Every manager loves the folks who come to work champing at the bit, raring to go and bust their butt all day long. They love to talk about the high level of engagement their team has and brag about their productivity and innovative ideas.
If you want a group like this then make no mistake, It’s your responsibility to engender that attitude, i.e., engage them.
It’s not going to happen by accident and you can’t order your people be engaged.
Engagement happens because you, and hopefully your company are engaging.
This isn’t doubletalk or smoke, think about it. Think about what engages you.
The guideline is the same thread that has run through every major philosophy and religion for thousands of years—treat your people s you want to be treated—whether your boss treats you that way or not.
Authenticity is the current buzz word, but it translates simply to be honest, open and do what you say; never fudge, let alone lie, intentionally or otherwise.
There are absolutely no circumstances that warrant or excuse the messenger being killed. None. Because if you do, there’s no going back—ever.
If your company doesn’t have an engaging culture then you must be an umbrella for your people, because you can create one below you, even if you can’t change it above.
While managers may not be able to control overall corporate culture there are many things they can do within their own group’s culture to foster engagement.
The number one approach is to show your appreciation of your people. Study after study confirms employees’ desire to feel valued; to make a difference and be credited for it. But how, with budgets cut below bone level?
Here are four simple actions that you can implement at no financial cost and that don’t require approval from anyone.
Ask everyone for input, ideas, suggestions and opinions—not just your so-called stars.
Listen and really hear what is said, discuss it, think about it.
Use what you get as often as possible, whether in whole or in part, or as the springboard that leads to something totally different.
Credit the source(s), both up and down, publicly and privately, thank them, compliment them, congratulate them.
If you’re sincere, you can’t lay it on too thick; if you’re faking it, they’ll know.
And if you’re stupid enough to steal the credit for yourself in the mistaken name of job security you’ll have the fun of explaining to your boss the plummeting productivity and soaring turnover that accompanies the thefts.
Think ALUC; pin a note on your wall that says ALUC.
These days it’s called ‘engagement’ and smart managers are looking for ways to increase it. They want to incorporate practices and attitudes in their group’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that will improve productivity and increase engagement.
Two such items are
basic business knowledge and
a large dose of pragmatism.
Business 101
Naiveté regarding business frequently leads to non-reality based ideas and attitudes. If people have a fuzzy or rose-colored view of what has to happen for the company to be successful, there’s no way they can contribute effectively.
Worse, this lack of knowledge can make them resistant to the procedural changes necessary to the company’s successful evolution as it grows, shrinks, or changes.
It’s not necessary, or even possible, to provide the in-depth business knowledge that comes from an MBA or 30 years as a successful CEO, but wise managers can provide basic understanding of the actual forces at work within the company, industry and even the economy in general at times such as this.
You want your people to understand
the Business Mission Statement;
customer desire as the driving force behind product development (why build it if they won’t buy it?);
financial controls, what they are and why you need them;
why/how to avoid blue sky approaches and impossible wish lists;
the reasons for requiring excellent documentation;
the importance of quality and manufacturability; and
other business-specific subjects.
Teaching these should be active, not passive; merely posting the information on your intranet won’t get it done. Use brown bag lunches or company-wide webinars, followed by local discussions, to create a positive learning process.
Finally, be sure you encourage people to use what they’ve learned.
Pragmatism
Pragmatism should permeate your MAP, the groups and the company culture. It should be like stain as opposed to paint—not just covering the surface, but also sinking in.
By practicing pragmatism as well as preaching it, you encourage a reality-based culture where
setbacks are easier to deal with because they are recognized and acted on quickly;
employees speak up because they are assured that the messenger will not be shot;
rose-colored glasses are obvious;
growth and change of the culture without corrupting it is encouraged; and
“not-invented-here” syndrome is veer batten.
Pragmatism works best as a part of a MAP that everybody is encouraged to embrace.
It helps to create a company in which not only can everybody see what the Emperor is wearing, but also have no compunction about discussing it.
