom line. The key is to create a leadership development framework leading up to the assessment center that gives employees the opportunity to take more ownership over their career development. Under this type of model, the assessment center is actually the capstone event—the last step of a rigorous process designed to ensure that only the most career-minded, driven and qualified candidates are selected for promotions.

To help pharmaceutical leaders get the most out of their leadership development efforts, below is a checklist of recommended strategies for designing and implementing an effective program for perspective front-line sales managers.

1. Design the talent roadmap
2. Prioritize needed skills from your  competency model
3. Implement an assessment protocol
4. Implement ”work time”
5. Launch the assessment center

Note, not every high-potential employee is created equal; each has his or her own style, strengths and skills. In some cases, individual talent that was so distinctly an advantage in sales could now
undermine the management effort. In order to ensure that the strengths and skills of high potential employees will carry over into a management position, consider the steps above. Best-in-class companies develop and promote high potentials not only by what they do—but in the sequence in which they do them.

To better understand and communicate the impact of increased talent data analysis, consider the following success story from a company, The Vaya Group studied, that has experienced positive changes as a result of leveraging analytics:

A large financial organization analyzed the talent data of its leaders and found that employees who excelled in the area of coaching others were much more likely to be in the top-quartile in regards to performance metrics. As a result, the organization’s L&D department placed greater significance on developing coaching skills among leaders. When talent data was reexamined in the years following the L&D initiative, substantial improvement from coaching leaders was evident across the board—and it still emerged as a key differentiator for separating top-performers.

This scenario illustrates how a company effectively used talent data and analytics to positively impact business outcomes. Further, when data is utilized to its full potential, the impact can be very visible and measurable. For example, Aberdeen Group found that ‘Best-in-Class’ organizations were 41 percent more likely than others to track and analyze exactly which sources of talent produced the best performance results. Because of this analytical rigor, these organizations achieved a six percent annual decrease in the amount of time it took to fill key roles with qualified individuals while their counterparts experienced a three percent increase in this same metric. The impact becomes even more significant when explained monetarily, as it has been shown that companies expend an average of $7000 each day a strategic role remains unfilled:

Financial impact of a vacant strategic role (Sullivan, 2005).

Collectively, examples and findings like these demonstrate how real and positive business outcomes arise by leveraging analytics and talent data. In turn, these examples of success can be used by HR professionals or talent managers to earn the support they need from senior leaders for continued investment in human capital initiatives.

To continue reading and learn more on what to measure and how to present it download the full white paper and the other eight white papers in the Talent Optimization White Paper Series.

Jim Fannin, a performance coach that works with many athletes, uses the phrase “Be the Cheetah” to represent this type of focus. If you watch a cheetah hunt, it visually locks onto its target and regardless of obstacles in its path never breaks visual contact until it has its prey securely in its jaws. Losing line of sight could allow the prey to get away and result in a starving cheetah. Thankfully we live in the business world!

We all know it, being “busy” doesn’t equate to being productive. Working 80 hours a week won’t guarantee success – only that you’ll be tired – you must fill your calendar with tasks, actions and meetings that are mission critical. Use the old 80/20 rule to focus your energy and work ethic on the “right stuff.” How can you do it?

The study of leaders who excel in this area yields the following list of best practices:

Simplify the Game. Successful leaders demonstrate a unique competency in the way that they simplify their complex work assignments down into 5-7 key priorities. They work with their peers, mentors, and staff to identify the key strategic levers for which they are responsible. This allows them to determine what they must do to have the greatest impact on the business, as well as what they must do to drive personal performance. By clearly establishing goals and priorities, these executives create a tangible roadmap to guide them toward goal attainment. By keeping the number of key priorities in the 5-7 range, they make it easier to stay focused in their efforts. These executives avoid entering a new year or new assignment with undefined goals and a wide assortment of disparate priorities.

Reinforce Key Priorities and Milestones. Once priorities are established, these leaders find ways to keep them visible for themselves and for their teams. On a routine basis, they review priorities and progress to goals. They work with their teams to establish clear milestones. Periodically, a review of how time and effort are being allocated by the team is conducted. This type of review helps in identifying disconnects between how time is spent and key team priorities.

Avoid Distracters. To do this, top leaders first ensure that they are clear on their mission and their priorities. Next, they establish a method for assessing new activities with which they may become involved. All new tasks and projects are weighed against their impact on the execution of the most critical priorities. If a new project is well aligned and supportive of priority execution, it may be attempted. If it is not, then it is not attempted. To help themselves to stay focused on the right priorities, many of these executives utilize trusted colleagues and mentors to provide candid feedback to them regarding which priorities are the greatest drivers of business success.

Recently a leader shared his philosophy with me: “That which gets talked about, gets done.” By regularly, consistently and actively following-up on the critical priorities with his team, this leader maintains laser focus on the four key strategic success levers that drive business success. Specifically, every year he works with his key managers to set the priorities for the year (3-5, no more) that clearly align with the business strategy and long-range objectives. Then he meets with his operations manager every morning at 7:35 to review the key metrics and measurements that indicate the success of the business. Issues outside that scope are quickly dismissed or delegated elsewhere. That’s one focused cheetah indeed!

Taking a historical look at performance appraisals and performance management, the view of the process by employees is that these are largely negative events, giving it an undesirable reputation as a “big brother” initiative. Responsibility for this portrayal rests on all participants—employer and employee—as both contribute to its negative connotation. Therefore, it’s important for companies and employees to approach performance management from a different and fresh perspective. Specifically, it’s about seeing appraisal systems as a vehicle uniquely designed to gain the most from employees through the positive application of strategic methods to provide them with regular feedback, ideas and best practices.

As noted by Work Effects, fear is a large reason behind this performance management disconnect and felt on both sides of the appraisal table. Just as the traits of affection and empathy attract people to one another, fear tends to divide individuals. Given that both parties experience similar thoughts and emotions regarding performance management, it’s beneficial to have open discussions about particular process concerns, thereby alleviating hesitation and creating an environment built on communication and trust.

Meanwhile, this fear can steer leaders into prolonging the review process, leaving the employee wondering whether their performance is good or bad and can only add to unwanted stress and distraction at work. In some cases, managers who delay or avoid providing constructive feedback in performance reviews give employees a false sense of security, which can quickly turn ugly when a project goes poorly or expectations are not met. Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins further highlight this point in their book, Abolishing performance appraisals: Why they backfire and what to do instead, noting that when the time finally arrives to discuss concerns and/or issues that arise, the climate quickly changes from sunny skies to a storm alert. With this in mind, there is little surprise that several national surveys including a survey by Coens & Jenkins found that the vast majority of performance appraisal systems are not successful.

Employees ultimately want to know how reviews will benefit them. One possible solution is to provide employees with a sense of direction on where their career can lead, often referred to as career pathing. Career pathing involves understanding the results, knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and experiences required for employees to progress their career in an organization. Before carving a realistic path, an employee must take an honest and open look at their career goals and the talents they possess. This makes a formalized performance management system a natural fit and necessity, as it will enable employees to understand where they add value to the organization. Seeing the career opportunities available upon their improvement also serves to alleviate employee nerves. It’s inspiring for them to have a plan and know how their skill set, job role, and set targets can contribute to personal and organizational success.

To continue reading and learn more on overcoming employer disconnect and a modern take on succession planning download the full white paper and the other eight white papers in the Talent Optimization White Paper Series.