Category: Workplace Culture

Dear Resistant to Change:

You are right to be cautious. The profession is littered with failure stories of ill-conceived 360-degree feedback. Lack of clarity of purpose, too little planning, too much data entry, too little focus on organizational change and communication—these are the common pitfalls that will sink a 360 initiative. These risks are especially high in a culture of traditionalism that is averse to change.

But when carefully planned and executed, and with the right goals and systems in place, 360-degree feedback can be highly effective in your leadership development process—even in a slow-to-change environment. The following is a summary of leading practices that can serve as a guide:

1. Link your 360-degree strategy and process to corporate strategy and goals. Understand which corporate-level measures you hope to affect in rolling out the new process. Is it to increase innovation? Drive growth in new markets? Is it to expand and better manage the leadership pipeline to increase internal promotions or drive growth from within? Communicate the initiative in a way that ties the process to corporate goals and strategies. Traditionalist culture is best transformed when business impact is clearly articulated.

2. Determine whether the 360-degree process is a developmental or a performance measurement process. Do not try to have it be both. You cannot accomplish both in one process. More and more companies are moving toward viewing 360-degree feedback as a purely developmental process. Development-focused reviews yield better, more honest feedback and reduce the level of fear and resistance to the process.

3. Position it as part of a broader leadership planning and performance management process. It is one element of many that enable the organization to manage its talent pipeline.

4. Don’t view 360-degree feedback as a panacea to measuring leadership performance. It can be a crucial element, but it won’t suffice on its own. Consider implementing a talent assessment process in conjunction with a development-focused 360-degree process. Many organizations today find that the performance management process doesn’t provide the information they need about leaders (or any critical role for that matter) to properly develop and plan for the future. To address this, they are putting into place content-rich assessments designed specifically for critical talent. Talent assessment processes include information such as leadership behaviors/competencies, learning agility, risk of turnover, readiness for next position and so on.

5. If the primary goal is to gather feedback to build individual development plans, think about who you want to include: Matrix reporting relationships, team/project members and customers/partners are often the most insightful raters in a 360 initiative.

6. Leverage technology.The sheer number of people involved and volume of documents to be combined and reconciled makes an automated system a necessity.

SOURCE: Heidi Spirgi, president, Knowledge Infusion, Danville, California

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Dear Tongue-Tied:

There are three types of performance conversations to which the “80/20 rule” applies.

The basic idea is this: 80 percent of employees are somewhere in the middle of performance. Ten percent of employees are awesome, demonstrated by consistently exceeding their goals. The remaining 10 percent of employees are at the bottom, reflected in a regular demonstration of mediocrity at its best.

Three types of performance conversation apply to each level. The first is “Coaching for Greatness,” and it is used with employees who are significantly achieving goals. The second is “Managing for Outcomes,” utilized for employees who are performing somewhat to fairly well but are definitely not lighting the world on fire. The third segment, “Working for Improvement,” targets employees at the bottom of performance.

Coaching for Greatness: 10 percent of employees

It is true that supervisors should provide positive feedback when employees achieve their goals. This approach keeps employees motivated to continue to work hard, be engaged and have positive outcomes. I have seen this approach work time and time again in multiple industries, corporations and even the U.S. Marine Corps.

People respond in new and creative ways when they receive recognition and reward for a job well done. Employees in this segment are the achievers, and the approach supervisors could use is focused on Coaching for Greatness. The opportunity is in harnessing the productive energies of employees who are your star performers.

It is important to discover their motivations and tap into applying their high-quality skills in ways that will drive the organization forward. For instance, you might select your top 10 best sales reps and have them design the sales training. Others might want to be mentors. The key is to provide star performers with options that integrate their talents with the company’s needs. By establishing buy-in and ownership, a win-win situation will be created, nurtured and deployed.

Managing for Outcomes: 80 percent of employees

The reality is that many employees are in this segment. They constitute the majority of people who are somewhat, sort of, kind of and maybe getting by enough to continue to have a job. Within this cohort, some have the potential to be star performers, while others do not.