Are you looking for a good way to make your company or group more innovative? To move it from where it is to where you want it to be?
A good place to start is by encouraging your people to question the fundamentals (QF) of the company.
QF is one of the best ways to overcome the “…but we’ve always done it that way” school of thought and foes a long way to overturning “not invented here” syndrome; both are major stumbling blocks to innovation, productivity, retention and a host of other positives moves.
QF also goes a long way to attracting Millennials and other creative types, because there are no sacred cows—everything is open to improvement and change.
However, making an announcement isn’t going to do it.
Start by identifying your company’s fundamentals, not so much the official ones (although they can also be problematic) as the unwritten/unspoken ones your employees deal with every day.
It’s easy to find them, just ask—but ask knowing that you may not like the answers. (One client found that, contrary to its stated policy, their people believed that quality wasn’t as important as shoving the product out the door.)
Depending on your current culture the identification process can be anything from a public brainstorming session with a whiteboard to some kind of “suggestion box” that’s truly anonymous.
You may be very surprised at some of the perceptions that turn up.
Once you start on a list of fundamentals you want to open them up to debate—the more passionate the better—using a combination of technology (forum, wiki, etc.) and in person discussions. The object being to decide whether to modify/jettison/keep each one, as well as what to add.
Unless your MAP dictates a company that functions in Dilbertland, this is an ongoing, proactive management task to encourage employees to question, rethink, revamp or even dump the company’s fundamentals.
Even when QF is deeply embedded in your culture you can’t assume your people will keep doing it and new people coming from other cultures will need assurance that QF is indeed part of your company’s DNA.
Today’s quotes are a sampling of comments I found in Business Week’s profiles of CEOs Of Tomorrow. Take a moment and click through the whole series, I think you’ll find it interesting.
“Numbers tell only part of the story. People get things done.” –John S. Watson, Vice-Chairman, Chevron
“It’s important to have fun as a team. When it is time to hop in the pine box, you’ll wish you had high-fived more people and taken more risks.” –Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, AOL
“Revenue is important, but customer satisfaction is even more crucial. I’ve always believed that it’s not just what you do but how you do it that’s important.” –Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chief Operating Officer, Tata Consultancy Services
“We have a company we believe absolutely has to be the fastest-growing-and you have to take some chances to grow faster than everyone else.” –John C. Compton, Americas Foods division, PepsiCo CEO
“Act with urgency; keep things simple; it’s all about the execution.” –Jeff Henderson, Chief Financial Officer, Cardinal Health
Today is about the boss, but the reasoning behind the ‘leadership’ advice can be used by anyone.
First is advice from Toddi Gutner in WSJ Online for what to do as an incoming CEO. The advice is well worth reading considering 1,484 CEOs turned over in 2008.
Next a look at CEOs from a different culture and with a different attitude. It’s not that the Japanese do everything right, but American CEOs could certainly use a dose of their humility.
“The greatest challenges were identified as: motivating staff in uncertain times; being able to clearly communicate the rationale for changes; working within a leadership team format rather than alone; and developing staff for redeployment rather than layoffs.”
Finally, two great interviews, one with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and the other with Kevin Sharer, chief executive of Amgen. Amazing what you can learn from real pros who produce real value.
Enjoy and I hope that you’ll take a moment to share what you learn from these sources.
The foremost thought to hold in you mind when creating a positive and powerful review culture is that it’s similar to Chinese cooking—most of the time is spent in preparation, whereas the food cooks quickly.
(Note: terminology can be confusing; ‘goal’ and ‘objective’ are interchangeable as are ‘appraisal’ and ‘review’.)
Here are the underlying steps that you need to learn, practice and absorb into your MAP.
Annual reviews alone don’t work even when that’s all your company requires.
To succeed people need semiformal feedback each quarter along with constant, informal daily input and coaching focused on helping them achieve the goals set forth in the previous annual review. (More on goals later.)
