Motivations and Behaviors for Individual and Organizational Success is a resource that contrasts contribution motivated with deficiency motivated. We're unpacking the four key aspects of contribution motivated outlined in this tool: being self-aware, striving to realize potential, seeking mutually beneficial results, and contributing creatively.
Being self-aware makes a big difference in our behavior - especially when it comes to responding to coaching and feedback.
Penelope recently achieved poor results...
Idea for Action: Discuss with your team - How are Contribution Motivated and Humility related?
Resources:
Contribution Motivated
What is Contribution Motivated?
When you are contribution motivated, you seek to discover, develop and utilize your abilities to succeed by helping others improve their lives. You are energized by creatively getting results which enables you to live a life of meaning.
Motivations and Behaviors for Individual and Organizational Success is a key resource that contrasts contribution motivated with deficiency motivated.
Why is This Important?
To be successful, we need employees who are motivated to maximize their contribution to organization’s long-term success, exemplify Our Values and have abilities that are additive to the team.
We strive to hire and retain people who are contribution motivated first and foremost – and reinforce that motivation through individualized roles and responsibilities, coaching, development and rewards.
Below is a tool that clearly articulates differences in thinking, behaviors, and attitudes between people who are primarily contribution motivated and the alternative - what we call being primarily deficiency motivated. We use this tool to help us provide feedback, select contribution motivated people, and advance our culture.
Motivations and Behaviors
For Individual and Organizational Success
To be successful long term, we need employees who are motivated to maximize their contribution to the long-term success of organization Industries consistent with Principle Based Management and have the ability to help the team succeed. Rather than perfection, we expect employees to be predominantly contribution motivated rather than deficiency motivated.
Principle in Brief: Contribution Motivated
Personal success and fulfillment – in any field or endeavor – come from helping others in ways that are mutually beneficial. Alexis de Tocqueville called this acting out of an “enlightened regard for [oneself],” which “constantly prompts [people] to assist one another.” This principle of being contribution motivated has been vital to organization’s success.
From Abraham Maslow it has become generally accepted that most individuals must first satisfy their basic physical needs and then their communal needs, as well as achieve a sense of self-worth. Individuals for whom any of these needs are seriously unfulfilled tend to be driven by them, which he called being deficiency motivated. In this state, people often act in unhelpful or even counterproductive ways, such as being defensive, resisting feedback, hoarding knowledge, undermining colleagues and complaining without offering solutions.
Being contribution motivated enables people to discover, develop and utilize their abilities to succeed by helping others. They are energized by continuously trying to improve, innovate, transform and creatively get results – which enables them to live lives of meaning. The more people contribute, the better they feel about themselves and the more they tend to be rewarded, so the more they want to contribute.
As difficult as it is for individuals to contribute when deficiency motivated, it is almost impossible when negatively or destructively motivated. They can be driven by tribalism; narcissism; the will to power; jealousy; a lack of integrity, humility, or respect for others; or the desire for vengeance for real or imaginary injustices. Organizations with a culture of negative motivation typically have no purpose other than advancing their own power or profiting by any means.
This is why we prioritize a contribution-motivated culture – one based on Our Values. It involves hiring and retaining people who are first and foremost contribution motivated, and reinforcing that motivation through individualized roles and responsibilities, coaching, development and rewards.
Examples
These contrasting examples can help you better understand what it looks like when someone is contribution motivated.
Hiring
Contribution Motivated: During an interview, Ginny showed self-awareness. She described what she learned about herself in each job. Ginny admitted that she gets bored easily and often moves on once she's mastered something. She said she feels most energized when she can help her teammates and see the effect of their work.
Deficiency Motivated: During an interview, Jorge showed he lacks self-awareness. He artfully talked about how managers in his previous jobs made it difficult for him. When asked about feedback he received, Jorge discounted his performance reviews and clearly believed his previous supervisors undervalued his abilities and achievements.
Day-to-Day Work
Contribution Motivated: Lee is an environmental engineer whose team recently finished a large project updating the facility's watershed and irrigation equipment. Lee proactively talks to his supervisor to discuss other ways to contribute. In the near term, he uses some of this "downtime" to get current on the newest water quality measures.
