It’s More Than Performance Management
There are several common or routine activities that are typically part of an annual cycle:
- Clarify your role, responsibilities and expectations
- On-going coaching and feedback
- Formal, annual feedback summary (performance review)
- Compensation review and discussion
While many companies perform similar activities, Koch’s emphasis and approach to these activities can be quite different. Instead of thinking of these simply as steps in a performance management cycle, we expect supervisors and employees to approach these as important aspects of development so everyone can realize their potential and maximize their contributions.
Here is an overview of how various activities can aid in your development and career growth.
Role, Responsibilities & Expectations
As you navigate your career, expanding your contribution can occur by changing roles. More often, it happens in your current role by you and your supervisor working together to:
- improve performance
- expand your responsibilities
- add responsibilities
- take on stretch assignments
Coaching and Feedback
Everyone benefits from coaching. Effective coaching:
- reinforces what you are doing well and should continue
- clarifies and provides insights about what is not going well
- provides guidance and support to help you improve performance
Feedback Summaries
The feedback summary (written formal feedback) should:
- provide a reality-based view of how you’re doing
- help you realize your potential
- motivate you to maximize your contribution to the team and Koch’s long-term success
Compensation
Compensation decisions and discussions can lead to a better understanding of:
- how you’ve contributed to value creation
- what is motivating and meaningful to you
- how you might develop and opportunities you may want to pursue
Other Activities
It’s difficult to predict exactly what you might need or the opportunities that might arise for you to develop or contribute, so we stay open to various possibilities such as:
- training, workshops and conferences
- receiving guidance from others
- apprenticing
- short-term assignments
When considering a developmental activity, work with your supervisor to ensure it aligns with our principles and benefits you and the company.
Employee and Supervisor Responsibilities
While you ultimately “own” your development and career, you are not alone. You and your supervisor have different but complementary responsibilities.
| Your Responsibility |
Your Supervisor’s Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Take ownership over your development and career by continually discovering, developing and applying your gifts in ways that help you self-actualize. Be a lifelong learner. Partner with your supervisor to find mutually beneficial ways to pursue your interests and goals while maximizing your contributions to the team and Koch. |
Help you develop and maximize your contributions by applying Principle Based Management. This includes building a trusted relationship with you, knowing you well enough to help you self-actualize, providing honest, direct and timely coaching and feedback, helping you understand your strengths and weaknesses, and addressing poor performance. |
What if an Employee Is Struggling?
Unfortunately, there are times when the employment relationship is not mutually beneficial.
- Employees should speak up and take action if they are struggling in their role or ready to explore other opportunities to contribute.
- If an employee is contribution motivated but not performing well, we may have them in the wrong role. In this case, the supervisor can help their team member identify other roles within Koch where they might contribute more.
- If, for any reason, the employment relationship does not work out, we strive to part on good terms.
A Principle-Based Approach
At Koch, employee development and career navigation go hand in hand. Here are a few principles that inform our approach:
- Self-Actualize & Respect
- Contribution Motivated
- Partnerships & Mutual Benefit
- Creative Destruction & Transformation
We strive to respect each employee as an individual with a unique collection of experiences, aptitudes and interests. Realizing one’s potential is a deeply personal and ongoing journey of discovering aptitudes, developing skills and using them in productive ways. To help employees do this, it is important to honestly assess and communicate what a person does and doesn’t do well (even when it’s difficult).
We aim to hire, develop, and retain employees who define success by making a positive difference for others, are lifelong learners, seek feedback, demonstrate courage in learning their talents and what they are passionate about and seek responsibilities that align with how they can contribute the most.
Employees and their supervisors are expected to work together to find or create situations where each employee can continually develop while contributing more to the company — whether within their current role or in a different one. When an employment situation isn’t mutually beneficial, we strive to help employees figure out what’s next and, if that’s not at Koch, to part on good terms.
In a rapidly changing world, continual learning and development are critical. The pace of change, however, makes it impossible to know exactly what skills might be needed or what opportunities might emerge just a few years from now. We value an attitude of discovery and openness when considering what work might make sense for an employee (now and in the future) instead of being overly attached to a pre-defined career path or structured programs.
Because many organizations emphasize hierarchy, people often chase promotions or prestigious roles. Instead of fixating on some predetermined career path, we strive to create an environment where employees seek work where they can maximize their contribution. This leads to greater opportunities and rewards for the employee.
Shortcomings of Traditional Career Development Approaches
At Koch, we take a different approach to employee and career development. Many common or traditional approaches such as company-defined career paths and highly structured development programs are inconsistent with our principles and ineffective over the long run because they:
- Tend to take a one-size-fits-all, bureaucratic approach that limits development as a discovery process.
- Often put more weight on credentials and technical skills than a person’s effect on culture and other people.
- Primarily use promotion/hierarchy to increase pay, decision rights and influence – such that climbing a career ladder is the only path to success.
- Lack flexibility needed to adapt to the rapid pace of change.
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.