New tool: the “Performance Generator”

Managing people in a professional context is challenging yet rewarding. In order to help line managers increase the performance of their team and to improve their own people management skills, the Centre for Excellence in People Performance at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School has developed the “Performance Generator: A toolkit for people managers” (authors: Koen Dewettinck, Kirby Van Laere, Mieke Van De Woestyne and Dirk Buyens). Although the Performance Generator is very practical in nature, all the frameworks and tips put forward are based on solid academic insight and rigorous empirical investigation.

How do you energise your employees? And how do you ensure that that energy is devoted to the right purpose? These are two key challenges in performance management. To help line managers address these challenges effectively, the tool focuses on five crucial performance management skills: creating empowering jobs, binding people, rewarding talent, setting goals effectively and stimulating high-impact feedback. Each of these performance management skills is being looked at from three perspectives: ‘What is this skill about?’, ‘Why is it important to pay attention to this skill?’ and ‘How can you implement this in your team?’.

The Performance Generator is an ‘action’ book. Line managers can browse through the chapters according to their needs at a specific moment in time. In all chapters there are practical exercises, where participants are asked to reflect upon a certain situation, to answer some questions or to work out an action plan. All exercises presented will also be available electronically.