Deficiency Motivated: Lana is a data analyst who recently finished automating measurement reports. She now has some "free time" while waiting for her supervisor to provide the next assignment. Lana uses the time to get caught up on her personal email and plays on her phone a lot.
Humility
Our Value: Humility
Be humble, intellectually honest and deal with reality constructively. Develop an accurate sense of self-worth based on your strengths, limitations and contributions. Hold yourself and others accountable to these standards.
What is Humility?
Humility is the absence of arrogance, not the denial of strength or intelligence. To be humble is to understand and accept yourself as you really are and accept others as they really are. Having an accurate sense of self-worth begins by believing you have inherent value as a person – which has nothing to do with title, status or money.
Why is This Important?
Arrogance has led to the downfall of many once-successful societies, organizations and individuals. This is why we all need to exemplify humility and intellectual honesty as vital attributes of our culture. To create value for others and achieve personal improvement, each of us must constantly seek to understand and constructively deal with reality. Admitting when you need help, can’t do something well, or need to improve is liberating. It frees you to focus on how you can best contribute and allows others to do the same.
Principle in Brief: Humility
Arrogance – an exaggerated sense of your own importance or belief you are better than others – is the enemy of humility. It is a highly destructive trait for individuals and organizations. It blinds people to their limitations and biases them against the contributions of others. Lack of humility is so destructive that Pope Gregory listed pride as one of the Seven Deadly Sins more than 1400 years ago. Arrogance has led to the downfall of many once-successful societies, organizations and individuals.
Humility is the absence of arrogance, not the denial of strength or intelligence. To be humble is to understand and accept yourself as you really are and accept others as they really are. Having an accurate sense of self-worth begins by believing you have inherent value as a person – which has nothing to do with title, status or money – and then discovering your talents and developing them into valued skills. Admitting when you need help, can’t do something well or need to improve is liberating. It frees you to focus on how you can best contribute and allows others to do the same.
Intellectual honesty is closely related to humility. It is dedication to truth and constructively dealing with reality, even when it is painful. Instead of only looking for evidence to support our ideas and views, it is to sincerely seek constructive feedback and strive to see things as they really are, rather than how we wish them to be. This is difficult because even when we ask for criticism, we often want praise. We constructively deal with reality by stopping unprofitable endeavors, being realistic about threats that could harm our business and experimenting to create better results. People who are intellectually honest change their paradigms when those paradigms are holding them back.
Maintaining humility when you’ve been successful is especially challenging. The minute we believe our success is inevitable or feel we are entitled to our success, we’re in serious trouble. True humility is reflected in our willingness to hold ourselves and others accountable for results and behavior consistent with Our Values. We should have high expectations of ourselves and others, willingly admit our mistakes, make corrections when we fall short of these standards and give credit where credit is due.
Examples
Consistently practicing humility is important but also challenging since we all have egos. The following examples illustrate what demonstrating humility and lacking humility can look like.
Receiving Constructive Feedback
Demonstrating Humility: Gia was given feedback that she doesn’t seem to be trying to understand customer expectations and the department’s processes. Instead, she is recreating processes from her previous company. Gia was stunned by the feedback, but after thinking about it, she schedules time with her supervisor and says, “I want to understand more about your feedback. I was simply trying to get off to a good start in this new job, but it’s clear I need to do something differently.”
Lacking Humility (Defensiveness): Gia was given feedback that she doesn’t seem to be trying to understand customer expectations and the department’s processes. Instead, she is recreating processes from her previous company. Gia was stunned by the feedback and immediately responds by saying, “I guess you don’t understand that in my previous company we had worldclass processes and that’s what this team needs! I’m sure that’s why I was hired.”
Receiving Positive Feedback
Demonstrating Humility: Eric’s supervisor invites him to join the safety committee because he provides valuable comments during shift meetings. Eric responds, “Can you help me understand which of my comments were most helpful and why? That way I can be as helpful as possible to the safety committee.”
