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What Gets Measured Gets Done – recognition and reward

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‘What Gets Measured Gets Done’ gets my vote for the single, most dangerous, least accurate, management ‘truism’ of them all!

Suppose we changed the expression to ‘What Gets Recognised Gets Done’.   What difference would that make to the way we do our business?

First of all managers and leaders would have to think about what they want to recognise in their organisation.  This is a big question.  It speaks to values, performance and ethos.  Recognition encourages consideration of many things that cannot be easily ‘measured’.

If Enron had ‘recognised’ more than short term financial performance would things have  turned out differently?  What are Goldman Sachs ‘recognising’ as they pay out £8.4 billion in performance related bonuses to their staff (UK employees of the bank average £320 000 in Performance Related Pay)?  Is financial performance the only thing that matters for Goldman Sachs or do they provide equally strong ‘recognition’ for other things that might matter like ‘ethics’ or ‘long term customer relationships’?

Secondly managers and leaders would have to consider how are they going to recognise it?  What does excellence look like, sound like, feel like?  You can’t just rely on the numbers.  You might have to go and observe people doing the work:

  • see how they speak to customers
  • watch how they contribute to meetings
  • understand how they prepare a paper for the board.

Feedback becomes a primary tool for recognising what works and what doesn’t.  It also becomes a primary tool for reward as people start to get recognition and validation for the good stuff that they do.

So the next time someone says ‘What gets measured gets done’  perhaps you should ask them if they really believe what they say.

The Power of Praise

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Research evidence shows that employees consider personal, immediate recognition by their managers to be one of the most powerful workplace motivators.

However, close to 60% percent of employees report that their manager rarely, if ever, offers praise.

The techniques that have the greatest motivational impact (affirming feedback and praise) are practiced less than more expensive but less effective techniques such as performance bonus schemes.

Charles M. Schwab (1862-1939), founder of the Bethlehem Steel Company, said, “I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

You can read more here.

‘Our People Are Our Greatest Asset’ – The Big Lie!

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Passion

It is rare to work in an organisation these days that does not claim that ‘Our people are our greatest asset’.

This is the BIG lie! If it were true then we could simply recruit our way to success.

The truth is that some people are assets while others are liabilities and many managers find it hard to tell the difference. And managers who can effectively work with both assets and liabilities are rare. Instead we just settle for a complacent acceptance of the status quo.

So if people are not our greatest asset – then what is?

Well how about one (or more) from the following list:

  • Ideas
  • Passion
  • Energy
  • Commitment
  • Skills
  • Time.

How would we manage people to harness every idea, every ounce of passion, energy and commitment, and every skill; to make sure that none is wasted?

Focusing on what we expect people to contribute to our organisation holds the key to significantly improving our effectiveness as a manager.

Moving Office!

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unity.jpg

Been a quiet week on the blogging front – mainly because I have been moving to a new office.

Just waiting for the e-mails to start flowing again as my new ‘IP address propogates across the internet’!  Amazing how much you can get done with fewer e-mail distractions.

So the Progressive Managers Network and Realise Development now have new homes in the real world at Unit 35, Unity Business Centre, 26 Roundhay Rd, Leeds, LS7 1AB.

The office is small (but perfectly formed) and well equipped with whiteboards, flip charts, an inspirational library,  and good coffee.

So if you want to drop by for a conversation about how to improve management and leadership, or any other aspect of organisational development and performance improvement you would be very welcome.

Mike Chitty

0113 2167782

What Could a Management Makeover Do for You?

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Here is a ‘Management Makeover’ recipe to improve organisational culture and performance – fast.

  • Significantly increase the quality, quantity and frequency of communication throughout the organisation. Do this through effective 121s, team meetings, project meetings and ‘skip level’ meetings. Train people to make these meetings REALLY work. Make sure that the communication regime works both ways – that managers listen as well as they talk.
  • Significantly increase the quality, quantity and frequency of feedback in the organisation. Train everyone how to give, receive and act on feedback. Train managers how to escalate feedback if it is not acted on effectively. Once everyone knows how their performance is perceived, what is working well and what needs further development, they will start to develop – fast. Make feedback a part of every day work – not a quarterly event!
  • Train every manager to coach every member of their team, every week, to improve their performance. Use coaching to establish learning firmly in the workplace and focus it on providing a better service. A weekly coaching routine provides a great tempo to learning and performance improvement. Train managers to use coaching for performance improvement – helping good people to become great. However also equip them to coach under-performers – if necessary as part of a formal performance process.
  • Train managers to delegate prodigiously. Train them to use delegation as a tool to provide opportunities for those who are hungry to learn and develop their contribution to the organisation. Use delegation, supported by coaching, feedback and great communication to significantly increase the capacity of your organisation.

Communication, Feedback, Coaching and Delegation. Managers who do these four things consistently well stand head and shoulders above their peers. Their teams perform better and keep improving.

All four are relatively easy to learn – requiring more commitment, courage and discipline than skill. For most people a three hour training session on each gives them the basics. They then just need to practice and learn perhaps with some additional advice and support along the way. The challenge in implementing this ‘Management Make’ over is in developing a new set of management habits. And this takes, time, courage and discipline.

But don’t rush it. If this recipe is going to work managers need time to develop and put into practice what they have learned.

Start with better communication through 121s. As soon as 121s have bedded down, after 4-6 weeks introduce training on feedback. Let this have a month to bed in before developing coaching, and a further month before training in delegation.

Within 6 months you will have transformed the culture and performance of your organisation. And this Management Makeover will be much more than skin deep.