Industry Research: The Performance-Values Matrix

The simple yet powerful practice of using the Performance-Values (PV) Matrix to manage your team will unlock the full potential of your organization. The matrix is a simple X-Y graph with the vertical axis representing performance and the horizontal axis representing core values. The PV Matrix helps team members visualize how their performance impacts a company and how their behaviors align with an organization’s core values.   

The four quadrants represent the four possible combinations of high or low performance and high or low values: To hold your team accountable for both performance and values you must give them equal weight in your performance management system.  

The PV Matrix changes performance reviews from being a one-dimensional score that looks at the past performance to a coaching tool that addresses future actions and team chemistry.

While an effective coaching discussion should address past performance, you will have a greater impact on an individual if you focus on what needs to be done in the future.

Your Role as a Coach

Company leaders are responsible for: (1) developing a strategy and (2) executing it. The harder of these two is getting people to execute the strategy because no matter how clever a strategy is, it’s worthless if poorly executed. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article¹  best depicted this challenge by going

                                                          From this:                                                                      To this: Strategy development is about knowing something. Strategy execution is about doing something. The gap between what you know and what you do is often big. When you add in the requirement of having everyone acting in alignment with each other, the challenge becomes bigger. The PV Matrix helps you align all the “Small Arrows” in the right direction.    

Coaching Employees with the PV Matrix

Coaching and evaluating team members is one of the biggest challenges managers have for three reasons: (1) The Supervisor and Employee Relationship; (2) Setting Expectations; and (3) Giving Candid Feedback.  

The Supervisor and Employee Relationship

Employees need to know their manager cares about them and is invested in their success. Good managers understand this and invest time with their team. Personal values and goals are addressed when you use the PV Matrix to coach team members.    

Set Expectations

Setting clear expectations is not as easy as it sounds. Typically, only 50% of employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work². Setting expectations may be difficult if the leader(s) in your organization have not defined and shared your company’s purpose with all. Your company’s purpose consists of your Vision, Mission, Goals, and Core Values.

Giving Candid Feedback

Providing candid feedback that motivates someone to change or to keep doing well is more difficult than defining expectations. It’s difficult because of people’s emotions. Many managers fear confrontation and will avoid giving crucial feedback if they think the employee will become upset or angry.    
 

Crucial feedback becomes even more difficult when comparing someone’s behaviors against your organization’s values. For example, telling someone he or she missed the sales goal is pretty easy because either it happened or it didn’t (the y axis).  On the other hand, addressing someone’s behavior is more difficult because it reflects the values and character a person is displaying. 

The X Factor

As challenging as it may be to address a person’s behavior (the x axis), it must be done. Your team’s behaviors have the greatest impact on your organization’s performance AND defines your company culture (your values). “Culture eats strategy for breakfast everyday” is an absolute reality -- a phrase originated by Peter Drucker and made famous by Mark Fields, President at Ford. A leader that disconnects strategy from people’s behaviors is putting his or her company’s success at risk.

The Impact of Visualization

Behavioral research shows visualization improves learning by up to 400%³. This means seeing how your performance and behaviors impact an organization will have a greater impact than just hearing or reading about it.  At Performance Culture we know this is true because of the feedback we have received from both managers and employees who use the Performances-Values Matrix. 

Want to Learn More?

If you want to build a better team or keep your team performing at a high level, we encourage you to learn how the Performance Culture System can help you accomplish amazing results within your organization. You can contact us at:  PerformanceCulture.com, sales@performanceculture.com, or (888)-505-0650.

¹ Execution is a People Problem, Not a Strategy Problem, HBR.org
² Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey, 2016 
³ University of Illinois Study on Best Ways to Teach, 2014 

Author Bio

Melissa Phillippi is Co-Founder and President of Performance Culture, Inc., a cloud-based performance management platform that helps leaders build better teams for better results. Working collaboratively with Co-Founder Dallas Romanowski, Melissa created Performance Culture’s Coach the Coach program, a foundation for the performance evaluation process. Additionally, she has created Leadership and Manager Training Workshops focused on helping Leaders grow in their communication, emotional intelligence, coaching, and leadership skills.