【正文】 its clarify and execute strategy, knew the key was to get the scientists talking to each other. So he coached the vice president to change her behaviors. Rather than hand out directives, he suggested ways she could stimulate team dialogue about how to meet objectives. Ginsberg also counseled other team members about the need for a consensus process on an interdependent team. They all got it. At the next meeting the VP said, Our mandate is to create breakthrough products. Without access to talent at the top universities, we won39。 HIGHLIGHT SECTION 3。 performance management meetings。Hay Group, Inc. All rights reserved 1 Steve Sherretta July 27, 2020 Performance Management: Enhancing Execution Through a Culture of Dialogue Peter is Chief Executive Officer for a medical supply multinational that recently crafted a new strategy to counter petitive threats. The plan stressed the need to cut cycle time, concentrate sales on highermargin products and develop new markets. Four months after circulating the plan, Peter did a “walkaround” to see how things were going. He was appalled. Everywhere Peter turned people, departments—whole business units—simply didn’t “get it.” First surprise: Engineering. The group had cut product design time 30%, meeting its goal to increase speedtomarket. Good. Then Peter asked how manufacturing would be affected. It turned out the new design would take much more time to make. Total cycle time actually increased. “Our strategic plan message is not really getting through,” Peter thought. Second surprise: Sales. The new strategy called for a shift—emphasize high margin sales rather that pushing product down the pipeline as fast as possible. But just about every salesperson Peter spoke to was making transactional sales to highvolume customers。 staff and team meetings to discuss goals。 Young Center for Business Innovation. Hay Group, Inc. All rights reserved 4 1. Achieve Radical Clarity by decoding strategy at the top The first step in successfully executing strategy is achieving clarity on the top team, which is frequently the source of garbled signals. Lack of Clarity at the Top A recent Hay Group study3 shows a disturbing lack of clarity on top teams (anizational clarity measures the extent to which employees understand what is expected of them and how those expectations connect with the anization’s larger goals). The chart below shows dramatically higher levels of clarity on outstanding vs. average teams. In fact the biggest single difference between great and average top teams and typical ones was in the level of internal clarity. See Figure 1. Figure 1: Organizational Climate and Teams [Change Hay/McBer to “Source: Hay Group, Inc.” in final version] And a Lack of Clarity Below Workers at lower levels strongly feel this lack of clarity. Figure 2 looks at satisfaction levels for workers planning to leave their anizations within two years versus those planning to stay longer. This study showed that a key reason people leave their jobs is that they feel their panies lack direction. Even among employees planning to stay 3 Hay Group partnered with Richard Hackman of Harvard University and Ruth Wageman of Dartmouth College to identify the dynamics of top executive teams and their impact on performance. From an initial group of 48 teams, the researchers narrowed their study to 14 teams, many from large global anizations. Each team member represented the head of an anization, a major business division, or a major geography. 58% 18% Figure 1: Measures anizational climate dimensions for outstanding top teams vs. typical ones. For each dimension of climate we asked how the team was performing in reality and how it should be performing. Then we measured the difference or “gap” in their answers. Gaps over 20% hurt performance. The “clarity” gap for typical teams was 58% pared with 18% on outstanding teams. Hay Group, Inc. All rights reserved 5 more than two years at their panies, only 57% felt their anizations had a clear sense of direction. Figure 2: Key reasons why employees leave their panies Total % Satisfied4 Satisfaction with: Employees planning to stay more than two years (%) Employees planning to leave in less than two years (%) GAP (%) 1. Use of my skills and abilities 83% 49% 34% 2. Ability of top management 74% 41% 33% 3. Company has clear sense of direction 57% 27% 30% [NOTE。d said yes to the VP39。 or, simply don’t realize that successful strategy execution will never happen without ongoing performance dialogue. Part of the solution to this problem is creating systems and processes that force performance dialogue. General Dynamics Defense Systems (GDDS) in Pittsfield, MA, is one pany where creating such systems has contributed to dramatic results. From 1999 to 20xx, attrition among its valued software engineers dropped from 20 percent to percent. Union grievances dropped from 57 to zero, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, best of all, earnings and profit margins doubled. What GDDS did In 1999 the $200 million plus defense contractor challenged its employees to improve the pany’s negotiating leverage on bids, and thereby increase margins and profitability. To acplish this goal, senior management directed all departments to chase out costs, and created numerous processes to transmit the costcutting strategy down the managerial ranks right to the shop floor, which is where they felt many of the best costcutting ideas would e from Carmen Simonelli, director of facilities and security, says his department’s goal was to push labor costs 5 percent below budget, with a “stretch” goal of 6