It is crucial to acknowledge and reward your employees often. Be it through promotions, bonuses or other rewards, recognition can aid in building an environment that is productive. In many companies employees who have met all their performance requirements and perform at a high level will likely be promoted and recognized. There are specific ways for businesses to monitor and evaluate the performance of their employees. Scorecards, metrics leadership coaching and dashboards available to monitor individual improvements and performance. Typically, the most successful winner wins the prize. However, you may be encouraging toxicity within your company.
What’s wrong with promoting based upon the results? Absolutely nothing, as long as it’s not the only factor that a leader in business has to take into consideration. If you’re only focusing on the people who have the best scores as possible candidates for promotion, you may be missing other people in your business that can be more beneficial in the long term.
Shocked? It’s normal to be. Think about the following…
Why aren’t high-performing employees always the best choice to increase their upward mobility? It could be true however, as a business owner, you have to take into consideration other factors. Simon Sinek, best-selling author and popular TED Talkfavorite recently shared his experiences working as a member of one of U.S. Navy Seals. He was then asked about the factors they look at in deciding who can be promoted within their ranks. While working with the Seals he found a second crucial factor that is essential when deciding the people to make a promotion.
The Navy Seals evaluate candidates on two factors: performance (skills and outcomes) as well as trust (character and behavior). Look at this graphic.
It’s obvious that those who have low performance and confidence (theyellow box) can be easily removed from the race. The ones who are highly-performing and trustworthy are a natural choice for the next stage (top right corner) However, they’re extremely rare. Who else is the top candidate to be promoted? There are team members at different levels that need more investigation.
The Seals evaluate their performances on battlefields. Stress levels are high and crucial decisions that could be executed in just a few seconds, which means precision and trust are equally crucial to the Seals. According to Sinek notes, “They may trust you with their lives but not with their lean portfolio management money of their wife.” It’s pretty straightforward. Character and trust are a major factor in the choice of promoting on the Seal team, as they need to be certain that the member promoted has the character to be a leader.
In the traditional workplace, the decision to die is not common, however assessing the character of employees is now a crucial element to ensure that teams operate at the highest levels.
The problem is that the majority of firms have either no or little infrastructure to gauge the trustworthiness of a team member and their character. These intangible qualities that frequently not measured using the traditional metrics are frequently ignored or dismissed. Sinek along with the Seals believe this is an error.
If you’re only encouraging people based on their high-performance axis, you’re likely to be to be promoting a toxic individual. They aren’t likely to provide the long-term benefits to the organization since they don’t work well with others, and, more importantly, they don’t adhere to the company’s values. The majority of teams recognize them quickly. They achieve results, but leave an unending trail of bodies in their trail. The high-performers’ “why” (their primary values) differs from the purpose and vision of the business. They don’t make productive or inspirational leaders due to the fact that they lack empathy, lack listening skills, etc…
The U.S. Seals are generally regarded as middle or low performers that have high trust scores because they believe that the ability for achieving results can be trained or taught. Trust is a trait that should be part of an person’s DNA. The reason the individual acts or contributes to the company matters more than end-to-end outcomes. “Sinek said trust equates to personal character – for example, whether someone will “have your back” when the chips are down and whether they exhibit humility, empathy and patience.”(Huebscher, 2019). These characteristics are found in teachers and inspirational leaders. Why would you not want to highlight these traits in your business?
The biggest thing that isn’t being done in many organizations is genuine leadership training. “We don’t teach our employees to be leaders, Sinek said. Training should cover the art of listening, being adept at negotiating and how to provide and receive feedback” (Hubster 2019, ). >> We concentrate on the tasks and activities, not the ability to think strategically and critically as indicators of success which are difficult to impart and master when you don’t have the appropriate emotional intelligence in the team.
There are different kinds of toxic team members who could infiltrate your company and, in most cases, go unnoticed. They can be classified as:
- A false Promiser– The team members constantly striving to satisfy their supervisors with an “can do” attitude, but they are often not able to make promises. They don’t finish projects and rely on their fellow team members to pick up the pieces, or clearing up the mess left behind.
- All aboard with the Ride Team members tend to lack accountability or responsibility for their work or projects, and delegate the responsibility onto other team members, while also wanting to be the ones to credit for the positive outcomes.
- I did It! – Craving the spotlight, these team members will be quick to claim the credit for all things even even if they did not contribute to the outcome. They’re quick to expose other’s flaws and shortcomings to distinguish them from the rest of the group.
- “Wow” with cheese Unsatisfied and unhappy these toxic team members complain and blame each other. They aren’t involved in the solution, however, and prefer to complain and concentrate on what they cannot be able to control.
- The Lone Ranger– These team members prefer working on their own and, while it’s not a problem but it can be negative when the Lone Ranger goes rogue to seek out individual glory or success rather than contributing to goals of the team. They can hinder the team’s efforts to achieve personal goals or receive the recognition they deserve.
Making a winning team is extremely difficult and keeping talent is crucial to long-term success. Be mindful of both character and results when giving raises or recognizing them, can help you get rid of the negativity within your team. You might consider adding 360 assessments or peer review as part of your plans for development. Make sure your team members have the time to develop their interpersonal skills, as well as their technical capabilities.