Performance By Palle E. Knudsen

Performance Positive Pressure

By PALLE ELLEMANN KNUDSEN

The Manager’s Dilemma on Performance

Pressure is often assumed to be a negative influence on performance. But there are ways for managers to leverage pressure to increase productivity and reduce stress.

“I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things.” Steve Jobs

As a manager, your success is dependent on the performance of the people you manage. It is therefore a manager’s key assignment to create an environment where other people can be successful. But how does such an environment look like? What is the right amount of structure, direction and motivation needed to make people perform at their best? Too much structure and direction will kill creativity and innovation, and too little will mean anarchy and inefficient use of resources. Motivation is a doubleedged sword and essentially we are talking about pressure. What is the pressure the manager and/or others are putting on the employee to perform? Translated into pressure, it has a more negative meaning. We are all aware that too much pressure can lead to stress, yet you often hear that people work best under pressure. You are working with focus and determination when there is a deadline approaching. And often there is pressure, because a task is important for the team or the company. The root and character of the pressure makes a difference, whether it is considered negative or not, pressure or motivation. Additionally, there are limits to how long a length of time a person can deal with pressure. Psychologically and physically, people burn out, when they are exposed to pressure over long time, so it is one of a manager’s main tasks to manage the motivation (pressure) that people experience.

SOURCES OF PRESSURE

First, a manager needs to realize that the pressure for performing comes from different sources and the manager has to take the accumulated pressure into account. Performance management systems are a systematic way of putting pressure on people to perform, but whether or not you are having a performance management system, the organizational set-up, strategies and goals are designed to put pressure on people to perform. In a hierarchical organization, managers push the goals and the pressure to achieve them out in the organization and give direction, monitor and coach people on a daily basis to drive performance. The manager’s role is essential for managing the level of pressure on the individual employee. This is a challenging role, because the manager becomes the personalization of a system – strategies and goals – that puts pressure, on a daily basis, on the employee to deliver X amount of performance. However, the manager is not the only source of pressure. Colleagues are also adding to the pressure, in particular in team-oriented organizations, where people depend on each other’s performance. The US-based supermarket chain Whole Foods has institutionalized coworker pressure to the extent that team members vote on new colleagues at the end of a probation period, if the person can continue in the team or not. It takes 2/3 of the votes in favor to stay in the job. And, if you are allowed by your coworkers to stay in the job, you get into the Gainsharing system, which is similar to a profit-sharing model, but focused on controlling labor costs. In the Gainsharing system each team has a labor cost budget based on a percentage of the sales that the team drives. If the team manages to spend less than the budget, the surplus is distributed among the team members every four weeks according to the number of hours worked. The system introduces a strong focus on cost control and encourages people to pitch in with an extra effort. But it also creates a system, where people have a strong incentive to keep an eye out for “free riders” or low performers in the team. So, instead of having one boss to monitor performance, people at Whole Foods are monitored by the entire team.

STRESS BAROMETER

A number of Danish companies, including Best Workplaces, Irma and ATP, joined forces to develop a so-called “Stress Barometer,” where people self-assess the level of stress every day. The tool has been instrumental for the companies to get an overview of people’s challenge with stress over time. It is also a useful tool for people to develop a better awareness of one’s own issues with stress and be able to bring it out in the open and discuss workload. A third level of pressure is working in conjunction with the external pressure from managers and colleagues and it comes from within – from personal ambitions, drive and integrity. From a manager’s perspective, the pressure that people put on themselves to perform is difficult to manage, but it is certainly influenced by the external pressure. People setting high performance standards for themselves are typically very sensitive for external pressure, which will add to their own expectations. Ambitious people have a hard time to say no and decline new challenges and assignments from the organization. This is where the accumulated pressure and multiple goals and projects can overwhelm even the best performer and lead to stress. Author and president of the Energy Project Tony Schwartz suggests that people feel overwhelmed and burned out at work not just because they are working