IIM ROHTAK HUMANE-R PRESENTS IMPRESSIONS September 2021
HUMANE.R@IIMROHTAK.AC.IN
"Managing Star Performance in HighPressure Situation"
INTRODUCTION: I would like to introduce my article with a string of thoughts by providing three cases to you and addressing the point of commonality in that. CASE 1: Consider yourself to be stuck in a dilemma at workplace with three upcoming pivotal deadlines and also simultaneously striving really hard to manage a work life balance and standing upright to the dozens of expectations of people close to you. CASE 2: Recall the recently concluded Tokyo Paralympics’21. With a successful stint of medal tally this year, imagine the condition and mind frame of all the participants, who had to constantly prove themselves and rise above their “differently abled” tag, while fighting a constant internal mind block of representing their country and keeping the hopes up of billions of people with them. CASE 3: Remember the names of the people mentioned next and address the common thread that they might share, i.e., Simona Biles, William James, a CEO of a multinational company and you or me. Reading the above three cases, what is the first thought that bounced in your mind about the problems being faced by the respective people?? The answer is that in each case we can notice a strong element of pressure and stress being displayed and shared, which can severely affect the long-term prospects and growth of the individuals, if not handled in an appropriate way. As seen in the diagram besides, negative stress and performance have an inverse relationship where increase in distress leads to exhaustion and breakdown, while good stress and performance have a positive relationship as increase in stress leads to healthy tension and hence improved performance. All the individuals in the aforementioned cases will have a different solution to pave a way out of the pressure bucket that they are in and it is our individual approach to deal with high pressure situation which helps us to make a mark in these situations.
For one person, the approach may be to meditate, but for the other it may be venting out. For one, it may be prioritising oneself but for the another, it may be prioritising organisational goals or looking at another creative bend of approach. The crux being, finding the most appropriate way in the midst of the stress, an absolutely accurate solution to deal with the situation whilst keeping the performance
high
and
meeting
the
benchmark set by other people. As rightly said by Terri Guillemets, “Give your stress wings and let it fly away”, maintaining the star performance in a high paced environment, filled with gallons of high pressure and stress can be a tedious task for any individual and hence, the article going forward will focus on strategies and models which can be adopted. My article here is written with an approach, where we speak initially about the plethora of resolutions by which we can manage performance during these trivial and challenging situations, sincerely hoping to overcome the roadblocks and stumbling blocks which may hamper our growth or cut our wings in a highly competitive world, where everyone is striving to make a mark. We will be addressing and looking at the solutions using various Organisational Behaviour (OB) Models and Human Resource Concepts from both employer/leader and employee/follower perspective.
1. MOTIVATION – Imagine yourself stuck in a dark tunnel all alone with no surety of the most accurate route to get out and hence, being on the verge of tears and giving up. Now, try to imagine your most loved person standing on the other side of the tunnel waiting for you to get out and embrace you. You see the difference? Finding the brightest ray of hope even in the most dwelling times can prove to be a strong motivating factor for you to deliver your best and ace your performance at any given situation. There are various levels and kinds of motivation for an individual which can be analysed with the help of four theories of motivation, i.e., a) Maslow’s Need Based Hierarchy b) McClelland’s Theory of Motivation c) Adam’s Equity Theory d) Reinforcement Theory Identifying the right kind of motivation at the right time is a concise and crisp formula to your road to success. Even in the most devastating times, your perseverance and motivation to excel can ensure the highest of performance from your end. Always remember the 3D’s in life to go by and that is DEDICATION, DETERMINATION and the DRIVE TO EXCEL. Using the four theories of motivation as stated above, both employer/leader and employee/follower can identify their driving factor which may be the need for Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Belongingness Needs, Esteem Needs and Actualisation Needs (in accordance with Maslow’s Theory) or it may be Need for Affiliation, Need for Power and Need for Achievement (in accordance with McClelland’s Theory) or finding the correct measurement of inputs and desired outputs (in accordance with Adam’s Equity Theory) or finally the right kind of push with the help of
giving Positive/Negative Reinforcement (in accordance with Reinforcement Theory) to constantly keep the performance of individuals intact even in the most exhausting situations. Having the right driving force helps one to keep focus on the goals and vision and thus, contribute both effectively and efficiently to the performance.
