Role of kflanagers

in l*proviurg
3{
E*ployee
Performance
Managing employee performance has always been a
critical component of a manager's responsibility and in
re:)r,
demands and requirements
different subordinates.
difficult times it becomes even more critical. The problem
with managing employee performance is that there are Mentoring, coaching ar. j
too many external variables that affect an individual's counseling as managerial activirie,
performance. Also, employees vary in their capability and has the potential to make managei:

attltude to work making no two situations and no two better manage the performance ,,-:
employees the same. ln such a situation, it becomes their subordinares as it would hei:
rhem cater ro the deuelopment".
difficult to have a standard approach towards resolving
performance-related problems. Since no two people or requirements of different
In an article entitle;
subordinates.
situations are the same, it would be advisabie tor "'S7hat Great Managers Dol'
managers to treat each of their employees differenily. A
published in Ha ru ard Busines.s Req.,reu
manager can adopt diflerent strategies to deal with in the year 2005, Marcus Buckrnghanr
subordinates by appropriately playing the role of a wrote about how great managers
mentor, a coach and/or a counselor depending on the manage their subordinates. The
latters' pedormance levels. author compares a great manager tL.
a chess player and says that a grear
n today's overtly competitive continue to grow with respect to manager is able to discover, develop.
world, one of the greatest the ever-increasing demands of and celebrate what is different about
Iconcerns of managers is to get continuous performance each employee who works for him.
results and keep the achievers from improvement in the workplace. The
leaving their organization. This problem of dealing with The Changing Rote ol Managers
might sound clich6d but it is an performance.related issues is that taditionally, managers were hireJ
organizational reality that managers no two people or two situations are to manage, that is, to take care of
are learning to cope with. From the exactly the same and therefore the business on a day-to-day basis.
manager's perspective, this performance rmprovement Later, they were required to don rhe
imperative of getting results not solutions cannot be the same. In role of a leader, that is, to provide
only emphasizes the importance of such a situation, it would make sense vision to the organization and leaJ
continuous growth of oneself but it to focus on mentoring, coaching, the organization on the path cf
is also to see that the achievers and counseling to deal with the economic success. But no\\'
O ZO1O IUP A11 Rights Reserved.
I
f
I
I
nanagers must not only do the
above two, but are also expected to
recruit, rrain, inspire. motivate,
correct and empower their
subordinates for extraordinary
T
t performance. This requires different
t strategies for dealing with different
kinds of employees. As Beth, Helen,
and Ed Michaels in their article 'A
New Game Plan for C Players"
published rn Harc)ard Buslness
Reuiew in the year 2002 recommend,
managers need to invest in A
performers and raise the game of B
performers. But according to them,
the mosr difficult of all is to deal
with C performers. The authors
clearly identified the need for
adopting a differential strategy for
subordinates based on their
performance levels. But doing this
is not easy. According to the authors
of the above-mentioned article, it
requires carrying out the task of
assessing the relative performance
of employees and then more
importantly, taking appropriate
actions based on such assessments.
This means that the manager has
to do much more than just manage
his or her subordinates. The
lnanagers of today are constantly
challenged and are required to play
multiple roles, which could be
directed towards making optimum
use of their most critical resource,
i.e., their people.
The answer to the changing and
multiple roles of a manager lies in
becoming a mentor, a coach, and a
counselor to their subordinates.
The objective is to do whatever it
may take to create an environment
where individuals are enabled and
empowered to produce results. The
sreatest challenge for the manager
lies in creating an environment that
ts supportive, instructive, and
ViuekAnnnd
Faculty,
IBS, Bangalore.
The author can be reached at
vivek2712@enuil.om
Abhishek Sinshffilin
MBAStudent,
IBS, Bangalore.
The author can be reached at
abhishek.Singhmia06@gmail.com
satisfying to the extent that
empioyees would want to work and
grow in it. What is needed of of them would fail in the middle,
managers today is to first create that
enabling environment and then
enable their subordinates to
perform better by playing different
roles as and when required. It is in
The greatest challenge for the manager lies in creating an
environment that is supportive, instructive, and satisfying to the
extent that employees would want to work and grow in it
this regard that a three-pronged
strategy is suggested.
