Performance Management Consultancy

The Company: ‍

A key player in international aviation.

The Challenge:

1.    Develop a focused, performance-based mentality throughout the workforce.

2.    Drive corporate objectives through streamlined actions and behaviours.

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“What is the most efficient way for an organisation to be performance-focused and aligned strategically?”, we have asked ourselves and other thought leaders through the years. The answer has been consistent – start with the guys with the megaphones: the leaders.

The secret to driving performance in the leanest, meanest way, i.e. getting from ground zero to strategic success, is to get leaders behind the strategy, and then equip them with the tools to match their departments’ daily work to the organisation’s strategic direction. Do this well, and corporate success is inevitable.

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For this project, we implemented at here-staged plan:

1.    Get a clear and consistent agreement of corporate goals among all senior management.

2.    Communicate those goals to the entire management team

3.    Teach them a consistent framework and methodology of performance management.

Stage 1 – Corporate Goals

The Company had already devised a strategy. We reviewed it, tightened it and then developed some key ideas about how these could be cascaded throughout the organisation. We then met with every senior department head of the company to share views so as to devise a cohesive and practicable implementation plan of the strategy. This done, we refined our initial ideas and designed a plan for tightening up the overall company strategy. This plan was largely accepted by the senior management. 

One of the main goals of this stage was to bring every one of the senior management on the same page, so that their combined leadership could have synergistic effect.

Stage 2 – Communication of Goals

We got every single manager to participate in a Performance Management programme with us. This was a large undertaking, involving local as well as overseas managers. This took us about a year, as we had to engage about 500 managers who had different time and work schedules. At this stage, we sought to achieve a few things:

·      That all managers (from senior to the most junior managers) understood the corporate goals and their role within them.

·      That all of them would be able to communicate the goals to their individual teams with reasonable clarity.

Stage 3 – Consistent Framework& Methodology

In step with the Stage 2 communication process, we also taught the managers how to develop performance management programmes for both themselves and their team. We introduced to them a customised framework based largely on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Of course, for an organisation as large as this, a performance framework already existed. We helped improve on it and equalise the understanding and implementation of this throughout the ranks.

1.    Equalised Performance Management ‍

A single performance management tool and monitoring approach was developed for all managers.

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2.    Common Language and Priorities for Higher Conversion of Strategy‍

The entire company spoke one performance language – with a common understanding of terms and implementation priorities. This improved efficiency and brought about slicker strategy-to-action conversion, ensuring greater success probabilities.

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3.    Increase in Ability to Handle Complication‍

Managers, especially the more senior ones, developed effective ideas as to how to address more complicated challenges, especially in the area of driving results within their own teams.

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4.    Management Awareness of Operational Challenges‍

Some unexpected operational issues came to light and they were escalated to the appropriate levels. This is a common and desirable by-product of Performance Management programmes.