In hockey there’s a statistic called “plus-minus.” It calculates the goal difference for a player’s team when that player is on the ice. It’s a way to measure a player’s contribution to the team.
We need something like that at work. Most people who work in companies do most of their work in teams. We should have a way to judge who’s making a contribution to those teams.
It’s a way to identify the people we want to hang on to. That’s important today when we’re seeing more and more articles like the one from Portfolio, headlined: “Staring Down Defection.” Here’s the teaser quote:
“Now that the job market is thawing, some workers might be looking to move on to greener pastures.”
True high potential employees don’t just produce great work. They make everyone around them better. They help their team win.
If I were evaluating a worker’s contribution to the team, I’d start by finding out who the other members want to work with. Mark Harbeke at Winning Workplaces takes the position that “team building matters more than skills.”
I’m guessing that the people other people want to work with will exhibit some very specific behaviors. Here are some.
They will pitch in and carry their share of the load. But they won’t stop there. They’ll also be the ones who help others cross the finish line.
They’ll keep their commitments as a matter of honor and habit. Other team members will be able to depend on them.
They won’t play the blame game. They’ll look for solutions, not scapegoats.
They’ll be pleasant people. No one wants to work with a grouch, even a productive one.
If we’re identifying the high potentials we want to keep, we need to evaluate their plus-minus. We need to evaluate how much they really help the team win.
I agree, it makes me think about how to quantify pleasant. Is it team consensus? Do we use a likert scale?
These attributes would definitely make for a great colleague, although the first two depend on a combination of skills and team building. Without the skills, you just have a pleasant person. Others may want to work with them to bask in their friendly aura but that may not get the job done.
Hi Kreston. I think trying to “quantify pleasant” leads us into thickets of complexity. Group judgment should be fine. I don’t think we’re trying to measure it, just detect it.