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Golden Oldies: Twofer On Reviews

Monday, November 11th, 2019

Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

5 years ago s+b created a video based on brain science to show how and why people often reacted negatively to performance reviews.

Ducks in a Row: Brains and Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a frequent subject of management gurus, the media and pundits of every variety, myself included.

More recently the focus has been on what’s wrong with reviews and how they often act as a demotivator.

A new article in strategy + business uses brain science to look at exactly why and how reviews demotivate.

YouTube credit: strategy + business

A year later GE scrapped its notorious rank and yank review system as implemented by then-CEO Jack Welch. A year after that Amazon followed suit. There are still plenty of companies that use the system — whether they admit it or just change the name. Individual managers are also guilty of it no matter their company’s attitude. Be it company wide or individually the effect is the same — higher turnover, lower productivity, decreased engagement, and increasing recruiting costs.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Sea Change for Annual Reviews

Years ago I wrote about how to make annual reviews painless and effective — more a review of the  year’s accomplishments and setting goals for the coming year than a critique of work past.

It worked because mini-reviews, coaching and conversations during the year were frequent.

Typical annual reviews were fraught with fear and loathing.

For decades, General Electric practiced (and proselytized) a rigid system, championed by then-CEO Jack Welch, of ranking employees. Formally known as the “vitality curve” but frequently called “rank and yank,” the system hinged on the annual performance review, and boiled the employees’ performance down to a number on which they were judged and ranked against peers. A bottom percentage (10% in GE’s case) of underperformers were then fired.

Jack Welch championed a lot of very bad stuff (e.g., work/life balance, HR), but the negativity of rank and yank is near the top, if not number one.

(As for GE’s stellar results keep under Welch keep in mind that businesses like GE Financial practically printed money until it all blew up.)

But times are changing.

According to Raghu Krishnamoorthy, the longtime GE exec in charge of Crotonville (GE’s in-house management school) “Command and control is what Jack was famous for. Now it’s about connection and inspiration.

And to that end, GE has developed a new in-house app that basically does what I and others evangelized a decade and more ago.

The new app is called “PD@GE” for “performance development at GE”  There’s an emphasis on coaching throughout, and the tone is unrelentingly positive. The app forces users to categorize feedback in one of two forms: To continue doing something, or to consider changing something.

If you don’t have the luxury of an app you can simplify it even further.

    • Care about your people.
    • Interact with your people.
    • Talk with your people.
    • Challenge your people.
    • Help them grow and advance — even when that means they leave for a better opportunity that you can’t provide.

Read what GE is doing and adapt it to your own group — whether your company does of not.

Image credit: Mark

Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: Making Employees Happy

Monday, August 26th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cityskylinesouvenir/4427873040/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Why is happy so often equated with fun, as in “if you’re having fun you’re happy.” What makes you happy? A beautiful sunset? Your kids/grandkids? A quiet walk? Time with loved ones? For most people, It takes more substance than fluff to make them happy.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Company culture has been jerked around ever since a few pundits decided that “fun” was the primary component to having happy employees.

Worse, “fun” was equated with silly stuff, such as games, pranks and goofs.

While these things do energize some employees, they don’t do it for long and certainly not alone.

It’s well-proven that happy employees are more productive, but creating happy requires substance.

The components of long-term happiness are things such as challenging work, continued learning, opportunities to grow, clear communications, fair bosses, etc.

All of these require more thought, effort and skill from managers than installing a few foosball tables or gamifying the project.

Flickr image credit: CityLineSouvenir

Golden Oldies: Jack Welch Is Wrong! Balance Isn’t About Choosing This Over That

Monday, July 22nd, 2019

Poking through  13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Welch is still alive and must love today’s optimized millennials, who were raised to constantly strive and never stop working. Burnout would be no problem, since he could simply fire them.

In spite of that I doubt he could manage them; neither they, nor their elders, would take kindly to his style.

In fact, Welch’s approach is actually the fastest way to produce a bumper crop of weeds.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I’ve disagreed with Jack Welch many times going back to the start of this blog. In December 2006 I wrote Men Want A Life, Too in response to Welch’s comment.

“We do acknowledge that work-life balance is usually a much harder goal for women with children. For them, there is about a 15-year period in their careers in which the choices they make are not about what they want from life professionally and personally but about what is right for their kids. It can be a fraught time, since choices and consequences are more complex. That, however, is a topic for another column.”

It took two-and-a-half years, but he did return to that topic recently at the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual conference telling them that women need to choose between raising kids and running a company.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” (The article is from the Wall Street Journal and is the first link on this Google search page.)

