Use the KRA Triangle to help your employees contribute more to the success of your business

The Net Income your business generates is directly proportional to the positive control you and your employees exert across your business.  Control over the business represents the ability to start what needs to be started to improve business results and stop compromising business profits and cash flow.

For example, good operating control is evidenced by the ability to start, change, and stop any step in the production process to create a lower-cost product and better service experience for your customer.

Consider how your best technicians, operators, or production workers are those with the best control of their tools.  Those with the best control over their tools put out the best production, which results in your business making more money.

Control = Income

Those sales and operations people with the best control over their tools should be the best-paid employees in your business.  This business truism can be reflected in the following formula: Control = Income.

We also know that working with employees and co-workers who have no initiative can be exhausting.  They constantly require orders from their supervisor before they get anything done.

Orders to get to work become necessary when COOPERATION fails.  Cooperation fails because of a lack of understanding between management and an employee(s).  This is most often caused by not understanding what is going on or not getting the why.  If you aren’t briefing your people on how your business is performing, they won’t understand what you are trying to do.

Need for orders = understanding is missing

A lack of knowledge creates a lack of understanding of how a person is expected to do their job or work within a team towards achieving company goals.  We equate this business challenge to the following formula:  Need for orders = understanding is missing

Most people want to do good work and strive to do their best until they are hammered about something they don’t understand why it needs to be done.  Most workplace complaints are not based on misconduct but on a misunderstanding of what’s expected.

When management has to issue repeat orders to get the required work accomplished, personal initiative is nonexistent.  When employee follow-through happens by order, then understanding is missing.  The missing understanding and initiative result from poor communications or lack of knowledge, responsibility, and authority.

To help your employees better understand what’s expected, the RAD Triangle is used where the R stands for Reality, A stands for Affinity, and D for Dialogue.  This communication model helps people become more effective communicators.  Click here to learn how to improve profits through better communication.  {L-9.1 RAD Triangle}

You likely have a training and development problem when communication isn’t hindering results

The first thing to appreciate about training and development is there are the following different barriers to study and learning that must be overcome:

1. Knowing there is something to learn. If someone is a “know it all,” you have a performance problem since they are not likely to from training.  No matter how much they still have to learn.
2. A misunderstood word or symbol. The number one reason people become confused or give up on studying something is that they have gone past a vital word or symbol that is not understood, and now they are lost.  Don’t assume people already know what you consider are basic terms, symbols, or abbreviations.
3. A learner takes what is being taught and alters it into some new false concept. Any false data will prevent a learner from thinking through what they are taught.  A version of false data is a fixed idea.  e., some idea or information they accept without experiencing or inspecting it themselves.  The problem this creates for the learner is their tendency to lock into the fixed idea when trying to tell them anything contrary to it, not the new accurate information.
4. Shallow learners. Employees that read, memorize, and recite back the information being studied as if they are in skill but to apply it are shallow learners.  On the surface, it will appear like they are getting it.  The problem is that a shallow learner will never adopt the trained actions.  A shallow learner will appear to know but can never do.  This is often seen in young people who have got by impressing others with the buzz words.  The key to overcoming this problem is training them on how the learning must be applied.

Training increases knowledge.  When one truly understands the subject they are being trained on, sees how it will help them perform their job, they are more likely to put the newly gained knowledge directly into action.  The benefit of knowledge is the fact that knowledge develops confidence.

When one knows something, they have certainty regarding it.  Without certainty in the skills people need to perform their job, employee productivity will lack.  These productivity problems manifest as follows:

1. Lower output quantities
2. Poor quality
3. Slower production speeds
4. Higher costs from low-efficiency rates

Below are various training tools and methods that can be used to make your training efforts more effective:

• • Keyword lists with simple, non-technical definitions
  • Audio files
  • Video files
  • Demonstrations or practice runs
  • Procedure checklists (learn by doing)
  • Simple policies
  • Graphics, diagrams, flow charts, pictures, etc.

A good test of the effectiveness of any training experience is whether the production of those trained improves?

