Rennie’s approach does not challenge the idea of hard-nosed performance goals. “The best business leaders have an edge,” he says. “The ability to be very clear about where they need to go, and they are very honest and authentic in interactions. This is the hard-nosed performance part of it.”
The difference in Rennie’s view is the approach to achieving the goal.
“You can do this in aggressive, ruthless way or an honest, authentic way, but you have to do it. People deserve to know early on, and leaders have to have the courage to deal with that.”
Rennie says there is no need to be aggressive, and the best leaders are not. “I’ve seen leaders who are not injurious. You don’t just tell people what to do: you bring them along, engage them, and get them to participate.”
But the conversations must be had. “The danger is not talking to people early enough, so there is no chance for them to come back [to better performance]. People can feel hurt and may have to leave the company. But good leaders and good systems of leadership give good feedback early on about what is working and what is not.”
Instituting formal processes of feedback – at least six-monthly – is a way getting leaders into the habit of having conversations with their reports.
Doing so will lead to informal feedback. “At McKinsey, we are very high-performance organisation. We all comment on each other all the time. People grow fast with timely informal feedback. That is a stage that very few are at. You get leaders, if you have that sort of culture.”
Leaders cannot escape having these difficult conversations by setting the bar low, says Rennie.
The opposite is true. “Ask people to think of a peak experience in their career, and what comes to mind is this thing they did that was an almost impossible goal, and that was meaningful. For some reason it mattered. Leaders need to set goals that are almost impossible for the people they lead. And they need to understand what is meaningful to them.”
Meaning can be anything from earning a good living, to learning, to having a great experience with colleagues. Rennie advocates understanding Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. “As a leader, you have to tap into those levels of meaning.”
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