Maslow’s Need Based Hierarchy Reference: Simply Psychology
David McClelland’s Theory of Needs Reference: Management Pocketbooks
TYPES OF MOTIVATION
Adam’s Equity Theory Reference: SlideTeam
Reinforcement Theory Reference: Paper Tyari
2. PERSONALITY – Identifying your personality and matching it to the right kind of job profile, along with using your personality strengths can greatly bring about a positive impact on the performance in a high paced environment. Knowing what an individual’s weaknesses are and working on them to improve and pull up one’s socks also helps improve the performance in an environment where people are constantly trying to pull each other down and rise above everyone else. Personality may be measured using two models i.e., a) Myer’s Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) b) The Big Five Personality Model These two models individually help in identifying the correct personality for an individual and hence, adapting to the right environment using the strengths of the personality. MBTI is a personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into one of the 16 personality tests. It is divided into 4 aspects covering divisions based on Interaction with the world (Introverts / Extroverts), Absorption of information (Sensing / Intuitive), Decision – Making (Thinking / Feeling) and Organisation (Judging / Perceiving). The Big Personality Model proposes five basic dimensions underlying all others and encompassing most of the significant variations in human personality. These personalities predict how people behave in a variety of real life situations and remain relatively stable for an individual over time, thus nullifying one of the limitations of the MBTI Personality Model. In short, it showcases an OCEAN of five different personalities. Hence, analysing and identifying your personality and showcasing your performance on the basis of the strengths derived from the personality model can go a long way in dealing with stressful situations and maintaining the star performance of both employer/leader and employee/follower.
Myer’s Briggs Type Indicat Reference: Lifehack
Big Five Personality Model Reference: Simply Psychology
3. LEADERSHIP – Imagine getting the exact amount of spice in street food or the perfect blend of chai and newspaper on a rainy day or finally the right CEO or manager in your workplace!! Sounds unreal but extremely gratifying and satisfying, right? The above examples are too good to be true but if true, then can truly make the day of any individual. Thus, now we come to our third resolution to performance management in a stressful environment and that is a good leadership. The guidance of a good leader and an even better mentor can enhance the performance of any employee, especially in a high pressure situation. Hence, good leaders come in like a breath of fresh air and act as guiding angels to employees who are extremely keen to learn but unfortunately stuck in the backdoor due to numerous reasons. Thus, we propose two extremely important and helpful leadership theories and that are: a) Situational Leadership Theory b) Path Goal Theory Situational Leadership Theory states that successful leadership depends on selecting the right leadership style contingent on the follower’s readiness, the extent to which followers are willing to accomplish a specific task. A leader should choose one of the four behaviours as mentioned below, according to the various situations to keep up the performance of his/her employees: a) Delegate
b) Support c) Coach
d) Direct Path Goal Theory states that it is the leader’s job to assist followers in attaining their goals and to provide them the necessary direction and/or support to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overall objectives of the group or organization.
Situational Leadership Theory Reference: Research Gate
Hence, using the above two models of leadership, and understanding which model to be applied depending upon the situation, the leader/employee can easily grasp the attention of its followers/employees and help them in managing their performance in a high paced or stressful situation. 4. ANALYSIS OF SELF AWARENESS – Being aware and figuring out the best strategy for stress management is one of the most vital resolution to deal with high pressure situations. Every individual has a different method of dealing with pressure while keeping their performance in check. There are multiple methods to do the same as some may choose to prioritise their work, some may prefer to schedule their work while some may meditate. There is one method to promote self awareness and it is advisable for both leaders/employers and followers/employees to inculcate it as part of their strategy for maintaining stress and that is a) Eisenhower Model The Eisenhower Model consists of four easy steps to prioritize each: (1) urgent and important; (2) important but not urgent; (3) urgent but not important; (4) neither urgent nor important task. 5. TEAM BUILDING AND GROUP ACTIVITY (EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT) – There is a high chance that you have felt lost even among a group of familiar people in a social gathering. The result of this leads to poor performance or lack of taking initiatives
which
may
hamper
one’s
personal
growth
at
an
organisation.To keep the star performance in a high pressure situation, one can follow the team building method approach or employee engagement at corporate houses to ensure that no member of the team feels left out or is not able to give their best due to stressful situations. To come
Reference: Forbes.com
across a high pressure situation is not in our hands, but to face it heads on whilst delivering a successful performance is totally in our hands and the method to do the same is indulging employees in group activities. The process for the same can be shown as under:
The four step process deals with formation of a team with common objectives and goals, having diverse creative bend of mind. The second step is brainstorming and diagnosing the problem, after which norming or analysis of behaviour is done. Any constructive feedback to be given or taken is addressed in this step. Lastly, the final stage deals with resolving groups conflict, if any and working through them. The above activity ensures team bonding and builds group cohesiveness in high pressure situations and thus ensures a good performance from the individual’s end. Companies like Toyota and Motorola are paving the way and following this method of performance improvement. CONCLUSION: To conclude using the OB Model, we can decipher how our inputs hamper our process of working, which finally leads to the outcomes i.e., our performance. Hence, we have to ensure our inputs and process to be rightly executed to maintain a high level of performance, no matter what curveballs life throws at us!
