You want to be the manager who is all over the details. You want to know who is doing what, where, why, when and how? You want to keep track of your employees every step of the way. That means you've got to monitor, measure, and document performance every step of the way.

Have you ever had a boss who was sort of out of the loop, who didn't really know who you were, who didn't know what you were doing and didn't seem to care? That sends a message, right? That tells you that you're not that important and your work is not that important. And it gives you a lot of room to hide. On the other hand, have you ever had a boss who is all over the details who knew just who you were and knew just what you were doing every step of the way? That boss tells you that you are important and that your work is important and that's a boss who you know is keeping track. And when you know somebody is keeping track of what you're doing, you keep a lot closer track of yourself. Right? A manager who is all over the details has real authority. A manager who is all over the details is able to hold people accountable. A manager who is all over the details is somebody with real credibility.

How do you do that? You have to monitor, measure, and document performance every step of the way. How do you monitor an employee's performance? There are only five ways that I know of:

You can watch someone work. That's one way.

The second way is you can ask employees for an account of their performance. What did you do? And then listen.

The third way to monitor performance is to check work in progress or to check end product. If you've got somebody who is doing data entry, check a random sample. If you've got somebody who is doing telephone sales, listen to a random sample of calls. That's checking work in progress.

The fourth way to monitor performance is you can ask employees to use self-monitoring tools. That might be a calendar, it might be a checklist.

And the fifth way I know of to monitor performance is to ask around a little. Ask vendors, ask customers, ask other managers, ask coworkers.

Those are the five ways to monitor performance. How do you measure performance? Well, there are a lot of ways. You get reports spit out on your desk all the time or on to your machine. But the only meaningful measurement of employee performance that I know is how did the person's actual performance line up with the expectations that were set in advance? The expectations that were spelled out in advance are the only meaningful measure. How did the person's real concrete actions line up with the expectations? That's the only meaningful measure.

And then third, document. You've got to write stuff down. You've got to take notes. You've got to document performance every step of the way. I don't care if you do it in a notebook in your back pocket or if you do it in a database relationship management software package on your machine. But you've got to keep notes about who is doing what, where, why when and how. You've got to keep notes about the expectations that you spell out for each person and you've got to keep notes about the concrete performance that you're monitoring and measuring. But you've got to write stuff down. When do you document performance? Good, bad and average. Good, bad and average. Just be careful what you write down. Don't write down stuff about the person. Write down stuff about the performance. Always describe performance. Monitor, measure, and document and you will be the manager who is all over the details.

BONUS MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
Do you currently manage any direct-reports with a significant PRODUCTIVITY problem that you would like to help solve? Do you want the person to work faster? On every task? Most tasks? Or just one task?

With each task you'd like each person to speed up, break the task into its component steps. Figure out how long it should take to accomplish each step.

Then, in your next one-on-one or whenever you have the chance, you should ask the person to perform the task in question so you can watch. Watch him/her do the task. See if he/she is following the same steps you would follow. See if he/she is accomplishing each step in about the same amount of time you figured it should take. If not, try to figure out why not. If you can find a reason, then you should be able to find the solution.

As long as the person DOES follow the same steps you would follow and accomplishes each step in a reasonable amount of time, while you are watching, then you have the information you need to create a time budget for each task. Once you have a time budget for each task, you should be able establish a reasonable quantity of that task that can be accomplished within a particular time frame. That should give you concrete productivity goals for that task with that person. Follow-up routinely to make sure this individual is meeting those productivity goals.