By Michael Neill, CSE
In my session on missional leadership at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, I presented the concept of “effort equity” that I developed several years ago. This concept begins to explain why most employees don’t fully engage in work in the same way their managers do and how organizations begin to accept this “dumbed down” view of employee performance.
Let’s briefly review the three levels of effort equity.
Level 1 - “Natural Effort Equity”
We provide a position description to an employee along with an agreed-upon salary. When we change the nature of the job or add to the responsibilities, the employee thinks, "What are you going to do for me if I take on this added responsibility? If I don’t receive anything in return, we no longer have an equitable agreement. You are getting more so, by default, I am getting less."
Level 2 - “Comparative Effort Equity”
The employee observes other employees performing at a "lower level" and insulates herself from this less-than-effective performance by thinking, "I may not be the most professional dresser, but at least I’m not as bad as Sally. Every day she looks like she came straight from the bar. They’re lucky I don’t dress like that."
Level 3 - “Institutional Effort Equity”
This is when the organization buys in to levels 1 and 2. It signals the end of any hope the organization can be great. An example of something a leader might say that reflects institutional effort equity is, “He may not return emails or phone calls and he may have a foul temper from time to time, but he sure knows our computer system. I don’t know how we could survive without him."
What leaders who say things like this fail to understand is what you are willing to accept will become your standard. Institutional effort equity gives fuel and motive power to comparative effort equity by giving underperforming employees someone to observe whose performance is beneath theirs. Thus the employee’s response, when approached about the need to improve, might be, "I can’t believe you are talking to me about returning emails and phone calls when Ron over there never responds to anything." Of course we can respond, "We're talking about your performance, not Ron's." But the truth is the employee, and you, know what the employee is saying is true and that we are not dealing with this same issue with Ron because:
In my session on missional leadership at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, I presented the concept of “effort equity” that I developed several years ago. This concept begins to explain why most employees don’t fully engage in work in the same way their managers do and how organizations begin to accept this “dumbed down” view of employee performance.
Let’s briefly review the three levels of effort equity.
Level 1 - “Natural Effort Equity”
We provide a position description to an employee along with an agreed-upon salary. When we change the nature of the job or add to the responsibilities, the employee thinks, "What are you going to do for me if I take on this added responsibility? If I don’t receive anything in return, we no longer have an equitable agreement. You are getting more so, by default, I am getting less."
Level 2 - “Comparative Effort Equity”
The employee observes other employees performing at a "lower level" and insulates herself from this less-than-effective performance by thinking, "I may not be the most professional dresser, but at least I’m not as bad as Sally. Every day she looks like she came straight from the bar. They’re lucky I don’t dress like that."
Level 3 - “Institutional Effort Equity”
This is when the organization buys in to levels 1 and 2. It signals the end of any hope the organization can be great. An example of something a leader might say that reflects institutional effort equity is, “He may not return emails or phone calls and he may have a foul temper from time to time, but he sure knows our computer system. I don’t know how we could survive without him."
What leaders who say things like this fail to understand is what you are willing to accept will become your standard. Institutional effort equity gives fuel and motive power to comparative effort equity by giving underperforming employees someone to observe whose performance is beneath theirs. Thus the employee’s response, when approached about the need to improve, might be, "I can’t believe you are talking to me about returning emails and phone calls when Ron over there never responds to anything." Of course we can respond, "We're talking about your performance, not Ron's." But the truth is the employee, and you, know what the employee is saying is true and that we are not dealing with this same issue with Ron because:
- He has lots of tenure.
- He is in a protected class.
- He has a high level of technical knowledge.
- We have been working around him so long, how would we explain now that we are no longer going to accept it?
- Etc.
- Expect effective performance across a broad range of important categories.
- Will not excuse non-missional behavior because of outstanding performance in other areas.
- accuracy,
- job knowledge,
- professionalism,
- timely response,
- flexibility,
- volume of work,
- flexibility,
- teamwork,
- communication skills,
- attitude and
- meeting deadlines.
- Catch employees doing it right.
- Coach them up when they are underperforming in any area that is important.