Depending on the type of business you are in, you may or may not be able to keep everyone. In this recession, many people have lost their jobs. The reality is that you have to do what is best for your company and its mission.

To determine your star performers, the performance conversation should focus on understanding the barriers inhibiting an employee from taking it to the next level. By diagnosing the barriers, supervisors are better positioned to develop mutually beneficial solutions for the employee to maximize their job performance. If an employee has barriers removed and is still not reaching goals, then it is a question of external factors, internal factors, motivation, decision-making and/or behaviors.

The supervisor must embrace an investigative mind-set to uncover these areas and assist the employee toward consistently achieving their goals. As long as an employee asks questions, sincerely wants to improve and has had some success, it makes sense to continue to mentor and train them. Time will tell, but at least you are putting your best foot forward and giving the person every opportunity to be successful. Star performers do not always start as stars.

Working for Improvement: 10 percent of employees

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, was a big fan of terminating 10 percent of his managers on an annual basis. Welch believed it moved GE closer to its goals of being No. 1 or No. 2 in the markets it served. There is some value in Welch’s approach.

Certainly, it is not helpful for poor performers to continue to be poor. But conversations with poor performers should be oriented around a performance-improvement plan that sets specific goals, with due dates and measurable outcomes. The performance-improvement plan is a last resort. If employees don’t achieve the goals, they need to know the consequences. Depending on the supervisor and the situation, the consequence could be continuation of the plan, suspension or termination.

The other option is to assess the poor performers’ strengths, weaknesses and personality. A person might not be a good fit for sales but might be an all-star performer in another area. Supervisors need to learn to be open, flexible, innovative and supportive.

SOURCE: Dana E. Jarvis, School of Leadership and Professional Advancement, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, March 27, 2009

LEARN MORE: Sometimes, tender-loving care is needed to bring out the best in employees.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

Dear In the Middle:

Based on your statement that the owner hired her, it appears that the daughter reports to him. Perhaps he communicated to her that she does have some authority. Under the circumstances of her having been hired by the owner and being a family member, it’s not clear who her boss is. Therefore you should first go to the owner, ask for clarity about her role, provide him with specifics about the problem and how it’s affecting the business, and let him know what you, as the manager, intend to say to her.

Ask him how he feels about it. If he is supportive, go ahead and meet with her. If he decides to meet with her himself, offer your support to him. Before either of you meet with her, reach agreement about what you will do if the behavior continues.

If you are the one who meets with her, here are some steps you may find useful in the conversation.

1) Remember to let your sincere concern for the business drive what you say.

2) Describe, objectively, what you see going on and how those things are affecting the business.

3) Express your desire to support the success of the business and how important her role is.

4) Clearly describe what she needs to change and ask for her commitment to do so.

5) Tell her that you will support her by coaching her when you see ineffective behavior.

6) Let her know that she must resolve these problems quickly in the interest of the business, and that if she fails to do so, her negative impact on the business will require you to take further steps–whatever you and the boss decided beforehand.

7) Sincerely communicate your desire that she succeed.

8) Schedule a follow-up meeting in a week or so to discuss how she’s doing, but don’t wait until then to meet if the problem doesn’t improve significantly.

Good luck.

SOURCE: Kevin Herring, president, Ascent Management Consulting, Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 12, 2003.

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Dear Fixated:

 

You are correct: The cultural fit between employee and the organization is an extremely important consideration. We have all had a job for which we had the skills and experience but were just not a “good fit.” Such situations often result in poor employee performance and/or turnover, both of which are costly for the employer.

During a down economy, employees who are a poor fit are way less likely to jump ship–and while this may reduce turnover, it also may perpetuate lower performance that eventually shows up in the bottom line.

So what steps can you take to ensure you hire employees whose values and interests jibe with the company? First of all, it is critical for your company to clearly understand its own culture. This requires a bit of soul searching.

This effort can be complex if yours is a larger company with many divisions and geographic locations. Each group within the organization may take on its own unique culture. In your search for a cultural identity, look at the enduring and stable things that the company values as a whole—and identify meaningful differences in these values across various branches or divisions.

