We all know that similarities exist in people everywhere, and I am well placed to judge that!
I had the opportunity to do a Predictive Index Management Workshop™ in Dubai recently and was reminded about that again.
It was interesting to hear the HR stories from inside the Muslim world: identical to the stories I come across daily within the US!
Promoting employees from within and the improving employee morale it can engender was a main topic for that group. They had a strong feeling that promoting employees from within is the moral thing to do. They felt that often, as people were not achieving work satisfaction in an existing job, promotion to a new challenge was the way out for many.
They also acknowledged that while promoting from within can be among hr best practices, very often it did not work for them. They recognized that sending someone into a challenge that did not suit them, could really break someone's career...
Amazing the insights our services could bring them! PI® brought them the insight into when and who to promote from within, and when an outside hire could be a better solution!
Last week I got involved with a client who has used us in the past, but decided he could not afford tp continue working with us due to the economic strains his company was under over the last few years. And that happens: sometimes one has to do what has to be done to ensure short term survival.
But he realized that he had received a large benefit from working with us, so he was not shy in recommending our services to another organization.
It lead to a long discussion on what benefits he actually gained from his Predictive Index® program: it gave him a strategic insight in his business which he has used ever since he got to know PI®. It brought a new look at an employee development program, helped him focus on the importance of motivation and in general helped him do some critical organizational alignment which he has benefited from ever since.
And that is what helped him see that suggesting PI as solely a hiring tool was really doing his friend a disservice. So he went back to his friend and gave him a full testimonial!
Sometimes we don't really appreciate what we have until someone points it out to us!
I learned of 3 cases of the succession planning process taking place in the last couple of weeks.
All 3 cases are very different, each with potentially substantial consequences for the future of the businesses.
It lead me to reconsider what type of leadership is required by businesses in the various stages of its life. To start a business, a more entrepreneurial, "let's make something happen" approach gets the job done. Once the business is established, a more cautious, polished way might be required to maintain and gradually grow the business.
And when the first generation hands over the reigns to the second, personalities can get in the way.
Perhaps the second generation has a strong entrepreneurial attitude, but lacks the credibility within the organization to pull off certain behaviors. Or the second generation approach is more one of maintaining and steadying the ship, and that freaks out the first generation, rightly or wrongly.
These different approaches are frustrating enough within the business world, but if they play out within a family environment with high stakes in terms of personal relationships, projected aspirations and high financial consequences for many people directly or indirectly involved, you end up with the need for a full organizational planning project!
A solid awareness of oneself, the needs and wants of the key players involved, and an objective view of the needs of the business is critical. Employee development programs may be required involving the next generation in the strategic planning process of the business including whatever organizational alignment is required for the personalities involved.
In each of these cases, the organizations will be well served to find someone they trust to facilitate that process: no use taking the risk of not seeing your grandchildren grow up over mere business issues if those decisions break up the family!
Read the book by Patrick Lencioni, called" The 3 signs of a miserable job?". There are lots of good takeaways relating to employee engagement, organizational alignment and staff motivation.
Lencioni writes real easy to read management books (i.e. the only ones I can still swallow these days), and I really liked this one.
The 3 signs he identifies are:
* no sound measurable goals
* no view on the relevance of your work in the bigger picture
* anonimity, i. e. your boss does not really know you (or cares to know you).
No measurable goals comes with an add-on: it is easy to slap goals on a job, but are these goals relevant and do they make sense? Or do they measure something you cannot control, or demand actions that are senseless or even counter productive?
The relevance issue leads directly to deployment of organizational planning programs: we all need to see how what we do fits into something bigger than just our little pad, otherwise we miss the most basic human need of belonging to a social structure.
And the lack of caring can be brutal on people, and can lead to more than loss of employee engagement. It can yield disloyalty and rebellion.
Take an hour or two (that is all it takes to read the book), and let yourself be convinced by the validity of Lencioni's theory. And then take a couple of weeks to make sure no one within your span of control has to live in a miserable job...
Because if you don't really care too much about the people who work with you (because they get paid bi-weekly to come to work anyway?), think what will happen to your business once the economy improves and people can afford to leave their miserable jobs!
Give us a call if you want to talk about this for your company!
Performance appraisals are a key part of how to supervise people.
Obviously you are going to evaluate performance based on results achieved, as well as on the way these results were achieved. You have established a Balanced Scorecard per individual with a direct view to the overall strategy. And sure you have thought long and hard about how to match bonus and salary adjustment to performance. Sounds obvious, but you would be surprised to see how many people do a poor job at this.
