You Can’t Policy Performance

Oh, I know, it sure would be nice if we could, and boy do we try, but when we use policies to try to improve performance it almost always backfires. Why? Bottom line: You cannot policy performance.

Last night on the television show Grey’s Anatomy there was a fictional scenario that sadly is not fictional in companies across the country. On this show there were employees engaging in behavior that caused an issue. Someone complained. The hospital board immediately created a policy banning the behavior. What happened next is exactly what happens when we try to policy performance. First the employees got mad. Then they said “don’t worry, it will blow over.” Then they acted as if they were going to comply, but didn’t. Then they said “that’s stupid I am not abiding by that policy, I am going to do what I want, punish me if you have to.” Does any of this sound familiar? Creating policy to police one or two problem employees is short sighted and just plain dangerous.

Policies do not transform organizations or people. 

Consider this. Have you ever heard someone say wow that policy really transformed this company or this team? Never. Policies can’t transform people.

Policies perpetuate mediocrity at best, and at worst piss off your already performing people. 

Performance improvement almost always requires some sort of transformation. Something has to shift or change within the individual. If you want a company full of mediocrity, policy away. But if you want inspired, lit up people, you’ll have to find another way to improve performance.

The only way to improve performance is to transform something. And when I say something, I mean people. Policies don’t transform people. Systems don’t transform people. People transform people. So the next time you are tempted to create a policy instead of talking to someone about their performance. Stop. Go talk to them. If you are a leader and don’t know how to have these conversations effectively, or don’t want to have them, it looks like you have an opportunity to transform as well.