Putting the comments together we have a high profile x-CEO who believes that the way to the top is for both men and women to make the tough choice and put their family second to their career.

Just let relatives, nannies (if you can afford them), daycare, schools, friends, gangs and the internet raise the next generation.

Why do comments like these come primarily from old, rich white guys?

What planet are they living on? More importantly have they bothered listening to today’s workers—and I don’t mean just Millennials.

As long as this is the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that runs companies that attitude will translate to corporate action and companies will face problems staffing. The recession won’t go on forever and demographically there’s a serious people shortage at every level and in every field.

If you really want to attract the best and brightest men and women then you need to recognize that their priorities have changed and if forced to choose the company will, in most cases, come in second.

And those candidates who do choose company over life may lack the empathy needed to innovate and market, let alone lead, the current workforce.

There are plenty of companies that already know this and have adjusted their culture accordingly, but most will be dragged kicking and screaming into the reality once the economy turns around, demographics rears its ugly head and they have no choice.

Video credit: bonewend on YouTube

Growing Weeds

Tuesday, July 16th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124665605@N02/15138562212

Back when Jack Welch implemented forced ranking throughout GE. was perched at the top of management gurus he

Also known as forced distribution and, derisively, as “rank and yank,” the practice was championed by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who insisted that GE identify and remove the bottom 10 percent of the workforce every year.

Hundreds of companies used it, including tech giants, but most (all?) have stopped. Some took longer than others, Microsoft got rid of it in 2015.

As I said in a post when Amazon finally dumped it in 2016,

Amazing how it’s only taken 30+ years for management to figure out that setting employee against employee does not foster teamwork.

Having to watch your back, knowing it’s “you or them,” doesn’t foster anything.

But even without a formal forced ranking policy, some managers still believe that pitting team members against each other is the fastest way to boost productivity.

However, it’s a great way to increase your experience hiring

Image credit: russel harris

Ducks in a Row: Culture is the Keeper

Tuesday, March 26th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ebby-rebby/5800753858/

Oh joy. A new study of 25,000 employees, working in more than 1,000 different companies across 20 industries spread across Northern America, Europe, Asia, and Australia was done over the 12 months of 2018.

43% of employees said that they would be likely to leave their current companies if they were offered a 10% pay rise elsewhere. That number was up from 25% in their 2017 survey.

The report says that weak company cultures are to blame, while the author thinks the strong job market is also responsible.

I disagree, because if the majority of the stuff listed below is actually fixed it will take a lot more than a 10% raise to attract someone to a culture that probably has those same problems.

Here is the list.

  1. Technical issues with software, and other tools
  2. Interruptions and disruptions from Slack, emails and noisy office environments
  3. Poor communication from management / lack of training and information
  4. Disorganized and time-wasting systems and processes
  5. Misguided decisions from management / bad leadership
  6. Lack of flexibility / no opportunities to work from home
  7. Overworked / under resourced team
  8. Office politics / favoritism
  9. Difficult customers
  10. Too many meetings

The sheer size of the responding group means smart bosses will take note of these irritants; most are fixable without much impact on the budget.

Most require changes the boss can effect or, at least, influence. People aren’t stupid, they know their boss can’t change the whole company. But if they change what they can and keep working on the others, their people will stay and work with them.

What often matters most is that bosses recognize that they are part, if not all, of the problem and are honestly trying to change.

Image credit: Emma

Building Powerful Teams

Wednesday, March 13th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/inspiyr/9670185831/

When you’re a boss, one of your biggest responsibilities is to help your people grow.

Doing that requires patience, because they won’t all grow at the same rate.

Some people grow fast, like a hare, others are more in the tortoise category, but that doesn’t make them less valuable.

The hares may grow faster, but the growth often lacks substance. Tortoises, on the other hand, are known to dig deep in order to go beyond the knowledge needed to do something and understand the underlying principles.

Speed is important and the lack of depth may not be a problem until something goes wrong. Finding a solution or work-around often requires the deeper understanding that tortoises possess.

The smart boss knows having a balance of both hares and tortoises yields the strongest team; one that can accomplish far more on time and in budget than a team that is predominantly one type or the other.

Image credit: Inspiyr.com

Ducks in a Row: Motivation and Trust

Tuesday, March 12th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aucklandphotonews/8252061970/

Yesterday’s Oldie was a reminder that there are very view motivators that can beat VSI (vested self-interest) when it comes to engaging your team.

Some people respond to money, but many more respond to intangible rewards.

How do you know what works?