Lacking Humility (False Modesty): Eric’s supervisor invites him to join the safety committee because he provides valuable comments during shift meetings. Eric responds, “Thanks, but I don’t have anything better to offer than anyone else on the team.”
Struggling to Get Work Done
Demonstrating Humility: Claire just became responsible for coordinating a big recruiting event. There are many different tasks to be done, some of which she is good at doing and some she is not. Attention to detail is not a strength of Claire’s, so she talks to her supervisor about delegating registration tracking to Ryka.
Lacking Humility (Foolish Pride): Claire just became responsible for coordinating a big recruiting event. There are many different tasks to be done, some of which she is good at doing and some she is not. She doesn’t want to admit that she is in over her head, so she works late every night this month to get everything done herself.
Contribution motivated people are constantly trying to develop, learn new things and create more value. They don't wait to be asked, instead they take initiative.
Jorje has been in his role a few years...
Ideas for Action:
Discuss with your team: How are Contribution Motivated and Self-Actualize related?
Discuss with your supervisor: How might you modify your responsibilities or take on new responsibilities so you can both develop and improve team results?
Resources:
Self-Actualize
Our Value: Self-Actualize
Be all you can be. Identify, develop and apply your gifts and passions so you can best contribute in ways that are most meaningful to you. Be a lifelong learner.
What is Self-Actualize?
Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined self-actualizing as realizing your potential – becoming everything you are capable of becoming. It is a deeply personal and unique journey of discovering your aptitudes, developing skills and using them in productive ways.
Why is This Important?
Self-actualizing employees are motivated to contribute, create, face reality, take on new challenges, cooperate and help others succeed. These qualities help us work together to create virtuous cycles of mutual benefit and become preferred partners with customers, employees, suppliers, and other core constituencies.
As an individual who is striving to self-actualize, you will live a more productive, fulfilling, and meaningful life and contribute to society in many ways. At organization, we believe self-actualizing is so essential to individual and company success that helping each employee along this path is an important responsibility of supervisors at every level.
Principle in Brief: Self-Actualize
Self-actualizing employees are essential to organization’s success, where our Vision is to succeed by creating value for others and creating virtuous cycles of mutual benefit. Self-actualizing employees are motivated to contribute, create, face reality, take on new challenges, cooperate and help others succeed.
Abraham Maslow defined this as realizing one’s potential – what he described as “everything one is capable of becoming.” It is a deeply personal and unique journey of discovering your aptitudes, developing skills and using them in productive ways. Self-actualizing is not about reaching the peak of a mountain, but a series of peaks that you continue to climb as you develop, contribute and discover new possibilities. It is creating your own virtuous cycles on a personal level.
Self-actualizing goes beyond your basic physical and communal needs. It requires deliberately and persistently striving to improve, developing your aptitudes in ways that are beneficial to others. As Maslow put it: “Every person is, in part, his own project and makes himself. . . . We must constantly learn about our own strengths and limits and extend them by overcoming difficulties….If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of becoming you’ll be deeply unhappy. You will be evading your own capacities, your own potential.”
This journey is all about experimenting to discover the work in which you can make the greatest contribution and have a passion for, and be a lifelong learner so you can continually transform yourself.
Helping each employee along this path is the most important responsibility of supervisors at every level. They must respect employees as individuals, continually evaluate and adjust their roles and responsibilities so they can best contribute, provide meaningful work that fits their talents and passions, combined with ongoing coaching and feedback to promote learning, development and growth.
In sum, our goal is for you to be all that you can be. That is not only the secret to success, it’s the secret to a life of meaning.
Examples
Realizing Your Potential
After reflecting on a recent project, Omar realizes he has an aptitude for data analysis. He works with his supervisor to see how he can develop and use this gift to contribute more in his current project management role.
Braylen is an engineer. His supervisor points out that he has a gift for communicating technical concepts to non-technical people. This inspires Braylen to explore different possibilities and eventually he moves into a sales role.
