When the weather warms up I will be spending alot more time in my garden. I especially enjoy the early morning hours before the rest of the world intrudes on my thoughts. Birds, rabbits and chipmunks join me as I sip a cup of coffee. The creature's behaviors remind me of peple I have worked with. There is the clown, the pushy one, the know-it-all, the complainer. Yet, somehow, this diverse group of creatures get along and the garden thrives.
Over the years I have observed bright knowledgeable professionals struggling to deliver projects on time and in budget. These same bright knowledgeable people try to manage numbers, procedures, events, projects, talent, innovation - everything except the one thing that creates success - people.
People bring past experience, opinion, blame and excusses to the organization. People cloud and confuse the issues and it is therefore hard to determin if they are creating a problem. In trying to be objective and not to offend the person, we end up talking about the resuts when we should be talking about how we got those results. So what should we be assessing?
It has occurred to me that in the garden there is no blame. There are no excuses. As long as everyone does what is expected, peace reigns. If any creature creates a problem, they are chased out.
People get results through other people, relationships. How people behave determins the success of the relationship. Behaviors are performance indicators. Frustration, blaming, anger, developing the wrong thing, late delivery, saying one thing doing another, are clues that there is a problem with the relationship. When assessing performance there is only one thing that should be measured- committment to the organization.
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