How can you tailor motivators individually for each person?

I’ve heard from bosses at every level that they’re already stretched, they need to focus on the deliverables and their team and just don’t have the time to deal with individuals.

Which is laughable, since the team is comprised of individuals and the bosses job is to engage and motivate them, so the deliverables are delivered on time.

Great managers have no fear of using one of the most efficient approaches, i.e., ask your current team and each new hire.

Don’t suggest or use multiple choice, just ask.

  • What makes you eager to come to work?
  • If you could choose just one thing, other than compensation, that would light your work fire what would if be?

Don’t ask in a group situation if you want real answers, honest answers.

In fact, don’t ask in person, since you may not be able to control your initial reaction. If that happens it will break trust with that person and it is unlikely to be rebuilt any time soon.

Remember, this isn’t about what motivates you, nor is it any business of yours to judge what motivates someone else.

Hand the questions out in hard copy with each person’s name already on it.

Tell them you are using hardcopy to avoid the chance of accidental leaks and promise their responses won’t be shared with anybody.

It is extremely important that you don’t share them, even anonymously, with anyone, especially inside the company. Doing so for any reason, with anyone is betrayal, pure and simple.

Explain that because all humans are different you want to understand what really matters to each of them and that once you do you’ll do your best to provide it.

Finally, don’t kid yourself, if you don’t honor your promise it is betrayal, the equivalent to sleeping around when in a committed relationship.

If you don’t know how to be faithful, you’re better off just forgetting about this post.

Image credit: Auckland Photo News

Golden Oldies: The Number One, World-Beating, Best Motivator

Monday, March 11th, 2019

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Engagement is way down, jobs are plentiful, turnover is way up, and managers aren’t just searching for solutions.

No, what they really want to find is a silver bullet; a Harry Potter magic wand they can wave to promote engagement, hike productivity, juice creativity and sustain the whole thing.

But as we all know, silver bullets and magic wands are in extremely short supply.

That said, VSI, as explained below, comes pretty close.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How do you lead/influence/motivate/get/force others to move in the direction you choose or achieve a goal, large or small, that you set? That question is the basis for yards of books and megabytes of content, but in spite of all that’s already been written I thought I’d add my bit to the total.

After all, responding to this question is almost a right of passage in the land of leadership and motivation.

So here’s my two-word answer: vested self-interest (VSI).

Over the years, I’ve found vested self-interest to be not only the most powerful people motivator around, but also one of the least expensive, since the cost is mainly from the effort to learn what it is for each person.

And the idea must have merit when you consider that a Sudanese cell phone billionaire is using it to incentivize African heads of state to act responsibly.

In that case, the incentive was money, but that’s not always the case. If it were, then companies wouldn’t lose talent to other companies offering the same or even lower pay.

It’s an error to always assume that dollars will do it, or that what turns on one, turns on all. Hot buttons are as individual as your people are and don’t always involve tangibles.

As a manager, it’s up to you to discover each of your people’s hot buttons, i.e., what really turns them on, and then find a way to satisfy it in return for what you want in performance, innovation, etc.

Taking the time to learn what the buttons are allows you to power your team as never before, which, in turn, should give you the ability to satisfy your own VSI.

Remembering that generalities are always dangerous, here are some of the most common hot buttons

    • public recognition – not just for big things, but for the small, everyday wins that fill most people’s working lives;
    • strokes – a few words here, a compliment there, doesn’t take much time, but be warned, people aren’t stupid, if your comments are lip-service only they will know and respond accordingly;
    • giving back – supported or encouraged volunteer programs, leave day banks, etc.;
    • making a difference – internally and/or externally; and
    • growing/stretching – the opportunity to do something new, learn new skills, etc.

Obviously, money is still a motivator, but it’s not always big bucks, it’s more that the amount is relevant to the accomplishment and logical relative to the company’s circumstances.

And it doesn’t need to be “new” money, it can be a different way to cut a current pie. For example, I get many queries from senior execs asking for exotic approaches and detailed how-to’s for implementing cultural and other intangible changes that often require encouraging (and at times, coercing) their managerial staff into actually doing them.

The most successful method I’ve found is as simple as one, two, three.

    1. Carefully define, in a quantifiable manner, what you want done (not “increase retention,” but “reduce turnover X% by [date]”).
    2. Include these well-quantified goals in the managers’ annual objectives. (This is not a variation of MBO.)
    3. Make it clear to your managers that they will be evaluated on these goals and that the evaluation will impact their annual reviews and compensation.

Vested self-interest should do the rest

And as any parent can tell you, VSI works great on kids, too — or anyone, for that matter.