Reviews are the same as every other management task—they require good planning, open communications and accountability on both sides.
The first step to painless reviews is to commit to doing
one HR-blessed annual review, with full paperwork, during the last two weeks of December;
four quarterly reviews within the first week of each quarter; and
constant, informal, ‘how am I doing’ feedback all year long.
Remember that
any time you set a goal it needs a delivery date to be real; and
never make commitments you either can’t or aren’t planning to fulfill.
First tell your people what to expect, then post your commitment on the department intranet and tell every person you hire how it works—and follow-through.
When you commit publicly you make yourself accountable.
Good reviews aren’t about filling out a lot of paperwork, whether by hand or computer. Yes, you need to follow company guidelines and use company approved forms, but as stated at the beginning, those are the mechanics.
The secret of a positive review culture is defining exactly what you want a person to accomplish during the year, discussing the goals and refining them together, in other words, the heart is the interaction between you and each person on your team, because one size does not fit all.
The result is that your people not only know exactly what their goals are, but they own them.
Setting Goals
The basic rule is to never set more than three to five major goals in a year and the exact number depends on their size and complexity.
Annual review goals should be high level, complex, and take 12 months to accomplish. They can include hard skills, such as technical certification, and soft skills, such as improving presentation skills.
All goals should be quantified. “Be more willing to share” is a self defeating goal because it offers no way for the person or you to measure improvement; it becomes totally subjective, a matter of opinion and a source of contention at next year’s review. Instead the goal might be “Increase time spent sharing knowledge 10%” and agree on what the baseline is currently.
Work together during the discussions to break down large/complex annual goals into smaller, more manageable goals that can be achieved each quarter and still more bit-sized pieces for each month, week and even day.
The cool thing is that achieving a constant stream of smaller goals keeps people motivated and prevents the large goals from overwhelming them.
And before you start complaining about the time involved, perhaps you should go back and read your job description or, better yet, go back a little further and think about all the lousy reviews you’ve had along the way, either because they didn’t happen or because they were all form and no substance.
Then think about, hopefully, the manager(s) who saw the value and used reviews to challenge, stretch and juice your growth, so you were ready for a promotion that put you in their shoes.
Then decide which one you want to be for your people.
Be sure to come back next week when I show you a simple, amazing tool that helps identify goals for each of your people and also has some terrific side benefits.
As discussed last week accountability stems from the public nature of an action and one of the best ways to inject strong accountability into your organization is with a positive review function that your people might actually like!
Sound impossible? It’s not and over the next few weeks we’ll discuss how to make it happen.
The first thing that you need to understand is that there are two totally separate parts of the review process.
The visible part, the mechanics, is dictated by your company, but that’s all it is—mechanics; usually a timetable and a set of forms.
In other words, positive reviews are a function of how you choose to think about them.
Done correctly reviews are painless and even enjoyable for both parties.
Done incorrectly reviews are painful, embarrassing, discouraging, upsetting, frustrating or all of the above—for both parties.
The bottom line of reviews can be summed up in two words—no surprises.
Any time an employee is surprised by information during a review means that you aren’t doing your job as a manager.
You avoid surprises by understanding the philosophy behind the review process and how it should work and then allocating the time and effort to make it work.
How many times during or after your own annual review have you said out loud, or silently screamed in your head, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
How many times since you were promoted has one of your own people felt the same way?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
If you want a group like this then make no mistake, It’s your responsibility to engender that attitude, i.e., engage them.
A good place to start is by encouraging your people to question the fundamentals (QF) of the company.
“Numbers tell only part of the story. People get things done.” –John S. Watson, Vice-Chairman, Chevron
Today is about the boss, but the reasoning behind the ‘leadership’ advice can be used by anyone.
The foremost thought to hold in you mind when creating a positive and powerful review culture is that it’s similar to Chinese cooking—most of the time is spent in preparation, whereas the food cooks quickly.
