Every organization has its own belief system enshrined in its organisational culture. These beliefs are referred to as organizational values when they are turned into generally long-lasting practices. Behaviour becomes an important aspect in performance management in that most organisations have a set of values that support their mission and vision.

Many organisations have organisational values and do fail to break down these values to behavioural targets. Behavioural targets indicate precisely the kind of behaviour an employee needs to exhibit to attain certain value requirements. Employees act as ambassadors of the organisation and how they behave and interact within and outside the organisation is deemed to reflect on the culture of the organisation. It is therefore important to break down the organisational values into behavioural objectives whereby targets are set to meet them.

Point to ponder on: Integrity is the most common organisational value, yet cases of fraud are high in organisations. At what point does a disconnect between organisational values and organisational behaviour occur.

Secondly, organisations should make their “why” known. Why do we exist, Why are we in this specific market, Why these customers? Why do we have this mission, why do we have this objective, why do we have this vision, why do we have and uphold these values? When these whys are clearly explained and understood by all stakeholders, then the attainment of organisational objectives and goals becomes easier.

When all stakeholders know and understand the why of the organisations, performance management becomes effective and efficient. The knowledge and understanding guide all involved in breaking down the goals to their attainable levels. Performance management is a cycle, where one of its aspects is malfunctioning the whole cycle gets affected until the issue is addressed.

“Difficulties arising from performance management are not from poorly developed tools and processes but they arise because at its core performance management is a highly person and threatening process for both managers and employees”

Pulakos E.