Here’s a great list: https://www.loc.gov/extranet/cld/workforce-performance/PerformanceDrivers.pdf.
It’s interesting that of the 106 things that managers do when they are trying to improve performance, only 9 of them make a big difference with 60 of them having almost no effect and 7 of them actually making things WORSE!
Some of the key points I get from this are:
1 – unfairness is incredibly damaging – all feedback MUST be fair
6 – Know what I’m doing and how I’m doing, for example by Management By Walking About, so you know how hard it is and understand if I fail, and can give me positive feedback when I’ve earned it.
3 – Give me mainly positive feedback (see also the Management Potato)
8 – Only give me feedback if it helps me to do my job better
7 – ‘Opportunity to work on the things you do best’: Just let me do what I do, without interference.
2 – Take a risk and trust me to do my job
17 and 21 – Let’s have a project plan for how we’ll do something big
106 – Don’t keep changing my project
100 – Use of rank‐ordering: I always felt it was unfair to be on a league table – maybe your fine but the people above you are even better? Maybe you’re not that good and the people below you are just even worse? It’s very annoying to come second just because someone else is a genius. Feedback should be based on individual effort and performance, not relative to others.
102 – Emphasis on personality weaknesses doesn’t help – we all have weaknesses, and they are difficult to do anything about. Even if they CAN be improved, focussing on them is just depressing and worrying.
105 – The same with performance weaknesses. Don’t confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them.
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Interesting post and useful for leaders and managers to understand what performance drivers could make the most difference. It looks like the research for the list is now 20 years old so I was wondering if the results would be the same today and/or there were changes from the effect Coronavirus from a business and personal perspective.