The Three-pronged Strategy
In the social science discipline and
especially in the behavioral sciences
one rarely comes across absolutes,
but this one almost sounds like a
universal truth that people vary in
their performance and it is almost
impossible to find a team or a group
of people with equally competent
members. There are various studies
thar tend to support this argument.
For example, the B0:20 principle,
states that B0o/o of the output of a
particular organization or
department or a team comes from
70o/o of its employees or
members, as the case may be. For
some, it is the 15% rule, which
means that in any given group of
people, not more than 15olo are the
top performers. Besides these two,
scholars have also classified
employees into the top performers
or stars as they are referred to, the
solid citizens, and the low
performers. The actual percentages
for these groups may vary from
organization to organization or
from group to group, but then it
largely tends to fit into the normal
distribution curve, where majority
that is the solid citizens group.
Given this variation in
performance because of varying
external factors and competence
levels, it would not be appropriate
to have a single strategy for dealing
with the performance issues of the
subordinates. It is therefore,
expected that managers should
adopt different management
strategies for dealing with the
performance problems of different
categories of employees. If we adopt
the classification of employees into
top performers or stars, solid
citizens, and low performers, one of
the ways in which the performance
problems of these three categories
of employees could be handled is by
playing the role of a mentor for top
performers, the role of a coach for
a
solid citizens, and the role of a
counselor for low performers.
team
Managers as Mentors
Mentors are those who have added
number of years to their experience
August 2010 r HRM Review r 39
and by virtue of which they would
have acquired a pool of knowledge
and wisdom and having done
they, in their present role, are
inclined towards giving support and
career or job advice to those who
are less experienced. Managers
generally mentor by advice or
wisdom that they have acquired
over a period of time. Mentoring
a performance enhancing and
improvement technique may ideally
be suited to those who are above
average performers with the
potential to excel. For above
average performers, the question is
not of lack of competence but that
of direction. Managers while playing
the role of mentors, should
therefore, ideally guide their star
performers so that these star
performers are able to align their
career aspirations and personal goals
with that of the organization.
Mentoring, from an individual
perspective, deals with providing
subordinates with a broader outlook
so that they can consider additional
things while planning their career.
From an organizational perspective,
mentoring tends to deal with the
issue of succession planning and
retention. In order to be able to do
this, a manager playing the role of a
mentor should dig deep into the
subordinate and get involved in the
whole person that he or she is,
rather than looking at his or her
subordinates from a unidimensional
perspective.
For the manager to make the
mentoring process successful, it
would require that both the mentor
and the prot6g6 create an
environment of interaction where
meaningful discussion can take
place and there is a sense of
involvement from both sides. For
40 ! HRM Review : August 2010
this environment to be created and
for managers to succeed as mentors,
so, trust, commitment, patient
leadership, and emotional maturity
is required from the manager's side.
When dealing with star performers
or top performers, rhe imporrant
question to be asked by the manager
is not how much more can this
as person achieve, but it rather has to
do with, where else can this person
be used. For this, the manager needs
to develop new abilities and
interests among the top performers.
Managels as Coaches
Itis true that the top performers or
the A players, can make maximum
Mentoring as a performance enhancing and improvement technique
may ideally be suited to those who are above average performers
with the potential to excel
contributions to organizational
performance, but it is also true that
companies' long-term performance
and to some extent, even their
existence in the market depends far
more on the unsung commitment
and contributions of average or B
players. This was hlghhghted by
Thomas Delong and Vineeta
Vijayaraghavan, in their articie
"Let's Hear It for B Players"
published in Harqtard Buslness
Reqtiew in the year 2003. In the same
article, the authors also state that
managers on an average tend to
downplay the average performers
because they lack the luster and
ambitions of the star performers but
then they do not fail to point out
that it is these B players who with
their competence and steady
performance prove to be the best
supporting actors of the business
world.
For such B players and steady
performers, coaching as a
performance enhancing strategy may
be ideally suited, as coaching may
help them move ro the next higher
level of performance. For average
performers, the areas of concerns
with respect to their perfoffnance are
those related to scaling up. They are
good in their job but find it difficult
on their own to take their
performance to the next higher level
that differentiates a star performer
from the average performer. For this
they need the expertise of their
managers who can help them in
growing and improving their
performance. The managers can do
this by providing suggestions and
encouragement; a combination of
both hard and soft component of
work or technical and non-technical
components of work.