Some issues:
- Don’t reward obedience in leadership positions. Yes-people in leadership positions are the biggest threat to your business!
- Don’t reward your personal likes and dislikes about people. People are unique. Rewarding your personal likes only displays your inability to bridge the personality gap!
- Don’t get distracted when it is time to value success and contribution. Show your appreciation (and dissatisfaction).
- Don’t let an official appraisal be a surprise. No need to use the occasion to bring up old cows, accuse or point to failures. By the time the actual reporting needs to be done, both you and the appraised should know what the deal is. Use the opportunity to talk about the future. It should be a motivating experience.
- Don’t put your head in the sand. Not all your people are stars. Force yourself to do a ranking. Know which are your most valuable players, and have the guts to point them out. And do justice to them by dealing with the poor players.
No need to be ruthless when looking at your people. But there is a need to follow a comprehensive annual process, where you take some time away and involve some outside help, to review your team. Note who has potential to do better, and put a development plan together for them. Look after your bright stars and make sure you keep them engaged! Create opportunities for them to shine. Use their talents!
It always surprises me how we find it natural and right that people join a sports team based on ability and performance. We all agree not everyone can join the Red Wings. We boo the poor performers and turn the stars into millionaires. But we don’t have the same determination when it comes to the team that decides the livelihood of our business…
To create a group of engaged employees, the importance of motivation is key. And a poor execution of performance appraisals is demotivating to your star employees!
I came across someone this week who had a full strategic planning framework worked out for his company: nice financial goals, sales goals, and a recruiting strategy worked out for the next 5 years. Amazing how some people get involved putting a 5 year plan together when they have no idea what the sales for March will be...
So we got talking about how to translate that 5 year strategic planning approach (started in 2008; 2009 goal missed by a landslide) into an action plan.
I think the most common mistake people make in this process is lack of focus.
Each team member has a set of daily tasks: running their departments, following up on the standard parameters they have followed up on for years, making the organization run from day to day.
And then there is a strategic plan. To be added to the "to do" list, whenever they get to it. Probably a week or so before the next follow-up meeting.
That is a recipe for failure of the strategic planning implementation.
If the daily tasks and the strategic goals are not integrated into one strategic planning framework, people remain confused about priorities.
And confused priorities allow people to work very hard on the wrong goals.
Smart managers create confident organizations where resources are focused on achieving goals. Where these goals are shared and understood by all, so that coherent teams become a natural consequence. Where people get a sense of achievement from being on a winning team, and double up on their efforts to get you to that ultimate goal. And where managing people becomes the key to getting results.
We can help you make that happen!
ALL THE NOSES IN THE SAME DIRECTION!
Most organizations have gone through the values – mission – vision stage. By now, these documents are covered in dust. Many are still displayed in reception areas and board rooms. But most managers don’t really pay attention to them anymore. So it is not really surprising that many people site “lack of direction” as the single most irritating factor in the company they work for.
We forget that the goal of these documents was to bring people together around a common theme. The end result was never as important as the road to get there; the discussion was to be the catharsis. It is the leveling that occurs that brings people on the same page. A day talking about your values-mission-vision statement can be invaluable!
Too often even the actual strategy remains a mystery! Small companies are often lead by the original entrepreneur, and she is surprised to hear her immediate co-workers don’t comprehend the strategy she has spent many a waking night to develop. And the same disconnect easily develops in a larger organization, where the plan devised by the top is just not disclosed to the troops, or as a minimum, not understood. A few tips to avoid this disconnect:
- Verbalize your strategy in a clear and concise way. Use a few sentences if you have to, but the shorter and simpler, the better. Use a pictorial if possible.
- A strategy is not a dream. Make it a call to action, an achievable and believable goal that everyone, from top to bottom, can believe in.
- Engage in true dialogue. Take it from Alan Greenspan:
“I have never found the arbitrary use of authority to control an organization either effective, or, for that matter, personally interesting. If you cannot persuade your colleagues of the correctness of your position, it is probably worthwhile to rethink your own.”
- Every team member on your payroll needs to have clear goals, directly linked to the achievement of the overall strategy. Demonstrate your commitment to these goals by a clear prioritization: how critical is the strategy if my contribution is just part of my day to day tasks, and many other goals also need to be achieved? It sends the message that it is OK to point your nose in the right direction at a specific time only. And that is wrong!
