Have you ever watched and wondered how it is that some employees in your organization are recognized and moved upward, while others with more impressive credentials, experience and achievements seem to stagnate – and then eventually move out?

There’s a reason for that counter-intuitive phenomenon; you may have within your management ranks a form of “star chamber” or informal clique that anoints some employees (the chosen ones) while sidelining others.  Which explains why leadership mediocrity is sometimes overlooked, why personality trumps achievement and better qualified employees can be passed over for promotion.  For the select few, middle-of-the-road performance is not a barrier to success – like it is for the rest of us.

Not exactly what you hear in Management 101 training class is it?

What you are witnessing is an evolution of the informal pass-fail rating system that companies have used for generations to decide whether an employee is “one of us”.  Those deemed worthy receive a “get out of jail card” that boosts their career.  Those lacking sponsors are categorized as having questionable value and are liable to suffer a fall at the next organizational bump in the road.

Do you remember the “in crowd” from your high school days?  You may not have escaped them after all.

It’s all about PIE

Psychologists have identified several human factors that describe an employee’s ability to relate to their work environment.  While each may vary in importance from one organization to another, their combination has a critical impact on an employee’s likelihood for success.

Performance: your demonstrated ability to perform the job you were hired for.  How well do you handle your role?  Do you achieve results?  The rating scale is the traditional range of from wonderful to woeful.

Image: do you “fit” within the organization?  Is the image you project (personality, interests, clothing, demeanor, etc.) accepted by the rest of Management?  This rating scale ranges from “one of us” to “one of them”.

Exposure: to what extent are you known or would be recognized in the hallways by senior management?  Who are you rubbing shoulders with?  Here the rating scale ranges from “You are known” to “Who?”

The Way it Was

It wasn’t that long ago that Performance was King; that no matter what eccentricities you brought to the job, as long as you performed well no one bothered you.  Idiosyncrasies and personality quirks were overlooked; “oh, that’s just Bob”, you would be told.  “Don’t mind him.  Just deal with it.”  Your value was measured by getting the job done.

Management training classes would use a “scruffy-looking dude” as an example of a brilliant engineer buried beneath a beard, long hair and mismatched clothes.  Such employees possessed little in the way of social skills, no interest in office politics or traditional business hours, and never wore the company logo.  Their job performance, their contribution to the business was their defining identifier.  It marked them as a valuable human resource.

Image could be important, but was considered more as icing on the cake, not the critical ingredient.  Exposure was even less important, as long as you performed.  “Being seen” was more for those who lacked a strong performance record.  They were the ones who needed the help and support of others.

Btw, the classroom answer?  Treat each “dude” the same as you would anyone else.

The Way It Is

Today, good performance is not enough to ensure success.  Today you must also be a “player”.  You must be able to fit in, to blend with your other playmates, be liked as a person, adroitly play at office politics, be seen with the right people and have the same outside interests.  Your capabilities should not be a challenge to your boss.  How you dress is scrutinized for the image you present.

Of course, if you don’t perform well and you’re not in with the right group, your career with that firm will suffer.  You will shrivel on the vine, if not ultimately chopped off.  However, if you are considered to be in with the right group, that association will step in to help should your performance leave something to be desired.  This assistance can vary from softening the blow to overlooking shortcomings (accusations never stick) to shooting the messenger on your behalf.  Club mates stick together.  They circle the wagons when attacked.  They get even.

What to do?

Sound fair?  That’s the way it is when Performance is valued less than Image and Exposure.  But does that strategy have legs?  I don’t think so.  Leadership and a cadre of high performing people are critical requirements to drive your business forward.  You need such outwardly focused success drivers, not those more concerned about internal group dynamics.

Should you find yourself working for an organization where your personal interests and hobbies are valued more than performance and results, your options will be limited.

• You can try to re-invent yourself according to someone else’s value system, but how much success will you have?

• You can try to stay under the radar screen, lest you be judged – but that doesn’t seem a good career plan, does it?

• You can try to change the culture.  Good luck with that!

• Or you can leave

If you believe that your job performance is your best calling card, that employees should be measured and weighed by their contributions, you may need to reconsider the long term prospects of your current environment.

Leave the mediocrity behind.  Change can be a good thing.

