Have you ever wondered why bright executives with great ideas, products and services struggle to achieve their strategic goals?

If you dive deeper into these situations, you will find that these same leaders have a great vision and a great strategy. But in today’s challenging business environment, that is not enough. The ability to execute to a business plan is the biggest differentiator between successful companies and those who struggle. And the foundation for driving a company’s ability to execute lies in the design of that company’s performance management culture.

However, most organizations still operate under antiquated performance management programs; those that have not evolved with the company and have been in place for years driving old behaviors, if driving anything at all.

In fact, many companies still view performance management as a process to check the box on appraisals and compliance, as opposed to viewing these same processes as driving a performance management culture.

A simple metaphor is one of a company’s boat being pointed in a strategic direction. The challenge is how to get all of your employee’s oars pulling in sync.

This is the key towards enabling companies to achieve their business results. Imagine knowing that all of your employees are working on a core set of goals directly aligned to company wide strategic initiatives. In the aggregate, would you not assume that the company would have a great advantage towards achieving their goals over those competitors who do not align their goals?

The secret is building a performance management culture you want, not revising one around the culture you have. Just like a good compensation program is designed to drive certain behaviors, the same holds true for performance management.

So, perhaps it is time to audit your current performance management program and ask the following questions:

1. Are we setting goals in alignment with company strategy?
2. Is performance management a core leadership competency? One that is practiced on a continuous basis versus an annual event?
3. Do we have an equal focus on ‘how’ employees perform their job, versus just ‘what’ they do?
4. Is our program driving both a strategic and developmental focus?
5. Are we taking the opportunity to drive both company based values as well as role specific competencies?
6. Are we able to perform an analysis on the outputs of our performance management process? One that highlights strengths and weakness on competencies and goal achievement?
7. Is our overall performance management program driving the culture we want?

Building a performance management culture that truly drives your organization’s ability to achieve business results is one of the most important aspects of being a strategic Human Resource leader. Seize the opportunity to take a hard look at your current program, and more importantly, change what is not working. The results will benefit everyone.