Meaningful Work
Marsha is a quality control intern. While talking to her supervisor, she realizes the most meaningful part of her work is identifying potential problems before they become serious issues. Marsha knows better what she will look for in a full-time job.
Kerry’s co-worker encouraged her to apply for an open supervisor role, but she decides not to do it. She loves working on equipment and knows that being a supervisor wouldn’t be good for her or the team.
Lifelong Learning
After several months as a sales rep, Priya realizes this isn’t what she wants to do long term. She continues to do good work and takes on new assignments to expand her skills and contributions. Priya views her job as a chance to learn and develop while she explores other customer-facing roles.
Liu has been a web developer for about ten years and enjoys the work – especially writing new code. Recently, Liu has been learning to use AI to start his coding. While part of him misses developing from scratch, he’s much more productive and is learning new ways of coding.
At its core, seeking mutually beneficial results is about interacting with others in a way that focuses on succeeding together.
Reya's facility and region were affected by a damaging storm...
Reflect:
Do you tend to approach things with a win-win mindset or do you see your interactions as a competition where somebody wins and somebody loses?
How did you react the last time a mistake was made? Were you more contribution motivated or deficiency motivated?
Resources:
Mutual Benefit
What is Mutual Benefit?
This principle guides us to take a win-win approach in all we do. It goes beyond a simple transaction that benefits both parties – it's a proactive mindset that causes us to seek out relationships and opportunities where we can succeed by benefiting others. When we do this while consuming fewer resources, our profit is a result of benefiting our customers and society. This principle also guides us to avoid situations where one party benefits at the expense of others (win-lose).
Why is it important?
Mutual benefit is foundational to the role of business in society and organization’s Vision. It is the only way to succeed long-term. That is why we pursue mutually beneficial relationships with all core constituencies – employees, customers, suppliers, partners, communities and governments. We seek to understand what they value and then cooperate with them to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Trust is the foundation for such relationships.
Principle in Brief: Mutual Benefit
In 1776, Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed that people in a civilized society always require the cooperation and assistance of others. We obtain what we need by providing others with what they want. This simple idea, which today we call mutually beneficial exchange, when widely practiced, has lifted much of the world’s population out of poverty and subsistence.
Mutual benefit is foundational to the role of business in society and organization’s Vision. We seek to understand the needs of our constituencies, starting with providing products and services our customers value more than their alternatives. When we do this while consuming fewer resources, our profit is a result of benefiting our customers and society.
Some people believe that exchange is zero-sum – for one side to win, the other side must lose. This can be the case – such as when one party benefits at the expense of the other party through involuntary extraction. Whether legal (government bailouts, subsidies, mandates and tariffs) or illegal (fraud and theft), these win-lose approaches are always harmful to society.
Exchange is a positive-sum endeavor when it is voluntary and mutually beneficial. Both parties cooperate to get more of what they value and will only transact if both believe it will make them better off. This win-win approach respects each party’s right to choose whether or not to transact. It is the only way to ensure value and good profit are created.
When companies are allowed to profit through extraction and exploitation, they avoid the constructive competitive pressure to innovate and create value for others. When companies can only profit through voluntary cooperation, they have a strong incentive to innovate and anticipate ways of satisfying customers.
At organization we strive to apply a win-win philosophy in all we do. That is why we pursue mutually beneficial relationships with all core constituencies – employees, customers, suppliers, partners, communities and governments. We seek to understand what they value and then cooperate with them to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Trust is the foundation for such relationships.
Contribution-motivated employees are essential to applying a philosophy of mutual benefit. They are collaborative, build trusted relationships and make those they work with better.
Examples
Win-Win
Supplier X shares our vision for creating value, understands our priories, and provides superior service. We pay Supplier X about 5% more than our next best alternative.
Although Greta’s supervisor, Vance, values having her on his team, he encourages Greta to pursue a role in another organization company that will allow Greta to expand her skills and contribution.
Win-Lose
Theo works below his abilities so he won’t be asked to do more.
To hit their quarterly sales goals, a salesperson misrepresents the features of a new product to the customer.