- If you don’t have the discipline to follow a strategy, then don’t waste time putting one together! Now I live by the dictum “What is the point of having a mind if you cannot change it”! You’d better change the strategy if you discover a better one! But be consistent, and follow your plan until you come up with a better one. And at that stage, communicate the new plan, and start the cascading process anew.
- Follow up. Make sure the individual’s goals are met. Find out why deviations occur. Use your Plan-Do-Check-Adjust cycle. Get people to assist one another where needed so the overall goal does not get compromised. Jump in where your expertise can help, or throw more resources at the issue. And demonstrate your commitment to achieving the goal by your actions!
- Visualize your strategy, the cascading goals and the progress made. It will point out to all which noses are not aligned. Peer pressure never hurts!
Following this process with rigor will make sure people understand how they feature in the overall goal of the company, and why their noses should point in the same direction. Make sure they know that exceptions won’t be tolerated. You cannot afford a lack of discipline in this area!
The benefits of strategic planning , and a sound strategic planning service to help you through the cycle are vital getting your employees truely motivated. It is a key component of best HR Practices.
Too many years in manufacturing, and a few years of traveling around from company to company as a consultant, have taught me that there is no silver bullet. But there are some common threads.
Of course you come across those unique individuals who manage to inspire people by their natural instincts and qualities: you read about them in Fortune Magazine, The Harvard Business Review or USA Today. Or they write their own books. But most successful companies don’t have these famous people leading them. They engage their people through working on 3 main aspects of their business:
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Make all the noses in the business point in the same direction.
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Know your people: pay attention to what makes them tick, listen to them and make them feel special and unique.
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Practice solid talent management.
Hiring assessments, 360 assessments and career pathing are major components of all this. Next time we'll explore these a little further!
ENGAGEMENT DEFINED
In 1987, Herzberg stated in a re-write of his most renowned article “How do you motivate employees”:
“If I kick my dog, he will move. And when I want him to move again, what must I do? I must kick him again! Similarly I can charge a person’s battery, and then recharge it, and recharge it again. But it is only when one has a generator of one’s own that we can talk about motivation.”
Or perhaps the way Ralph Stayer, CEO of Johnsonville Sausage describes how lack of employee engagement feels, does it better for you:
“My willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed is what fueled Johnsonville’s growth. In 1980 I hit the wall. I realized that if I kept doing what I had always done, I was going to keep getting what I was getting. And I did not like what I was getting. It felt to me like the only person who was excited about Johnsonville was me. And I began to feel like a baby-sitter for my executives and staff. ”( Flight of the Buffalo;1993)
Ralph was looking for extra commitment from his people: their willingness and ability to contribute to the company success; the discretionary effort they put into work, in the form of extra time, brainpower and energy. The effort brought to bear by employees who not only like what they do, but actually love it!
Your single biggest challenge in today’s business climate is to manage your workforce in such a way that they bring this love for their job to work, willingly, every day. That is what will create your competitive advantage in a global workplace. Customers will frequent your restaurant, will stay at your hotel, will use your bank, will choose your hospital or will prefer your dealership, if they sense that your people truly care. And in a world where entire factories, let alone machinery and office processes, can be uprooted and moved to low cost countries at the drop of a hat, what else can we work with to make a difference?
Let's talk next week: the importance of hiring assessments, the benefits of strategic planning, career pathing and management succession planning will be clear!
We are living in economically tough times. Large corporations proudly announce how many people they will cut from their payroll to restore profitability. Smaller companies hang on to their people as long as they can, but economic reality forces them to do what was unthinkable a short time ago: even their most loyal employees have to go.
This creates stressful conditions for the ones left behind: they have to find a way to merge various responsibilities, take on a double load, and they have to stick it out because the alternative is worse.
And we top if off by demanding not only the extra effort, but also complete commitment to the job! We want our people to be “fully engaged employees”. We need them to not just be “our legs”, we also want them to be “our brains”. And thus the beatings will continue until morale improves!
Plenty of research clearly establishes that truly engaged employees create employee productivity and superior business results.
So the beatings should continue?
Let's explore answers next week!
Hi there,
blogging is a new development for me! I plan to learn more about it, and in the process keep you informed about what I do for a living!
I made the transition from general management in the manufacturing world, to management consulting. I have been surprised to learn how management techniques well established in my "old world" are often lacking in my "new world". And how these "old world techniques" are transferable.
Every business is all about the people running it.
And that is what this blog will be about: people and business! It will be about how personalities affect startegic planning methods, how the succession planning process is steered by individual preferences instead of business demands, and how difficult people manage difficult people!
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