When an employee is promoted to their first manager’s position, they are given the proverbial Keys to the Kingdom – your company.  They now have the authority to spend your company’s money.  From hiring, to promotions, to salary reviews and equity adjustments they are now able to make the decisions that directly impact (increase) your labor costs.

However, most of these managers turn out to be, at best, well intentioned amateurs at the process of making pay decisions that are appropriate for the needs of the business.   Fresh from being anointed they often lack the basic internal education necessary to make business vs. emotional decisions – and their actions commit you and the company to costs that may not be in your company’s best interests.

Actions taken by these managers not only increase direct costs, but often irritate other staff members as the circumstances become known, creating morale and internal equity problems at the same time.  The net result is usually a corresponding lack of engagement and ultimately separations by disenchanted employees.

Note:  Most employees leave managers, not companies.  Thus actions do have consequences.  Likely this is not what you envisioned when you made that promotional decision.

Now, how did (fill in the name of your company here) get themselves into this mess?

First of all, no one *really* trains managers on how to properly attract and reward employees via base salaries and incentive pay.

A few anecdotal examples:

• Just because some bloke is a good “XYZ Operator” does not mean they will be an equally good “XYZ Manager”.  The skill sets for success are dramatically different.
• How many managers understand your company’s philosophy about pay?  Do you?  How many understand the workings (the what and the why) of the company’s pay practices and methodology?  These are the folks responsible for spending 40% to 60% of your revenue in the form of employee pay, and even the most well-intentioned is prone to make mistakes.
• Managers want to be liked; they do not wish to pick favorites, do not want to discriminate on the basis of performance and definitely do not want to have their decisions challenged.  They would rather point a finger at HR and assign the blame to them for having to assess performance and distinguish one employee from the other.  Left to their own devices they would give everyone as much as they can.

If you were a high performing employee, would you like to work for this sort of Manager?  If you were coasting at work, barely putting your time in, would you want to work for this sort of Manager?  Which sort of employee do you think will eventually tire of being undervalued, and quit?   Leaving the Manager with a staff of . . . .  You get the picture.

Ineffective managers are always afraid that an unhappy employee will decide to quit, but that is usually a selfish thought.   Their prime concern is more often what your departure would mean to their deliverables, to their reputation as a manager.  Your departure is typically viewed as an inconvenience to them, not an avoidable loss for the company.  A reflection of this is when managers resist a transfer that is clearly in the employee’s career interests.  The manager’s concern is how that transfer affects their department – and whether their personal success becomes that much more difficult to attain.

Ineffective Managers can be a defensive lot, challenging attempts at reform.  Why?  Because of their fear that spotlighting reform action will demonstrate their ineffectiveness (make them look bad), and that is unacceptable.  Typically their advantage within the company is that the more ineffective the manager, the stronger their political connections.   And as senior management oftentimes surround themselves with those most agreeable to their own way of thinking, it’s not surprising.

Assuming the company’s willingness to make key decisions and the presence of the all-important support from senior management, companies can correct the problems that they’ve created.  They can:

• Select candidates for management positions on the basis of their skills / potential for actual management (dealing with people, managing projects, business-oriented, professional demeanor, etc.)
• Educate Managers in the philosophy and methodology of the company’s pay programs, ensuring that this information is shared with their staff
• Construct job specifications that call for a Manager to manage, as a prime accountability, limiting or even eliminating the retention of individual contributor responsibilities.
• Measure and reward the performance of the Managers  primarily on the basis of how they have actually managed their employees, or on the performance of their unit
• Encourage Managers to develop the potential of their employees, to the point that a staff member being promoted / transferred upward is a mark of success for the Manager
• Ensure that procedural checks and balances are in place to ensure that pay decisions are reviewed by at least one higher level
• Hold Managers to an annual salary budget; let them develop the budget and monitor / adhere to it during the year

Consider the above as a checklist that can be used to test your company’s vulnerability to wasted money, employee morale problems / turnover and avoidable cost increases.

Would you be comfortable with how your own company would score?

My advice to clients is to face these issues straight on, to implement policies & procedures that save money without penalizing high performers or mistreating their employee base.  But the challenge will always remain, as there is an inherent reluctance on the part of many managers to make the tough decisions, because we do want to be liked, we do like to give good news, and we do not like to play judge and jury with an employee’s career.

But that behavior is not managing is it?