Contributing creatively isn't limited to developing bold or innovative solutions. In fact, much of contributing creatively is about having grit and a can-do attitude when facing obstacles or challenging situations.
Crosley is part of a project that affects multiple parts of the organization...
Reflect:
What is your tendency when you hit an obstacle at work?
The next time you face an obstacle, what's something you can do to respond in a contribution motivated way?
Resource:
Challenge
What is Challenge?
We define challenge as continual questioning and brainstorming to find a better way. Doing this well involves offering ideas, asking questions and listening when others do the same. Challenge is an opportunity to learn, not a chance to dismiss another person’s idea or show off.
Why is This Important?
Imagine a team where everyone feels comfortable offering new and diverse ideas – even when they are radically different. They freely raise concerns and engage in productive discussions – even when it’s uncomfortable. Leaders aren’t just willing to hear concerns and ideas – they actively invite them. Such a team is more likely to foster innovation, effectively solve problems and create value for the company, customers and society.
Principle in Brief: Scientific Method and Challenge
Our approach to challenge utilizes Karl Popper’s view of the scientific method which he called “Science as Falsification”: After developing a theory, strive to disprove or find flaws in it, rather than trying to defend or justify it. As Popper said: “Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory – if we look for confirmations.”
Truth is not what an expert or someone in the hierarchy declares is true. Truth is what stands the tests of evidence and criticism. To discover the truth, we encourage challenge – continual questioning and brainstorming to find a better way. Challenge is an opportunity to learn, not a chance to kill another person’s idea or show off.
A quality challenge requires having the courage and willingness to respectfully question anyone’s (especially leaders’) decisions, actions, proposals or ideas. Challengers need to participate with intellectual honesty in the spirit of constructive improvement and solutions, rather than opposing something because it was “not invented here.” They also need to make clear that they are challenging the idea, not the person.
A challenge process is essential for important decisions. This may occur at a formal meeting where people with different aptitudes and expertise — those with knowledge about the key drivers of success — discuss, brainstorm and improve outcomes. But knowledge sharing and challenge can and should also happen in informal settings, such as one-on-one discussions, casual conversations or small group meetings.
To drive creative destruction internally, nothing and no one can be immune to challenge. Supervisors at every level must help foster an open environment that invites challenge and embraces change. They can solicit challenge by asking open-ended questions such as “What are we missing here?” or “Is there a better way to do this?” or “What is possible if we fully applied our principles?”
If you find that your views are rarely challenged, perhaps you are giving the impression that challenge is not welcome. No matter your role in the company, you are obligated to actively seek knowledge and alternative points of view and to proactively share your knowledge and challenge so others can benefit. Doing so helps make challenge a normal and natural way of working, which is vital to our long-term success.
Examples
We can learn from examples where principles are applied well, mis-applied or not applied at all.
Offering Challenge
Positive Example: During a shift meeting, Wyatt learns that line 7 is experiencing downtime due to conveyor issues. Wyatt recalls a similar problem from his previous job and shares the solution with the lead maintenance technician. While today's situation is somewhat different, the conversation sparks ideas that eventually lead to a fix.
Negative Example: Winona hears about line 7 issues in the shift meeting and thinks: "This sounds like the problem we had on line 2 several years ago." She decides not to say anything because she worries about losing credibility if she's wrong. Several weeks after the problem is fixed, Winona realizes she could have saved the team a lot of work by speaking up.
Accepting Challenge
Positive Example: Riley is surprised but pleased when CeCe tells her about a new technology that could streamline a process Riley is upgrading. Riley takes the time to ask questions and better understand why CeCe is so excited about it. Even though Riley is supposed to finalize her recommendation to leaders in two days, she takes the time to look into CeCe's promising idea and eventually adds it to her proposal.
Negative Example: Rob is frustrated when Terrance tells him about a new technology just two days before Rob is to give his recommendation to leaders. He says to Terrance: "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? Don't you know I have to talk to leaders Thursday?" Rob chooses to ignore Terrance's idea.