Coaching by definition implies
motivating, inspiring, and taking
people to greater heights, which
they would find it difficult to achieve
on their own. The manager can use
coaching as a directive process for
training and orienting the
employees to the realities of the
workplace and assisting them in
removing the barriers for optimum
performance. In the organizational
context from the manager's point of
view, coaching deals with
communicating the'what', the'why',
and then helping the subordinates
nith the 'how' of a work.
llanagers as Counselots
It is not easy for managers to deal
nith underperformers. As compared
to the joy managers generallY
experience in recruiting, developing,
and retaining the top Performers,
managing underperformers is seen as
painful and at best managers would
like to avoid it. To deal effectively
rvith underperformers, managers
need.to play the role of a counselor.
In general, counseling is a
supportive process used in
organizations for defining and
correcting personal Problems or
skills that may affect performance
in the workplace' The counselors
generally try to rectifi/ behavior and
provide direction and discipline as
needed for as long as possible. The
use of counseling method bY
managers for dealing with
perf o'rmance problems would ideally
be suited for those falling in the
below average category or the low
performers. For this category of
employees, competence may not be
the sole reason for lack of
performance. For such emPloYees'
more than competence, it is the
aftitude, which accounts for their low
performance and hence counseling
seems to be the apptopriate strategy.
For counseling to be made
effective in the workplace it should
be dissociated with the dictionary
meaning of psychological therapy.
On the contrary managers should
use the method of counseling for
changing the attitudes and
perspectives of employees with low
performance. This in turn should
ideally change their behaviors and
consequently their performance in
the workplace. As stated earlier, in
majority of the cases, low competence
may not be the sole reason for low
performance. In fact, low
performance rnay result because low
performers may be dorng the tasks in
a way that is counterProductive or
they have an issue with how things
are being done in the organization.
In such situations, counseling can be
used for confronting and correcting
subordinates whose performance is
below standard.
Conclusion
Of the three strategies suggested
above for dealing with
performance-related problems of
employees falling in different
performance categories, counseling
is generally considered the least
favorite among the managers
although it is the one that can most
easily be identified with achieving
results. Given that the added
responsibility on a manager for
becoming a mentor' a coach, and a
counselor isin the interest of the
organization for achieving better
performance, the imPortant
question that maY arises in the
minds of the managers is: WhY
should they take on this additional
responsibility? The answer to this
question lies in the fact that
managers do not achieve results on
their own. It is their team of people
working under their suPervision
that actually achieves the results for
them. If the saying, "a manager is as
good as his or her subordinates"' is
accepted to be true then he or she
would tend to gain from investing
time in his or her subordinates bY
mentoring, coaching, and
counseling them, so that their
performance- related issues could be
resolved, both in their Personal
interest, and in the interest of the
organization. Managers at personal
level would tend to gain in terms of
increased productivity, increased
delegation leading to creation of
personal time for higher value
managerial work. Taking the
discussion forward from the domain
of the individual manager,
collectively managers engaged in
mentoring, coaching, and
counseling can bring about
organizational change at the
organizational level.
On the other hand, one may also
wonder, why subordinates would
respond positively to mentoring,
coaching, and counseling. In simple
terms, what would they see in it for
themselves. The answer to this
question may lie in the dynamic
nature of work and work
environment.'!Torkplaces are
becoming highly competitive and
talent is becoming rare. Given this,
talent management has become the
center of many managerial and HR
initiatives. For an.emPloYee to
survive and do well in the current
scenario, he or she will have to
constantly upgrade himself or
herself. The initiatives of mentoring,
coaching, and counseling
undertaken by the managers will thus
be welcome as these will be perceived
by the subordinates as something
which is being done for their sake.
This three-Pronged strategy for
managing performance of
employees not only seems to be a
win-win situation for the manager
and the subordinates, but also for
the organization as a whole' Such
things are easier said than done as
it would require personal
investment from the managers in
terms of time and energy for learning
the art of effective mentoring,
coaching and counseling'><
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August2010 r HRM Review r 4l