Are you on a performance improvement plan?

If not, maybe you should be!

Traditionally, the PIP is a formal acknowledgement that an employee’s performance is not meeting expectations (If you are using job scorecards, it won’t take a PIP to know this).

But I’m thinking of the PIP more broadly after reading Beyond High Performance by Jason Jaggard of Novus Global.

At Novus, an executive coaching company, everyone is assigned a coach and put on a performance improvement plan from the very beginning of their work at the company.

It helps them maintain a growth mindset by admitting that everyone needs to continuously improve and always has something to learn from everyone else. It’s what helps people move beyond high performance to something they call ‘Meta Performance.’

Being always on a performance improvement plan is especially important to the high performer, because it’s that high performance that can make someone resistant to feedback and no longer coachable. The high performer asks, “how can I be the best?”

The meta performer isn’t interested in comparison to other people, so they ask a completely different question:

“What am I capable of?”

And because we’re always capable of more, we need a performance improvement plan to constantly achieve more. So, if you’re not on a PIP, maybe it’s time to start.