【正文】 d said yes to the VP39。 staff and team meetings to discuss goals。 performance management meetings。s directives, adds Ginsberg, they would never have followed through. Ginsberg, who helps IBM business units 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。s ideas to advance their own. Getting them to work jointly and be held accountable for business results was going to be very difficult. In the first group meeting, the vice president simply assigned accountabilities to the various team members. I could see the scientists digging in their heels, says Harris Ginsberg, an internal leadership consultant who attended the meeting. No one was going to dictate to them what they should do. Even if they39。 and 2) engage in regular performance dialogue to monitor behavior and ensure it is aligned with strategy. Three keys to managing performance A culture of dialogue doesn’t happen instantly, any more than a fluid tennis stroke does. It takes practice, persistence and hard work. So how exactly can leaders ensure that strategy messages go all the way down the line—that the tennis ball gets hit correctly? The three keys to managing performance effectively are: 1. Achieving radical clarity by decoding strategy at the top. Many anizations think they send clear signals but don’t. In some cases, managers subordinate broad strategic goals to operational goals within their silos. That’s what happened with Peter’s top team. Elsewhere, top team members often have too many “top” priorities—we’ve seen as many as 100 in one case—which results in mixed signals and blurred focus. Strategy decode requires winnowing priorities down to a manageable number—as little as five. 2. Setting up systems and processes to ensure clarity. Once strategy is clear, anizations must create processes to ensure that the right strategy messages cascade 1 “Why CEOs Fail,” by Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin, Fortune magazine, June 21, 1999. Hay Group, Inc. All rights reserved 3 down the anization. These include: strategycentered budget and planning sessions。 and talent review sessions. Dialogue drives all these processes. Each represents a “transmitter opportunity,” where strategic messages are conveyed and behavior is aligned with goals. 3. Aligning and differentiating rewards. Leaders must make sure rewards encourage behaviors consistent with strategy, which sounds easy but isn’t. Differentiation is about making sure that stars get significantly more than poor performers. But almost everywhere managers distribute rewards more or less evenly. As we’ll see, lack of effective performance dialogue is a key contributor to dysfunctional reward schemes. We list these three items separately but they are, of course, interconnected. Systems and processes depend on clarity from the top. Differentiation and alignment of rewards depend on managers using performance systems effectively. Dialogue is the glue that holds it all together. But not just any dialogue will do. It must be dialogue with purpose, focused on performance. Link to pany valuation Companies that manage performance well—General Electric es to mind—have higher market valuations. Why? Because, more and more, institutional investors view strategy execution as a vital factor influencing stock prices. Just a few years ago institutional investors relied almost exclusively on financial measures for pany valuations. Now 35% of a market valuation is influenced by nonfinancial, intangible factors, according to a study by Ernst amp。t succeed. How are we going to get it? At first, Ginsberg recalls, she met silence. Finally one team member raised her hand. She was willing to get out there to the universities, and be more visible, go out with the recruiter and the senior human resources people, said Ginsberg. She also agreed to help some upanding scientists learn how to develop relationships with universities. Hay Group, Inc. All rights reserved 7 A second team member said he would help her make some calls. The ice was broken and all the team members eventually took on group responsibilities. It was all about dialogue, says Ginsberg. Until the individual leaders embraced the unifying elements of the strategy for the good of the enterprise, they only attended to their own mission. The dialogue helped them buyin, agree to some shared activities, and begin to work more collaboratively. 2. Set up systems and processes to create clarity Why is executing strategy so difficult, even when the plan is clear? Because good execution only happens when employee behavior is aligned with strategy. And many managers can’t, won’t or don’t create the “transmitter opportunities” required to get people to do the right things. Managers: can’t because they don’t know how to talk with their subordinates about change and/or poor performance。 MAKE IT POP GRAPHICALLY] Clarity matters Why do employees crave clarity? Think about it. What could be more demoralizing than the realization that your hard work is not contributing to overall pany goals? Employees want to do the “right” thing, but they can only do so if they know what the right things are. Unfortunately, as we saw in our opening vigte, panies often don’t municate strategic goals effectively. An