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Managing People Performance: 5 Ways To Make Consequences Positive For Employees

By Leon Noone

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Published: 24Aug2009
Word count: 441
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Summary. Consequences are a vital key in people management. Your most brilliant ideas can soar or crash depending on how much thought you give to consequences in your planning.

1. Consequences For Whom? Like beauty, consequences are in the eye of the beholder. A project engineer sees the conclusion of a big civil project as a major achievement and the opportunity for a large cash bonus. For a tradesman it carries the prospect of unemployment. When making changes, make sure you build in consequences that your staff will see as positive in their terms.

2. Peer Pressure. As a manager you may have lots of formal power. But informal power is important too. Most employees are very conscious of how their peers think. The prospect of derision and disapproval by peers can influence their behaviour in ways quite unfamiliar to you. Encouraging staff to do work or take "opportunities" that may isolate them from their peers is a consequence you need to consider carefully.

3. Threat And Opportunity. Your new operating system reduces errors, saves time, cuts tedious clerical work and co-ordinates information from various sources. It's a wonderful improvement. The conscientious, loyal, senior clerical employee with 25 years service may see it as a threat. They may see all the skills that have made them such a valuable employee "going up in smoke". Technological improvements may offer very positive corporate consequences. The same improvements may be very threatening to employees if inadequately explained.

4. Perspective and Consequences. As a manager you and your employees have different views of the world of work. Anticipating positive management consequences is part of your job. But anticipating employee reactions, both positive and negative, is part of your job too. This doesn't mean you should change your perspective. It does mean you should consider employee perspectives too.

5. Unforseen Consequences. It's impossible to anticipate every conceivable consequence of every initiative, change or improvement. That's no reason to blunder ahead, blind to the reactions you're creating. Be prepared for the consequences your actions are likely to create. When the unforseen occurs, you'll be able to concentrate on handling it. It can be valuable to consult employees about consequences they may perceive that aren't obvious to you.

Conclusion. Preparing to handle consequences positively is part of the planning process. Always try to create benefits for employees who are involved in change and performance improvements. But remember, their perspective is different to yours.

Considering consequences carefully will make your management job a lot easier. Ignoring consequences or failing to recognize them will be a rod for your back. And it may well create unforseen long term negative consequence. These can become difficult to resolve.

If you've enjoyed this article, you might like to read my FREE, 42 page Special Report, "5 Proven Methods For Improving Employee Performance On The Job". It's yours to keep. You'll also get a free bonus eBook about setting Performance Standards for employees. Just go to http://www.leonnoone.com and they're yours. I work with small-medium business managers to improve on job staff performance without using training.

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