Written By- Ridhima Tandon NMIMS, Hyderabad
"Managing Star Performance in High Pressure Situation” As individuals pioneer perhaps the main responsibility is to ensure that their group accomplish significant degree of execution in high pressure situations. To accomplish star execution as a matter of first importance their group ought to plainly comprehend the reason and objectives of the association. A large portion of the groups disregarding incredible endeavors they miss to hit the objective, it is because of miss arrangement, absence of bearing and concentration in their undertakings. One should know the vision, mission, procedures, mandates of the association before they get right into it. It is the People chief's obligation to ensure that their group comprehend the assumption and reason for the association and adjusting individual interest to hierarchical destinations. Individuals’ pioneers need to cooperate with group, get agreement and gain responsibility from the colleagues to accomplish association objectives. According to Daniel Pink’s Science of Motivation (Ted Talk), for 21st century tasks we first need to have a Fair Pay and get the money issue off the table. Then motivation comes from intrinsic factors – because people like to do something they like, find it interesting, find it challenging. It’s significant for the HR Managers to first understand this. The 3 essential elements for this are: (i)Autonomy: If you want compliance, traditional Management ideas work fine; but if you want “employee engagement” then self-direction works better – freedom to decide what, when, with whom, and how. (ii)Mastery: The desire to progress & get better and better at what we do – engagement. (iii)Purpose: The desire to do whatever we do for a greater objective, more than just selfinterest. The following are some of the ways to manage Star Performance in high pressure situations: ·
Using Stay Interviews for Improved Retention during high-pressure situations: It will
help to assess the degree of employee satisfaction and engagements that exists in a department and/or organization. An additional benefit is that the dialogue provides the opportunity to build trust with employees which will ultimately lead the employees
to perform better in high pressure situations. Normally, a “stay interview” must be taken by the employee’s reporting manager. But HR should play an instrumental role here in helping managers to take effective stay interviews. HR should train managers on how to conduct the stay interviews, how to establish rapport, the questions to ask etc. · Realistic Job Previews (RJP): This is also an effective technique to manage star performance in high pressure situations. This is done at the time of the selection process and it will provide the candidates with complete and honest information about a job and the work environment i.e., a clear picture of what a job will be like if the applicant is hired so that there are no disappointments later and he/she is mentally prepared for such highpressure situations if circumstances demand. Types of Realistic Job Preview information includes description of the typical day on the job, aspects of the job that have been rewarding for other employees, aspects of the job that have difficult for other employees, opportunities for professional development & advancement, compensation & benefit realities, any unique aspect of the job etc. ·
Implementing Continuous Performance Management Systems & Employee
Recognition Programs (instead of just yearly): Awards like Star of the Month, Best Performer of the Quarter, Value creator award etc. motivates the employee to give their best which will ultimately increase their performance. The HR should concentrate on continuous performance management systems & also implement more of the employee recognition programs on a continuous basis to manage star performance in the organizations. ·
Effective Succession Planning: Effective Succession Planning has the potential to help
organizations withstand times of demographic change, talent scarcity and high-pressure situations. It is a strategy that targets long range needs and focusses on the cultivation of talent to satisfy those needs. An important aspect of managing star performers is to retain high performers in the organization. Succession Planning demonstrates to employees that the organization has an interest in their knowledge and skills, social relationships and organizational practices and passing those on through effective succession planning, employers assist to establish the effective movement of talent within the company.
Succession planning should also be meticulously aligned with the company’s performance management process to corroborate that employees receive the proceeding developmental feedback, crucial assessment to sustain their professional development even in high-pressure circumstances. All the talent management programs must be assessed on a continuous basis to corroborate the efficacy of each program in bolstering to manage a high-performance workforce in pressure situations. The practices for computing Talent Management usefulness covers the following: ·
Assessing the % of requisitions for which there are internal successors.
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Differentiating the number of external hires to internal promotions.
