Standards and Expectations Warning Flag 4 – Always an Exception

Performance standards and expectations drive managerial decisions and personal actions within an organization and serve to align an organization’s members to its vision, mission, and values. Such requirements necessarily demand an exertion of resources to perform the mandated actions. While having a cost, these standards and expectations also return ethical and economical benefits to the organization. In total, the cost of applying a given standard should yield a value greater than its cost.

No performance standard is appropriate for every circumstance. Therefore, expectations should afford individuals some flexibility to exhibit good judgment such that behaviors are consistent with the intent of the standard without being so rigidly applied that overall value is diminished.

Excessive application of standards exemptions diminishes the overall value these rules offer the organization. Frequent declarations of standard non-applicability reduce the credibility of the associated expectations and the willingness of organization members to routinely enact them; effectively rendering them invalid. While not all inclusive, the four lists below, Process-Based Warning Flags, Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors, Potential, Observable Results, and Potential Causes, are designed to help organization leaders to recognize when they are overly exempting themselves and their employees from following established standards of behavior. Only after a problem is recognized and its causes identified can the needed action be taken to move the organization toward improved performance.

Process-Based Warning Flags

• Standards and expectations are undocumented
• No programmatic mechanisms drive the routine reinforcement of behavioral standards such as a management observation program
• Employee performance expectations are not tied to individual performance goals
• Training programs do not incorporate reinforcement of organizational performance standards

Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors

• Little or no executive, manager, and/or supervisor reinforcement of behavioral expectations
• Performance standards and behavioral expectations are not incorporated as a part of employee annual and periodic reviews
• Little or no peer-to-peer reinforcement of behaviors
• Little or no subordinate-to-senior reinforcement of expectations
• Unwillingness of executives, managers, and supervisors to state the reason for issuing a standards exception

Potential, Observable Results

• Diminished product and service quality
• Inconsistent performance between employees results in product and service differences
• Customer experience changes each time a product or service is purchased
• Customer expectations are not met and returns and refund demands increase
• Diminished customer loyalty and repeat sales
• Employee disenfranchisement increases resulting in lower productivity and higher attrition
• Low overall organizational accountability frequently characterized by blaming and back-stabbing

Potential Causes

• Performance standards are frequently declared as inapplicable for reasons of convenience
• Behavioral expectations are often deemed inapplicable for reasons of expediency and/or laziness
• Standards and expectations are published for the purpose of shareholder showmanship; an accommodation of societal expectations with no real intention of reinforcement

Final Thought…

An organization’s commitment to its stated performance standards is most visible in its recognition and rewards program, particularly in its awarding of promotions. While documented promotion standards are typically performance based, uncommitted leaders bypass these tenants and promote employees based on political favoritism – the ole boys club. Such promotions tend to be subjectively apparent to organization members. At other times, position descriptions are rewritten to fit the desired candidate, an overt deviation from a performance-based reward system. These practices should be avoided as they lead to diminished organizational performance because less qualified individuals holding leadership positions and more qualified employees become disenfranchised; reducing their discretionary effort, productivity, and often leaving the organization.