We apply contribution motivated to many aspects of work, such as:
Hiring and expanding responsibilities: We strive to hire, retain and develop employees who are contribution motivated and hold them accountable for being contribution motivated.
Coaching: We believe everyone can improve and become more contribution motivated. Providing/receiving coaching is an important way we help one another grow, develop and contribute more.
Recognizing and rewarding contributions: We strive to reward and recognize individuals for achieving results while behaving consistent with our principles - which is the essence of being contribution motivated.
Ideas for Action:
Reflect and discuss with your team: Are we using the contribution motivated principle when we coach one another?
Use the Motivations and Behaviors for Individual and Organizational Success resource to periodically conduct a self-assessment. What do you do consistently well? In what circumstances are you more deficiency motivated?
Resources:
Coaching and Feedback
"Everyone deserves to understand how they’re doing and how they can improve."
Everyone Can Coach
We’re all expected to seek and provide feedback – and even provide coaching when we can help others improve. Good coaches make the people around them better and more productive – and you don’t have to be a supervisor to provide coaching!
Feedback: Providing a reaction or response to a specific action, idea or situation.
Example: I think you should put a summary paragraph at the top of your recommendation.
Coaching at Organization: Purposefully helping others so they can understand and apply our principle-based framework to realize their potential and maximize their contribution to the team and organization's long-term success.
Example: I think you should put a summary paragraph at the top of your recommendation – to provide useful knowledge to the people who will review your proposal. I’d be happy to work with you to figure out the most essential information to include in it.
Charles organization: You can coach your teammates, your supervisor, and others around you to help them improve. And don’t forget that all of us have room to improve—even CEOs.”
A Principle-Based Approach
It is important to understand the principles that inform our approach to coaching. Without this knowledge, misapplications often occur. Here are some common misapplications (Coaching is NOT...) and principles we strive to apply instead.
Examples: Offering Coaching
While supervisors will do a lot of coaching, we are all expected to help one another improve. Here are some examples of what it might look like to coach...
Your Supervisor: Rachel recently explained to her supervisor, Luis, that during team meetings he regularly offers ideas and suggestions before others have a chance. She uses specific examples to describe how his behavior often discourages others from offering challenge. Now, Luis is intentional about seeking ideas and challenge from others.
A Co-worker: Maria and Jake have worked together on the safety committee for about a year. Jake’s coaching has helped Maria sharpen her communication skills and improve her ability to provide direct, valuable feedback. Over time, she realizes that she really likes helping others develop, so she decides to pursue a supervisor role.
Someone More Experienced: Ora is early in her career and Jing has been in sales for over 20 years. Ora notices that Jing is uncomfortable using their team’s new AI tool. She offers to help Jing learn to use it effectively. The two work together for several weeks until Jing is confident using the AI tool on her own.
Someone You Don't Know well: Reina needs to learn more about database management. She uses EverLearn to connect with Filip, who eagerly shares his knowledge and provides assistance as she learns. After a few coaching sessions, Reina gained enough knowledge to continue her learning using online resources. Filip offers to assist her if she has questions along the way.
Demonstrating Courage: Uncomfortable Conversations
People who are contribution motivated want to know if they are not doing well or if they are engaging in behavior that is problematic, yet people in the best position to provide that feedback and coaching often shy away from it. It is essential, especially for supervisors, to demonstrate courage and have uncomfortable or difficult coaching conversations. Here are a few tips:
1) Assume people want the truth and can handle it.
2) Address issues early because they typically get worse over time.
3) Approach the conversation with a “I want you to be successful” attitude and view this as an investment in the person.
Here is an example: Gianna joined the company a few months ago. She has a lot of valuable knowledge and experience that can really benefit the team, but the way she is engaging with co-workers and other teams is problematic. Her supervisor, Evan, schedules a meeting separate from their monthly one-on-one to address this with Gianna. He provides examples and clearly communicates the expectation for employees to live Our Values, especially Humility and Respect. Evan wants Gianna to be successful, so he invests in her development by coaching for behavior, not just skills.