What to do when it’s not a knowledge problem hindering results

Whenever management has to push harder and harder to get things done through orders, it’s either a knowledge, responsibility, authority, or communication breakdown. The KRA Triangle is an easy-to-use tool to help identify what is causing a lack of initiative. If it’s a communication problem, click here to learn how to use the RAD Triangle. {L-9.1  RAD Triangle}

When communications are effective, but people struggle to achieve the desired results, the KRA triangle identifies whether you have training and development or a contributions management problem.

 

Understanding the relationship and interaction of the KRA Triangle is another management tool you can use to help your employees become more effective in their job.  This is particularly true as it relates to your assessment of employee productivity as well as your own as follows:

Knowledge – they need more information they can apply to their areas of responsibility.

Responsibility – they need more practice or apprenticing on their assigned job responsibilities.

Authority – they need a better understanding of the expectations tied to their delegated authority.

The KRA Triangle starts with knowledge.  Either the person lacking initiative has the knowledge to do what is being asked of them, or they don’t.  For most people who struggle with initiative, their desire for additional responsibility and authority will increase in that activity or subject as their knowledge increases.

If you can get an employee who has the knowledge to accept greater responsibility towards their job, you will see them start to ask for more training (knowledge) or do self-study outside of work to build their knowledge base.

The other benefit of employees seeking greater responsibility is how they focus more on their job with better control of their contributions.  This often leads to them reading manuals for other equipment (knowledge).  Then they are likely to ask you how they can do more to help the team (responsibility.)  As employee’s confidence increases, they better control the tools they use to contribute results leading to superior results

Another way to look at this triangle involves training.  As you train, knowledge is developed.  As knowledge develops, the person being trained develops more control over their quality of output.  As the quality of output improves, you will realize lower costs and higher profits.

Once you identify the need to develop deeper knowledge, more responsibility, or more practice to develop greater control, you can provide better personal training and development.  The result will be a higher-performing employee that produces consistent and predictable results.

One of the keys to recognizing whether more training is needed is when you see the people you train consistently control their performance relative to what they have been trained to do.  When they control their actions in a trained area, they are more likely to own their responsibility involving that specific task or responsibility.

When you see an employee struggle with control, the best training is to arrange for more practice time with equipment or new tools to increase their control.  You will know they are in higher control over the tools required for their job when they demonstrate how best to start, change, and stop using each tool.

Most accountability for results breakdowns involves an owner not delegating authority for responsibilities that have specific results assigned to them

If an owner holds an individual accountable for the results of a responsibility, they have to delegate the authority associated with that responsibility.  If they aren’t expecting an employee with knowledge and responsibility to be accountable for the results, then the quality of action completion extends that employee’s accountabilities.  Only when authority has been delegated with a responsibility can a manager hold an employee accountable for results.

The primary reason owners don’t delegate the required authority to an employee’s responsibility is their fear of that employee failing.  It is you, the owner, not your employee that has everything at risk.  Mistakes cost money, and when money is tight, it’s hard to let go of authority and responsibility for decisions and actions that can put you out of business, so don’t.

Use the KRA triangle to ensure those being given authority know to perform their responsibilities.  If they do know and you want them to own the results of their responsibilities, you have to delegate the authority they need to accomplish the result if you want them to be accountable for their actions.

Just as with the RAD Triangle, every point on the KRA triangle is dependent on the other two.  One cannot lower or raise one of the points without lowering or raising the other two.

For example, without affinity, there is no reality or communication.  Without reality, there is no affinity or communication.  Without communication, there is no shared affinity or reality.  These are not sweeping statements, but simple statements of truth.

While effective communication solves most problems, it doesn’t solve all problems, particularly where knowledge, responsibility, and authority are missing.  When the KRA Triangle is out of balance, more communication isn’t the answer.  Training and development help your employees know how to perform their assigned responsibilities with delegated authority.

The last thought on the power of the KRA Triangle is the practice of positive reinforcement when you catch someone doing something right, particularly when they have been recently trained and are working to develop self-mastery over a new skill.  Consider the power and cost in the following statement:

Validating one’s excellence will increase one’s excellence

Validating one’s shortcomings will bring in more difficulties!

How much are your employees returning to you for the wages they are paid?

If you know you aren’t getting the best from your employees, click here to receive a free review of how much your investment in wages paid to your employees is returning from a certified BusinessCPR™ Business Scientist.