Organizational culture has been studied by many different groups and has been defined in many different ways. Industrial psychologists have conducted decades of research aimed at defining organizational culture, the result being a set of relatively stable “work values” that define the aspects of work that are meaningful to an organization, based on the values of the individuals who constitute it.

Some of the most useful work has been performed by Jennifer Chatman, whose Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) identifies the following major dimensions:

• Innovation

• Stability

• Orientation toward people (fair and supportive)

• Orientation toward outcomes (results-oriented, achievement-oriented)

• Easygoing vs. aggressive

• Attention to detail

• Team orientation

The OCP uses these dimensions to measure fit via the following process:

First of all, a baseline for the organization’s culture is established. This is done by having members of the organization make ratings based on their opinions regarding which of the above dimensions they feel are most and least characteristic of the organization. These ratings are then aggregated to provide a profile that defines the organization’s culture in terms of these dimensions.

Second, an individual’s “personal value profile” is created. This process involves having individuals rank their own personal values (using the dimensions listed above) in terms of their most and least preferred work environment.

Finally, the individual’s ranking of the above work values is compared with the aggregate values profile created by the organization to summarize its culture. This comparison process yields detailed information about the overlap between the values of an organization (or one of its many groups) and those of an individual. These outcomes provide a data-based estimate of the fit between an individual and the group or organization.

As you can imagine, this information can be very useful for helping organizations make all kinds of important decisions. Perhaps the most important is within the hiring process. The work values that underlie cultural fit are relatively stable and enduring within individuals, so hiring people and trying to change their values does not often prove to be an easy task.

There are a number of different “fit” inventories available from pre-employment assessment companies, and it makes sense to look into these. When doing so, make sure to ask for the technical documentation that will demonstrate the measure has been created and evaluated using the proper scientific techniques.

SOURCE: Charles A. Handler, Rocket-Hire, New Orleans, August 13, 2009

LEARN MORE: Post-hire introductory periods provide a way to ensure people’s behaviors, attitudes and attributes actually dovetail with those of a company.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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Dear Workforce Newsletter

Dear Trapped:

Communication and awareness of organizational policy are keys to successfully dealing with this and similar situations.

First some background: The idea of personal boundaries in the workplace is not new. Look at traditional office space here in the United States. Traditionally, the higher you go on the corporate ladder, the more personal space you are given. That corner office is desirable to employees in large part because of the privacy it offers. Culture also plays a part in a person’s comfort level regarding personal space, both in one’s personal life and in the workplace. People intuitively know that the level of trust and intimacy in a relationship dictates how much physical space should be maintained among colleagues, friends and family. Finally, studies have revealed that women tend to need less personal space than men do, and some women touch a colleague in order to make a closer connection with the person to whom they are talking. The touching is not necessarily a sign of physical attraction. However, it is always improper to touch someone if it makes him or her feel uncomfortable.

There are several steps that should be taken with the employee in question. The situation needs to be dealt with without regard to the employee’s job performance or seniority. In policy matters, all employees need to be treated equally and consistently. The employee’s professional abilities or executive standing do not make inappropriate actions any more palatable.

The following actions have proved successful in these situations:

• Train employees to understand and respect the clues given to them by co-workers. For example, have you ever watched two people talking and noticed Person A constantly taking one step closer while Person B keeps taking one step backward? Body-language clues can be addressed during employee training sessions.

• Communicate to employees that getting too close for another person’s comfort is easy to do, and can happen before they realize it. Associates, supervisors and customers may take close talking and innocent touching as a threat to their emotional or physical well-being. Also communicate that if it’s not corrected, this behavior can cost employees their jobs. Finally, employees must understand that such behavior with customers can also affect the company’s business relationships.

• Communicate and train your employees on the firm’s generally accepted behavior, and include those behaviors in your employee handbook. Such policies should, however, recognize that everyone expresses themselves differently, and we should not confuse differences with bad behavior.

• Encourage your employees to ask colleagues and supervisors to speak up if certain actions offend them.

In summary, communication and awareness are keys to resolving this situation in a manner that keeps all employees focused and working effectively together.

