Influencing Performance:
Attention, Recognition & Accountability

Synopsis

Many managers and supervisors do not realize the strength of their influence on the performance of others. The interaction between the manager and the employee is very influential with regard to day-to-day work performance. What the manager or supervisor pays attention to is an important concern in the mind of the employee. Attention is a critical influence in the workplace!

Managerial and supervisor attention is perceived by employees in three ways: 

• How and on what managers spend their time.
• What they recognize and appreciate with their words and actions.
• What they hold people accountable for through the use of consequences.

Clear goals and reliable measurements are only a part of a performance management system. In order to ensure those performance goals and measures have integrity and are seen as consistent, manager attention and accountability must be aligned. If they are not, mixed messages are sent and confusion, frustration and stress result. 

Failure to be sensitive to how one provides attention and accountability in the workplace can lead to disastrous performance outcomes as well as de-motivation and increased stress. Often managers and supervisors fall prey to an upside down reward system in which employees do just the opposite of what is desired of them. This is caused mainly by failure to see and understand the nature of what and how performance is being recognized and managed.

This module will help managers take advantage of how they spend their time and how they interact with employees. They will learn how to eliminate mixed messages that confuse and frustrate others. They will learn how to strengthen their goal setting and performance expectation process with the use of consistent and fair accountability measures.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this module participants will better understand: 

• That how and on what managers spend their time is a key influence on performance.
• Attention as the critical influence on employee performance.
• How behavior speaks louder than words.
• How "accountability" is used as a goal and expectation setting process.
• The characteristics of effective praising and reprimanding.

Participants will be able to: 

• Identify and avoid "upside-down" recognition processes.
• Identify and minimize "mixed messages" that confuse and frustrate people.
• Integrate consistent and fair "accountability" with their goal setting and performance expectation process.
• Assess how their behavior influences the performance of others.