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Analyzing the differentiation of salary amongst various performance levels and
appropriately rewarding the high performers. ·
Spotting/recognizing high potential workers and assessing their analogous retention
rates. ·
Tracking retention and turnover rates at all the levels of the organization.
Finding time in the already overcrowded schedule to mentor one or more team members will take some doing. But it can be done even in high pressure situations. For this, the HR Managers should follow the simple but effective “15-5-10” formula. Ø 15: Rank your daily duties in order of time and importance and break out the bottom 15 percent. Ø 5: Entrust that 15 percent to selected team members, using 5 percent of the time you conserved to carry one directing them & reviewing their tasks. Ø 10: Utilize the leftover 10 percent for activities related to mentoring. Implementing the GROW Model is very important for HR Managers to manage the star performance in high-pressure situations. It includes the following: G- Goal: First establish the goal. First the employee and his/her reporting manager need to look at the behavior the employee needs to change to overcome high-pressure situations, and then structure this change as a goal that he/she wants to achieve. It’s significant to make sure that it is a SMART Goal: one that is Specific, Measurable,
Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. When doing this, it is useful for HR Managers to ask questions like:
oHow will you know that your employee has achieved this goal? o How will you know that the problem or issue is solved? o Does this goal fit with his/her overall career objectives? And does it sync with the team's goals? ·R- Reality: Examine the current reality. Next, it’s very important to ask the employee his/her current reality. Often specifically in high-pressure situations, employees try to solve a problem or try to reach a goal without fully examining their starting point, and many times they are missing out on some crucial information. Once your team member informs you about his/her current reality, the solutions will surely start coming out. The Managers should ask the following questions to the employee at this stage. o Where are you now and how far is it to achieve your target/goal? o What is your motivation to achieve that? o What are the impacts of this situation? ·O- Options: Explore the options. Once the HR, employee and his/her reporting manager have explored the current reality, it's time to regulate various feasible options for achieving the targets in the high-pressure situation. It’s very important to help the employee brainstorm as many good options as possible. After that, have a discussion and assist them to choose on the finest ones. The Managers should also offer their suggestions in this step but let your team member offer suggestions first and let him/her do most of the talking. It's instrumental to guide them in the right direction, without actually making decisions for them. The HR Managers should ask the following questions to the employees and then after than discuss with their Reporting Manager in this step: o What are the possible options to help you move forward? What is your exact plan of handling this high-pressure task? ·W- Will: Establish the will. Finally, decide on a date when you'll both (employee, reporting manager as well as the HR Manager) review progress. This will give some responsibility and empower the employee to slightly modify his/her approach in case the plan A is not
working. The HR Managers can ask following questions in this stage: oHow will you do it?
oWhat kind of additional resources/tools do you require in order to be successful in this high-pressure situation project? The HR Department could also use the 70-20-10 guideline model of learning to ensure that employees perform effectively and efficiently in high-pressure situations. This standard suggests deployment of supervisors and it is important to involve them in three stages by utilizing a 70-20-10 ratio. For example, testing/crucial tasks (70%), formative connections (20%), and coursework and preparation (10%). The Kurt Lewin Model of Change should also be utilized to elucidate the dynamics through which the organization change takes place. By recognizing these dynamics, the HR Managers can get appropriate initiatives for change and can better manage star performance in the organizations in high-pressure situations. It suggests that the following three phases are involved: Ø Unfreeze the present status: The objective of this stage is to get the workforce to acknowledge that the change is imminent. Ø Move toward the new state: The emphasis in this phase is on getting employees to acknowledge the new i.e., the desired state. Example: They need to understand and accept that the technology they are using has become outdated. Thus, their skills need to be updated in line with the new technological advancements which in turn will lead to star performance. Ø Refreeze: In this phase, the attention should be on ensuring that employees accept and embrace changes and innovations. All this will ensure high performance even in high pressure situations. The HR Managers role in managing star performers in high pressure situations will be to accomplish the following: ü Pioneer your employees by assisting them to complement their areas of expertise,
interests, and work values with job opportunities. ü Organize time-to-time review meetings regarding developmental requirement /needs ü Impart well-timed and particular feedback regarding an employee’s performance against established expectations. ü Give ample opportunities for coaching whenever necessary. ü Operate with your employees to draft individual advancing plan of action and proceeding it to achieve them. In the end, it can be concluded that the above-mentioned techniques and suggested models could play an important role in managing star performance in high-pressure situations.
Written By: Ankur Sharma SIIB, Pune