SOURCE: Rania V. Sedhom, principal, Buck Consultants, New York, October 30, 2009

LEARN MORE: Employee misconduct needn’t be a problem. Learn what should be tolerated and how to handle behaviors that can spell legal trouble.

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Dear Workforce Newsletter

QDear Workforce:

    I would be interested to hearof some communications strategies for situations where the owner of a businessis relatively the same age as his staff (and trying to promote a “fun”workplace), and he is having trouble letting staff know when he is serious aboutdecisions/deadlines/performance factors. Often staff members do not perceive theseriousness of an issue in the midst of the fun environment.

– Peter Moritz, HRConsultant, Shalom Business Development Centre, Brisbane, Australia

Dear Peter:

    Never forget: You are runninga business, not a club. You hire people, not to have fun, but because there is abunch of work to be done. No matter how much you treat your employees likefriends – and no matter how much they may in fact be your friends – they areworking for you because you are paying them. If you stop paying them, they will stop coming to work. Count on it.

    Yes, it is very important tocreate a work environment in which every person feels comfortable, respected, andvalued. It’s important because it is the right thing to do, it is personallygratifying from the standpoint of the boss, and it makes employees feel glad towork hard and contribute. But a healthy enjoyable work environment is perfectlyconsistent with a clear and unyielding focus on the mission of the organizationand all the work that needs to be done every day to pursue that mission.

    As to fun, per se, that meansdifferent things to different people. To one person, fun could mean playing agame, watching a movie, or going to the mall; to another fun might mean goingfor a long walk or having a meaningful talk. But if “work” is to be fun andstill be “work,” it should mean some or all of the following: Working withpeople whom one likes and enjoys. Learning new and interesting things, whileworking. Feeling a sense of excitement about work. Tackling new challenges andtaking pleasure in the fruits of one’s work. And so on. Note that the commontheme here is “work.”

    Sometimes when people saythey want their workplace to be fun, what they really mean is they want tocreate an atmosphere where most people maintain a sense of humor and don’ttake themselves too seriously. This makes for a pleasant workplace, and onceagain, such a workplace is perfectly consistent with a clearfocus on results.

    The problem is that mostbusiness leaders, like most people, want to be liked by others, including theiremployees. As a result, sometimes a boss goes too far and errs on the side ofeasygoing, soft-pedaling his or her authority to the point that the employees -and thus the businesses – loses focus. Once that happens, it can be hard to getpeople back on track without seeming angry and punitive.

    If that’s the situation,here’s what I would do: get each person or each team focused on an importantproject. If the project is the regular work of the day, give it an urgentdeadline, even if you have to manufacture the urgency. Once you have everybody’sattention, clarify goals and deadlines for each individual. Be prepared to coacheach person to success and then hold people accountable. Reward the highperformers and let people who don’t deliver know that their performance isunacceptable.

    Giving people feedback ontheir performance – before, during, and after – is the key to coaching. Butfeedback is not aimless banter. It is the banter of acute focus, ongoingimprovement, and constant accountability. The only thing that matters is what weare doing here today. So that’s what we talk about. And we talk about it allthe time. Nobody gets chewed out, but nobody can hide. Everybody gets remindedall the time, so everybody is always on notice. Standards are high. There are noexcuses, only performance. If somebody is failing to perform, his or her onlychoice is to improve or else leave the team: “Good riddance.”

    By the way, what do you do,once that special project is done? Do it again. And then do it again. And again.Every project is a special project in a high-performance organization. By theway, keep your sense of humor, don’t take yourself too seriously, and makesure everybody is having “fun” while they are
working very well, very hard, and very fast.

SOURCE: Bruce Tulgan, adviser,RainmakerThinking Inc., New Haven, Ct. is author of several books, including Winningthe Talent Wars (WW Norton, 2001), www.winningthetalentwars.com.

E-mail your Dear Workforcequestions to Online Editor Todd Raphael at raphaelt@workforce.com,along with your name, title, organization and location. Unless you stateotherwise, your identifying info may be used on Workforce.com and in Workforcemagazine. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to answer every question.

