One important action that all of us, as leaders, need to perform on a regular basis is the analysis of our team. It may sound strange at first. How do you “analyze” people? And why should you? Well, to keep this in perspective, we need to analyze the specific traits and behaviors that apply specifically to their jobs. This is not an exercise in analyzing their personal life, personal values, or beliefs, but rather looking at how they perform and how well they connect to the organizational values and purpose.
There are many ways to go after this, and in Gapology we discuss a couple of different ways. In the Talent Root Solution chapter, we share some tips on ranking your team on an A, B, and C scale. We also talk about “Playing Chess, Not Checkers” when it comes to being strategic around ranking your team and ensuring that they are positioned in the right roles to fit their talent and performance levels.
Of course, there are any number of additional ways to measure and compare your team members to their expectations, but whichever method you choose to do this, the important thing is to ensure that your analysis looks through the lens of your organizational purpose. Looking at how well each team member is connected to your purpose gives you a different level of clarity for their overall potential to be a successful, effective member of the organization.
Here are some tips to help when creating an analysis platform that works for you:
Define a clear and compelling purpose.
Define role-specific core values and core competencies that connect with your purpose.
Communicate these core values and competencies, and build them into your interviewing process to ensure you hire people who connect with them. Ensure that all team members have a full understanding and agree with them.
Build a method to measure behavioral performance for their performance as compared to the core values and competencies. Do this on a regular basis, not just once or twice a year. Remember to first use the metrics to indicate behaviors. Then coach the behaviors.
Once you have a solid method of measuring performance, step back and look at the potential of each team member.
Understanding their potential skill level can give you clues as to how to help them grow. Look for things like attitude, commitment, engagement, and team behavior. Often team members become stagnant in their careers and effective leaders can help them reconnect to their potential with a little extra focus.
Remember that the critical element here is to measure and analyze their performance. This isn’t an exercise to analyze them as a person, but rather to see how well they are engaged, how effective and efficient they are in their roles, and how connected they are to your organization’s purpose. All of this data should be for your own use and not shared with the team, or even the team member. Data just provides you with insight to better connect with them, coach them, and lead them.
*Listen to our podcast conversation on this topic here: https://www.gapology.org/podcast/episode/21a48d76/purposeful-people-analytics