Examples: Receiving Coaching
Responding productively to coaching is critical for your development. Being defensive, protectionist or resistant to change prevents you from growing and benefiting from coaching. When you are contribution motivated, however, you use principles to grow and improve.
Humility
One key aspect of reacting to coaching with humility is focusing on reality. For example, when you receive coaching and the coach needs more information, share it. This can sound like, “I’m flattered you think I can lead the team, but I really love doing hands-on engineering. I don’t think I’d like being the leader.”
Another aspect of being coached with humility is reflecting, thinking about the actions you need to take and doing something with it. This might sound like, “In this upcoming meeting, can you pay attention to whether I’m speaking up enough? I’m trying to be more proactive about offering challenge.”
Self-Actualize
Coaching can help you discover, develop, and utilize your abilities to succeed by helping others improve their lives. This might sound like, "When you gave me feedback about how you saw me contributing, it really got me thinking. I do like project management, and I would like to pursue more opportunities there.”
Changing Paradigms
Coaching can help you identify when you need to change your paradigms – if you’re open to it. This might sound like, “Hmm, I do need to investigate how AI might impact how things are done in our industry” or “You’re right, I haven’t spent enough time staying connected to the most current processes. I’m going to explore more.”
Transformation
Coaching can highlight how you need to transform and guide you as you strive to transform. This can include:
Setting goals and having a coach who holds you accountable for milestones along the way.
Brainstorming ways to gain the skills and knowledge you need to transform.
Pointing out the progress you’re making.
How is Coaching Related to Other Aspects of Employee Development?
In many ways, coaching is what ties together the various aspects of our approach to employee development. Things like training, formal feedback and stretch opportunities are more effective when combined with on-going coaching and feedback.
Cara Chennault-Reid, Vice President – Human Resources, organization: “You have to look at your entire team... and each individual is going to need something different.”
Feedback Summaries
What Are Feedback Summaries?
For years, we referred to employee assessments as “performance reviews” – and you may still hear that term – but we now call them “feedback summaries” because they should be a summary of the coaching and feedback you have received about your performance and contributions throughout a given period (typically the past year).
Your feedback summary involves a summary document and a discussion of your performance. Its purpose is to provide a reality-based view of how you’re doing, help you realize your potential and motivate you to maximize your contribution to the team and organization’s long-term success.
A Principle-Based Approach
It is important to understand the principles that inform our approach to feedback summaries. Without this knowledge, misapplications often occur. Here are some common misapplications (Feedback Summaries are NOT...) and principles we strive to apply instead.
How Are Feedback Summaries Developed?
Your supervisor will develop the written feedback summary and plan what to discuss with you by considering:
Ongoing discussions with you
Your contributions to your RRE, other results and culture
Feedback from others (sometimes called 360-degree feedback)
Your self-evaluation
The written summary typically includes no more than a handful of your most significant contributions, 2-3 strengths and development areas and a forward-focused message about how you can improve contributions in the coming year(s).
While a document is helpful, the feedback summary is about communication. The discussion is a chance to ask questions, connect to reality, explore what you could do differently in the future, and envision what you could do to better leverage your gifts to contribute more.
Tips and Expectations
At organization, everyone is expected to take the feedback summary process seriously. Below are tips and expectations for each essential element of effective feedback summaries.
Gathering 360 Feedback (Supervisors)
Feedback should be gathered and shared throughout the year. For the annual feedback summary, a supervisor solicits feedback from a small number of people who interact with the employee in different ways to gain a more complete view of the employee’s performance.
Here are some things to keep in mind when you gather and analyze 360 feedback:
1) Seek feedback from those who can provide insight to help the employee develop and improve.
1.1) Be thoughtful about the questions you ask. Customize questions to match the reviewer’s interaction and relationship with the employee.
1.2) Ask about the “how” (virtue and talents) and the “what” (results).
2) When gathering feedback from internal partners, peers and direct reports, consider having a conversation (1-on-1 or in a group) rather than only asking for written feedback. There is no specific number of feedback providers required.