 

 

 

Dear Workforce:
I’m thinking adopting a smoke-free workplace policy. What would you suggest I keep in mind?

If you haven’t already done so I would suggest finding out from your employees exactly what their concerns are, as well as the benefits they expect to see. If might not be too late to shape your program with an attempt to meet the specific needs that are identified.

In general, the potential pitfalls that I might expect could include any of the following: smokers feeling singled out and penalized and therefore resentful; scheduled breaks expanded informally to accommodate smoker s needs to find a smoking zone to get their fix; creation of a “them” vs. “us” environment; out-and-out disregard for the new rules.

Place an emphasis on the benefits for all employees when this program is rolled out. In addition, let workers know it is “their” policy and subject to modification and improvement over time as better ways are found to create this type of environment.

SOURCE: Pamela L. Pommerenke, a professor of Human Resource Management at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Business, September 1998.

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Dear Down in the Dumps:

Following a brutal 2009, your organization is not the only one that forgot how to have fun. To rebuild some team spirit, you need to do something fun, either on- or off-site.

An important aspect of any work group is a chance to build cohesion among attendees. Activities should be integrated throughout the meeting that give participants a chance to meet and interact with different individuals on a variety of tasks and activities pertinent to the goals of the group—or just to add a break or variety to the workplace.

Some activities provide an opportunity to learn more about co-workers, while others function to move discussion forward, drive decision-making or identify follow-on actions. Since most professionals tend to be pretty active in their jobs, it is often difficult for them to simply sit for long periods of time without being more engaged in the discussion.

You can easily build such participation activities with your work group and encourage a little fun along the way. Here’s a sampling of participation activities I find to be of value that could get you started in the course of meetings and discussions at work:

Break the ice. Give each attendee a blank index card with five items on it (e.g., a person’s hobbies, hometown, favorite sports team, favorite food, vacation preference) and ask them to find someone else in the room who shares their preference for each item. As an alternative activity, ask each person to find out one unique thing about five different people in the group. Have people report on the most unusual items people learned about others in the group.

Drive team discussions. Have group members “number off” so that you end up with groups of five to six members. For example: “All No. 1s meet over here; No. 2s meet there,” and so on. Give each group an item to discuss pertinent to the meeting. Topics could include ideas on how to grow your business in a tight economy, cut costs in operations or similar themes. Ask people to brainstorm and select the best ideas, then report to the larger group. Collect ideas from each group, have them typed up, and distribute to everyone.

Live in a fish bowl. Forget PowerPoint slides. Instead, have a “fish bowl” discussion in which two or more participants discuss an issue, problem or pending decision facing the company. Have the presenters sit in a small circle of chairs in the midst of the group. Any other group attendees can enter the discussion by tapping an individual in the “fish bowl” and taking their place. Once all points of view seem to have been expressed, summarize the discussion and move to action items necessary for finalizing any decisions.

Take a fast break. Have all attendees stand and face to the left. Ask each person to grab the person in front of them and knead their shoulders. After a couple of minutes, ask everyone to face to the right and return the favor.

Use billboard rankings. List ideas generated during discussion on a flipchart. Allow each person in attendance to vote for a preferred strategy by sticking Post-It notes on the flipchart.

Use polling preferences. Similarly, allow each attendee to rank the ideas on a sliding scale of 1 through 5, with 5 being the highest score and 1 the lowest. Regardless of the results, allow participants to share comments, especially if there is disagreement on items that seem to have the strongest consensus.

End with a bang. At the end of the meeting, bring a bag of balloons of various colors and distribute one to each participant along with a small piece of paper. Ask each participant to write a message on the paper to be inserted into the balloon on topics such as “Something I promise to do as a result of this meeting.” Ask everyone to insert the paper into the balloon and blow it up. At a common signal, have the balloons tossed and ask each person to grab a new balloon. Have participants pop their balloon and read aloud the message they received.

SOURCE: Bob Nelson, Nelson Motivation Inc., San Diego, January 29, 2010

LEARN MORE: Read how healthy work environments are being imperiled by global economic recession.

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The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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