Too often, we reduce our expectations of work to quota performance, goals, and activity metrics. But there is another layer beneath these. There are expectations we have of our people in being a part of our organizations. These expectations are more foundational.
In working in our organizations, we expect people to:
- Show up for work, investing a minimal amount of time in their jobs. There are certain expectations, “Generally, you should be available and doing your job in these hours….”
- They must conduct themselves legally and ethically.
- They must protect company confidential information.
- They should follow budgetary and expense guidelines.
- There are expectations around behaviors we expect them to display in the workplace, with colleague, customers and others.
- They should show up to meetings prepared.
- Adhere to guidelines around customer commitments, approvals, and collaborations.
- Use the programs, tools, processes we put in place to support their performance in the job.
- …and….
None of these are optional. Generally, they aren’t role specific, rather than organizational expectations.
Sometimes, we encompass many of these in vague conversations about, “culture.” Sometimes, we assume these are business/cultural norms that everyone understands. We don’t outline them or discuss them because we think they should already know.
Only later, we find people aren’t following them. For example, recently I was having a conversation with a CRO, it was that ever present topic, CRM Compliance. The CRO said, “The majority of our people aren’t keeping CRM updated. But it’s critical for us. We don’t want them to be spending hours on CRM, but we need certain minimal updates. What can I do?”
My response, “It’s a condition of employment. If they choose not to do this, then they are choosing not to do the jobs we hired them to do.”
We got into a discussion about this. “Do they know it’s not optional? Have you discussed why this is so important to the organization, not just something managers arbitrarily impose? Are the managers on your team modeling the expected behaviors? Are you helping them understand how to do this well? Are you helping them understand how doing this can also help their own performance?”
“But what if they don’t do it?”
If they understand these things, and if we have been coaching them about the importance and they still refuse, then it’s a performance issue. They are expected to do the whole job, not just the parts of the job they like.
Several years ago, I encountered the same thing speaking with another CRO about one of his top performers. This individual was bringing in the business, but violating a lot of the “conditions of employment,” expected. CRM wasn’t being kept updated. The individual worked the hours they wanted to, did not participate in team meetings, and sometimes made commitments beyond their authority. “He’s my top performer, but he’s creating havoc within our organization. We’ve talked, but he won’t change!” As we talked, the CRO started to recognize that while this individual was a top performer, he was having an adverse impact on the performance and morale of the rest of the organization. And some people were saying, “If he can get away with this, then why should we do these things?”
After lots of attempts to fix this situation, the CRO fired the top performer. Interestingly, over the next few months, he saw performance, productivity, morale and engagement pick up substantively.
The key question for any leader is, “Have you defined and communicated these conditions of employment? To people understand why these are important? Do they understand the consequences of ignoring them?”
Clay has done this brilliantly in their “Clay Operating Principles.” It’s a very simple, 10 page document. It defined expectations of how people work each other. It had nothing to do with role/job definitions, metrics, or workflow. It covered key guiding principles, how people communicate with each other, scheduling and meetings, decision-making and execution, work expectations and culture, measuring impact, sharing and giving feedback.
Some of the things were very basic, “Computers shut down during Sprint Demos and Customer Spotlights.” Or, “Have your camera on.”
Many of the things seemed basic, but sometimes it’s important to spell the basics out. Culture and performance depend on clarity.
Clay’s culture is, clearly, very important to them. They recognize that while they have an outstanding product, without the underlying clarity and alignment within the organization, they will not achieve their full potential.
This isn’t a new idea, I started my career in IBM. In joining, I learned Tom Watson Jr. had codified the culture with three “Basic Beliefs.”
- Respect for the individual.
- The best customer service.
- Excellence in everything we do.
Three simple statements guided behaviors, decision-making, and how we worked for decades. This was an expectation of everyone in the organization, from entry level employees, like me, to the Chairman. Through my career and advancement in leadership, we constantly went to workshops to learn. As a leader, a large part of my performance was evaluated by how I demonstrated these basic beliefs to my people.
As leaders, we must Define the conditions of employment, Communicate them, Model them every day.
But there’s another dimension to this discussion. These conditions flow both ways. They aren’t just expectations we have of the people that work for us. There are conditions of being an employer, too—paying people on time, providing a safe workplace, providing them the tools and support needed to perform in their jobs, giving them reasonable time off, recognizing life happens and they may need to take time for themselves and families. High performing organizations go even further, creating strong/aligned cultures, genuinely caring about their people, making sure their people feel heard.
The whole job of leadership is making these mutual expectations explicit. Otherwise, people will define them for themselves.
Afterword: This is the AI generated discussion of this post. I am always surprised listening to these. There are a few minor hallucinations, but they always bring some nuance and a twist to what I am trying to express. Enjoy!
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