realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

The Truth About Performance Management

by

What is performance management about really?

  • Outputs?
  • Outcomes?
  • Impacts?
  • Measurement?

In truth performance management is a communication process that helps individuals learn and grow in their ability to connect with, and contribute to, the organisation’s priorities. This connection between the individual, their values, beliefs, skills and aspirations and the purpose or mission of the business is the real driver for performance improvement.

Just to repeat – performance management is a communication process that helps individuals learn and grow in their ability to connect with, and contribute to, the organisation’s priorities.

Too often I see organisations spending time and money developing processes for providing data on performance without investing in the communication processes (121s, feedback, coaching, delegation, priority management etc.) that turn the data into effective performance management and improvement.

After the Floods – Coping in Times of Crisis – and Thriving Once They Have Passed

by

I live and work in Yorkshire, which has been hit pretty hard by summer flooding. Tens of thousands of homes ruined and businesses disrupted across the county. It is taking an enormous physical effort to get things back on track – and hundreds of people are putting in super-human efforts to try to get things on the mend.

One of the upsides of this disaster is way it renews faith in human nature. The news is full of communities pulling together, helping each other and bouncing back; journalists proclaiming that ‘the people in this community are special’.

Unfortunately we don’t have many super-humans in Yorkshire and the strain is taking its toll. That is why I was pleased to see a great post today from Carmine Coyote on a one minute “stress busting” technique. If you are reaching breaking point, or even just beginning to feel the pressure then why not try it. It is a simple, 6 step – 60 second routine that if repeated several times a day will help you to recognise and manage your stress.

While it might help to manage the symptoms – and raise your awareness of the need to make changes in the way you work – Carmine’s technique alone will not provide a long term remedy to your stress at work.

That will only come when you start to manage differently – to:

  • build better relationships of trust and respect with fellow workers
  • give, receive and act on feedback on a daily basis,
  • coach every member of your team every week
  • delegate more and more effectively – so expanding your teams capacity to do more with less resources
  • focus on what really makes a difference – and stop doing the marginal stuff.

This requires

  1. a little bit of skill (it is easily learned)
  2. an iron will (otherwise you get sucked into ‘fire-fighting’ again!)
  3. a real determination to deliver on your responsibility to build a great team.
  4. a real belief that people are special and have tremendous potential.

Your job as a manager is to provide them with a context in which they do great work.

Why Managers Don’t Do Delegation

by

stressedmanager.jpg

One of the most common challenges facing managers is that they simply have more work to do than is humanly possible. Yet in my experience they seldom, if ever, delegate. And often when they do delegate they delegate poorly.

The main justifications that managers offer for not delegating are:

  1. it will be quicker to do it myself
  2. it won’t be done to the standard that I would expect

These are nearly always managers who are locked into a stressful cycle of over-work and crisis management. In truth, although they complain about the brutal workloads and the crushing anxieties that they face, they are addicted to the adrenaline of crisis management. They will use any excuse not to change. Their own self-image is too heavily invested in their ability to keep the ship afloat.

They do not believe that they can make the change to become an effective manager and will use any excuse not to avoid having to try.

Progressive Managers are much more than champion delegators to qualified executors.

They are committed mentors, coaches and supporters for training and development initiatives that allow employees to develop their potential and build their careers. They recognise that the first time they delegate something it may take longer and may not be done as well as they would like. This is a risk that they are willing to take (and manage) because they know that this is how they build the capacity of their team. This will provide the opportunity to provide feedback and training to help their team member grow.

The Manager’s Dip

by

Seth Godin‘s new book is called The Dip. The Dip is the hard spot – it is the place that most people give up. Having started off with high hopes the dip is when ‘reality strikes’ results are not what were hoped for and you are faced with two choices; ‘give up’ or ‘push on’.

Every new management job starts out being exciting and fun.  Then it gets harder and less fun and then it hits The Dip.  It is incredibly hard and not much fun at all.  A scarily high number of managers are bang in The Dip. And they are trapped. Too scared to quit. And no belief in their ability to change.

Even the best managers fall into The Dip.  But they recognise it quickly and make some decisions (take some actions) that get them out of it quickly.  Sometimes they move on – and fall into The Dip in a different organisation.  Other times they stay – and they change.  They commit to beat The Dip because it’s worth it.

How do they beat The Dip?

  1. By building trusting and respectful relationships with other people who can help them to beat The Dip – managers, peers, reports, customers and other stakeholders.
  2. By building up the reward once The Dip has been beaten. (‘Do you know what it will mean if we can just get through this?’)
  3. By coaching, giving  feedback, delegating and developing the potential of every one who can help to get through The Dip.

Good managers know:

  • when they can beat The Dip and it is worth beating
  • when the Dip will beat them or it is just not worth the effort.

Some managers know neither of these things.  They just hang in there, working long hours, making little progress like a hamster trapped in wheel and The Dip just gets bigger and deeper.