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December 2008
 A Principle For Holding People Accountable

The Abercrombie Principle is what I call a great concept I gleaned a few years ago from Colonel Hank Abercrombie at Fort Monmouth New Jersey. It's an important tenet for any leader:

If you want your direct reports to do something, you must tightly link it to Performance Management. Otherwise, they just won't do it.

We were discussing Succession Planning at the time, but the Abercrombie Principle really applies to anything you as a leader are trying to get other people to do. It could be an activity like generating more sales, or a behavior, like treating people with respect.

Or, it could be the achievement of any important goal.
Whatever "it" is, you must clearly spell it out in the
Performance Management system, and in the performance standards, if you want to have any hope of people actually doing "it."

In my discussion with Colonel Abercrombie, the "it" for each of his direct reports was taking active steps to develop at least 2 or 3 people who could step into that manager's position at a moment's notice.

If they weren't doing that on an ongoing basis, they were "useless to me, and more important, to the command, the organization." That's how important Succession Planning, on an individual basis, was for Colonel Abercrombie.

The goal of any Performance Management system is to get employees to do the things needed to achieve organizational goals. In Colonel Abercrombie's command, he wanted managers to continually develop their direct reports.

He felt this was critical to his organization's success. It
was part of the Performance Management system, and everyone knew it. If they didn't do it, they didn't get promoted. If they didn't do it long enough, he kicked them out of the command.

I'll bet that if you talk to leaders in most organizations,
hear the problems that are causing the most trouble, and then look at the performance standards for their direct reports, you'll find that the standards don't address those problems at all.

The standards will probably address the usual suspects, as far as performance standards go. You know the ones. Quality. Timeliness. Customer Service perhaps. But you'll find nothing in there that the leader can actually use in administering the Performance Management system.

It's probably not in there because nobody has taken the time to look at the performance standards, I mean seriously look at them, in at least 5 years. Which means those standards aren't current, and the leader can't use them to address problems that are most important to him or her.

When you're coming up with standards, just as with goals, they need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timed. Having the right standards, and in the right format (SMART), though, isn't enough.

The final piece is actually using those standards to hold
people accountable. You don't give people promotions or bonuses if they're not meeting the standards that contribute to the achievement of organizational goals.

Colonel Abercrombie held his direct reports accountable. But it started with tying the important things to Performance Management. That's the Abercrombie Principle, and we should all work hard at applying it to those we lead.

What are the problem areas that cause your headaches? How well are those problems addressed by your Performance Management System?

Until next edition, keep leading the way!

Copyright (C) 2008 by Terry Wall

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