Conduct and Performance
A Framework for Evaluations
I’ve been thinking more lately about leadership, especially since I’ve had a few requests for more leadership-related content. This post is geared more toward a newer supervisor or manager, or an aspiring new leader.
Consider this just a first installment after some light brain-showers cruised through the area over the last few days. As with a lot of my content, this will be “lessons learned” from the Wildland Fire Service and translated for day-to-day usage.
A Two-Part System
Like drip torch mix, it works well when mixed in the proper ratio.
Part 1: Performance
This part is pretty straightforward, cut & dried, so I won’t belabor it too much. These are your “deliverables” tied directly to your position description and primary job duties.
Performance measures need to be clear, understandable, and reviewed with employees upon entering a new position (new hire, promotion, etc, doesn’t matter) and at least quarterly for the three quarters not covered by the annual review.
“How do I make them clear and understandable?” The best way is that familiar standby, SMART:
Specific - the task to be completed/item to be produced - e.g. a widget
Measurable - a hard statistic - e.g. number of widgets or number of sales contacts with x% conversion rate
Attainable - take into consideration the skill level and experience of the employee - e.g. a new salesperson isn’t going to have the conversion rate of Andy Elliott or Alex Hormozi
Relevant - to their job - e.g. if the sales team has a widget production metric while the factory workers have sales contacts and conversions metrics… Houston we got a problem, and it isn’t the sales or factory folks!
Time-tagged - everything important has a due date - this could be “x widgets per week/month/year”, or “within 3 working days”, there should be some reasonable, expected timeframe to accomplish the goal
What does this look like in terms of a written standard on a performance eval? Something like this:
Factory Worker: “Produces 60 widgets [specific and measurable] per day [time-tagged] using provided factory equipment [relevant and likely attainable too].
Sales Rep: “Completes 30 sales calls per day resulting in a 20% conversion rate with a minimum purchase amount of $50/purchase.” SMART goals don’t need to be a big 5-sentence nightmare. You can often hit all the points with a single sentence, if you’re good.
Performance measures with SMART goals don’t require much interpretation, and are pretty much pass/fail with possible “bonus points” if someone just crushes the goals and knocks it out of the park.
Part 2: Conduct
Oh boy, here we go….
Time for the meat and potatoes here. First, let’s demolish a common misconception among employees and managers: “You can’t discipline or fire someone for something ‘personal’, it has to be performance-based.”
Bullshit.
Conduct, by its very nature, is personal. It’s how you execute and meet the “what” of the Performance side of the equation. While good performance standards are cut and dried, pass/fail, and easy to implement, conduct is a whole different beastie. To a degree, sure, the more egregious conduct issues are “easy” pass/fails, things like:
Criminal Acts
Insubordination
Stealing Time or Leave/PTO Abuse
Critical rules/policy violations
Let’s be real: those truly egregious “cut and dried” situations are relatively rare. Much more common are the other “little things” issues that, by themselves, probably don’t warrant disciplinary action - but often repetitive issues, or several different issues come together to “form anti-Voltron”, they may rise to the level of “action required” or at least recommended, on the part of the supervisor/manager.
Those things could be:
Regular tardiness
Lack of, or inappropriate, communications (clients, co-workers, etc doesn’t matter)
Non-critical rules/policy violations
On top of these things, “Ethics and decency have entered the chat”. This is the really tricky part, and where a lot of us fall short in identifying behaviors that cross lines.
Passive-aggressive is one mode that often gets a pass, with its inherently passive nature. It’s why it’s such a common thing nowadays! “If you can’t do your job, why not make room for someone who can?” Add a side of gaslighting, “I’m just trying to motivate her!”, or downplay, “Jeeze, take a joke will you?” and your local Carcinogen has free reign to play their game and ply their trade all day long unless you have strong leadership in place that, policies or not, quashes that kind of behavior fast.
“Unknowing - Unable - Unwilling”
This is another great “shorthand” I learned as a wildland fire leader and has served me well in differentiating between things that need “training” or “discipline”.
Unknowing
This is a training issue. The person simply didn’t know better, or have the skills or knowledge to be successful in an assignment. There’s a big but that comes with this though: oftentimes, toxic personalities will use “Oh, I didn’t know….” as an excuse to cover for unwillingness to follow rules, policies, ethics, etc. - be on the lookout for that behavior.
Unable
This is just what it says: you cannot complete the assignments due to circumstances beyond your control. It could be lack of proper equipment/PPE, lack of staffing, other safety concerns, etc.
The “unable” situations that aren’t “acts of God”, are generally up to Management to resolve. Take a good hard look within, and figure out how you can enable your employees so they aren’t unable to complete the tasks you ask of them!
Unwilling
Here’s the “discipline” area. They know what was expected, how to do it, and had the tools and ability to do it - they just didn’t. Whether “the rules are stupid”, “I knew better”, whatever the reason or excuse, they said “no” and now it’s “accountability and consequence” time.
One caveat: SAFETY. If you order someone to do something unsafe and they’re unwilling to do it - that’s a YOU problem, not a them problem.
Again, wisdom is required here, as toxic, childish personalities will cloak their “unwillingness” in terms of “unknowing” or “unable”. As wise leaders, it’s our job to identify when that’s occurring, be the adult in the room, and quash it.
The Big Take-Aways
I’m trying to keep these short and relevant and not drift off too far in the weeds of human nature, etc. The point here is to give you some solid rules of thumb and a framework for evaluating behavior and performance of employees, supervisors, and managers - the best part is these tools are useful in almost any industry or situation!
Is there a leadership topic that maybe something from the Wildland Fire Service can help you with? Leave a comment and ask away!