3) Key partners could be internal or external customers, suppliers or others the employee works with closely. Rather than sending external partners feedback forms to be completed, have conversations to learn how the employee (and we as an organization) are doing and what needs to improve.
4) Analyze the feedback; look for patterns and themes. Determine and summarize the appropriate message; do not provide a compilation of all feedback.
5) The Motivations and Behaviors tool can help you assess ways in which the employee is and is not contribution motivated.
Providing Feedback for Co-workers
At organization, it is common to be asked by supervisors to provide feedback about the performance and contributions of their employees (your co-workers). Your feedback can help your co-workers discover their strengths and limitations, develop skills and apply them in ways that increase their contributions.
Here are some things to keep in mind as you provide feedback:
1) Imagine you are receiving this feedback. What few things are most important to help this person?
2) Be clear, direct and honest.
3) Provide current examples or context so the feedback is meaningful and helpful.
4) Share how the person applied PBM to achieve results.
Important note: Each of us is expected to provide helpful feedback to our co-workers (including our supervisor) on an ongoing basis, not just “at the end of the year.”
Providing Your Self-Evaluation
You can provide your self-evaluation to your supervisor in writing or through a conversation. Regardless of the approach you and your supervisor agree on, this is a formal opportunity for you to reflect and communicate with your supervisor about your contributions and experiences during the past performance period, as well as your thoughts on how you might contribute more or differently in the future.
Here are some questions to consider as you prepare your self-evaluation:
1) What are my three most significant contributions? How did I apply PBM to achieve these results?
2) What is most fulfilling and least fulfilling in my role?
3) What area of development will help me realize my potential?
4) How would I change my role to better match my aptitudes and interests with the company’s needs?
How Are Feedback Summaries Related to Other Aspects of Employee Development?
Your feedback summary should help you reflect on your performance and how you’ve responded to coaching, understand how you’ve contributed to results and culture which affect your compensation, and spark ideas for how you might adjust your RREs.
Compensation
Our Compensation Objectives and Philosophy
We strive to recognize and reward individuals in a way that motivates them to maximize their contribution to the long-term success of organization, consistent with Our Values.
One of the best ways to do this is to reward employees for their contribution to the company's results and value created, similar to how an entrepreneur is rewarded in the marketplace. We believe this approach helps us attract and retain contribution-motivated individuals and motivates them to be principled entrepreneurs.
A Principle-Based Approach
It is important to understand the principles that inform our approach to compensation. Without this knowledge, misapplications often occur. Here are some common misapplications (We Avoid...) and principles we strive to apply instead.
Examples: Communicating Compensation
Supervisors should communicate with each team member so they can understand how they earned their compensation and how they can increase it by contributing more. Here are some examples.
Rewarding Contributions
“When you started working on Project Everest, we were struggling to partner with vendors and the commercial team. You took a risk to slow down the project and focus on building those relationships—and it paid off. In the last six months, we moved fast and found new ways of doing things because of cross-team collaboration. That wouldn’t have happened without you, which is why you are receiving a bonus of…”
“As you know, we usually do compensation reviews a few months from now, but you’re contributing in a way that deserves more pay and is sustainable, so I didn’t want to wait. Here are some specific reasons...”
Looking to the Future
“Last week, we talked about what you did to earn your base pay increase. Today, I want to discuss what you can do going forward to contribute more—and earn more—while working toward your career goals. In the past, you’ve talked to me about possibly becoming a supervisor, so let’s talk about some possible opportunities…”
“I know you were disappointed, but also not surprised, that you didn’t receive a pay increase. During your feedback summary discussion, we talked about the most important development area for you is to collaborate effectively to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Let’s discuss your ideas for what you can do differently going forward and how I can help or coach you...”
How Does Compensation Relate to the Other Aspects of Employee Development?
In many ways, the compensation discussions you have with your supervisor are an extension of coaching and feedback summary discussions. Compensation discussions can also lead to a better understanding of what is motivating and meaningful to you, which can lead to revisiting your RREs and identifying opportunities for growth.
Effective compensation decisions start with you and your supervisor working together in all aspects of employee development.