Image credit: Quotes Everlasting

Golden Oldies: What To Do When You Get Really Mad

Monday, February 25th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/istolethetv/37792400/Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Ryan’s post a couple of weeks ago reminded me of something I’ve wrote a long time ago.

The sum of it was not that great but in the moment it was contentious. Emails and gnashing of teeth on both sides. In that moment I was angry, but I chose to wait to respond.

My solution? Sleep.

Good solution, but when you’re a boss and something happens that makes you angry you usually can’t wait until the next day to deal with it.

So what do you do? Here’s a solution from the 1970s (and before). It worked then, it works now and it will work in the future.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How angry do you become when you ask your team or colleague for X and get X — 4, or X + 1. or even Y? How often have you lost, or almost lost it, because of the response you received during a meeting?

What is the only perfect response you can make when something happens and you’re ready to blow your top?

You’ve heard the answer all your life—when you’re angry, shut up/stay quiet/ don’t say anything; don’t “look” anything, either, until you’ve calmed down. Smart advice, but hard to follow.

Many managers don’t even realize when they go into “screaming mode,” because they don’t actually scream—they drip sarcasm, leak contempt, stream scorn or fire off zingers; they belittle and role their eyes. Most don’t realize the long-term damage that they do to their people; others just don’t care—their attitude is that stuff happens, get over it!

What neither type seems to realize is that, over time, one of three things happen,

  • people grow inured to their tantrums,
  • are damaged by them (people do stay in abusive relationships),
  • or leave the company.

To change this,

  • you must first acknowledge to yourself that you do it and that you want to change it; then
  • whenever you feel yourself getting angry smile, nod and leave by saying that you have to make a call, use the bathroom, whatever innocuous excuse best fits the situation;
  • go somewhere private, blow off steam if necessary, but calm down;
  • schedule a time to resume the discussion; then
  • simulate the least amount of anger (if any) needed to get your point across.

It’ll take people time to trust the “new” you, but it’s worth it. In the office, it will pay off in higher productivity and less turnover. You and your people will suffer less from stress, and you, personally, will have more energy, enjoy higher quality sleep, and see improvement in all your relationships

Image credit: istolethetv

Golden Oldies: The Accent Challenge

Monday, February 18th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98673962@N06/11085205754

Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

You might think that stuff would change in 11 years and you would be correct if you were talking about technology, food, or similar topics. But when the subject is people, not so much.

Accents can be just as much a challenge today as they were when I wrote this and before. The difference 11 years have made is that while there is greater acceptance of diverse accents the need for understanding them hasn’t changed.

Nor has the solution described in this post. If anything, its importance has significantly increased.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

The ability to communicate successfully, in both directions, is the mark of a great manager, as is building and managing a powerful and innovative organization.

Accomplishing this mandates a willingness to hire the best available people.

But what do you do when the best can’t be easily understood?

Accents, whether from overseas or US regional, are a major turnoff to many people. Reactions range from idiotic assumptions of incompetence (essentially subconscious prejudice) to annoyance for having to exert effort listening (sheer laziness).

In a diverse world of shrinking talent pools, where English is a second language for many, it’s bad business to pass on those candidates, but it’s also ridiculous to believe that the problem will fix itself or just fade away if you ignore it.

I’m not talking about the need for flawless English, but about recognizing what happens if they aren’t understood.

What can you, as a manager, do?

If the challenge is accent (whether from India, China, New York, Liverpool, Mississippi, etc.), rather than comprehension or language knowledge, that could minimize their contribution or effectiveness, what do you do?

The same solution you use for any good candidate who is lacking a particular skill, you offer training. In this case, accent reduction training.

Again, not to force them to sound like you, but to improve their speech enough to ensure a reasonable level of understanding.

Yes, the discussion and offer needs to be handled with sensitivity, but people aren’t stupid and they know the things that put them at a disadvantage in the workplace. What you are offering to do is pay for training that will give them a boost throughout their career, not just at your company.

The cost isn’t that great, either, the company profiled in the article charges around $1000 per person. In comparison to the cost-per-day of continuing the search, $1000 doesn’t even qualify as a peanut.

Plus, there is additional ROI to you, individually, and to your company.

  • You acquire top talent with a high degree of loyalty, while building a reputation as a creative manager, who knows how to successfully staff outside the box, is willing to invest in people, and has the vision to see beyond the obvious.
  • Your company strengthens its diversity, which typically improves innovation, while your management achievements have an external halo effect on the company.

Image credit: 마 법사

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