first break all the rules
Post on 19-Aug-2014
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Alex GrechWeek #19 Alt-MBAwww.Alt-MBA.com
Measuring strength of Work PlaceHow do you measure the core elements needed to attract, focus and keep the most talented employees?
“Business Units were measurably more productive when employees answered positively on a scale of 1 to 5 to the following 12 questions.”
Gallup
Analysis of performance data from over 2,500 business units and over 105,000 employees
12 Questions1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials & equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?
Mos
t pow
erfu
l Que
stion
s
SummitH
ow can we all grow?
Do I belong here?
What do I give?
What do I get?
Mountain ClimbingGetting great at what you do
Questions 1 & 2
Questions 3 to 6
Questions 7 to 10
Questions 11 to 12
Yes to all 12
Questions
A great manager is a CATALYST
Catalyst:Ability to do four key activities REALLY well
1. Select the Person2. Set Expectations3. Motivate the
Person4. Develop the
Person
4 Keys of Great Managers
•Select for TALENT•Not simply experience, intelligence or determination1. Select the Person
•Define the right OUTCOMES•Not the right steps2. Set Expectations
•Focus on STRENGTHS•Not on weaknesses
3. Motivate the Person
•Find the RIGHT FIT•Not simply the next rung on the ladder
4. Develop the Person
A characteristic way of responding to the world around us. It tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore; which to love and which to hate. It is UNIQUE to you. Your filter and your recurring patterns of behaviour are enduring.Your filter more than your race, sex, age or nationality is YOU.
TALENT
A recurring pattern of THOUGHT, FEELING or BEHAVIOUR that can be productively applied.
FILTER
Key 1: Select for Talent
“People don’t change that much. Don’t waste your time trying to put in what can be left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”
WHAT GREAT MANAGERS KNOW
Key 1: Select for Talent
• Cannot be taught• 4-line highways of your mind• Recurrent patterns of thought, feeling or
behavioural• Difficult to transfer
Talents• Can be taught by breaking total performance
into steps• “How to do” of a role• Transferable
Skills• Can be taught• What you are aware of• Factual knowledge – things you know• Experiential knowledge – understandings picked
up along the way• Transferable
Knowledge
Elements of Performance
Key 1: Select for Talent
There are 3 Basic Categories of Talent
1. Striving – the ‘WHY’ of a person
2. Thinking – the ‘HOW’ of a person
3. Relating – the ‘WHO’ of a person
Key 1: Select for Talent
“The implication is not that people cannot change. Everyone can change. Everyone can learn. Everyone can get a little better. The language of skills, knowledge and talents simply helps a manager identify where radical change is possible, and where it is not.”
Key 1: Select for Talent
How managers find great talent
Study your best people
Know what talents you are looking for
Key 1: Select for Talent
How to manage by remote controlManager’s dilemma: how do you retain control and focus people on performance – when you know that you cannot force people to behave in the same way?
Define the right outcomes and then let each person find his own route toward those outcomes
Key 2: Define the right outcomes
Some outcomes defy definition
the temptation to Control!!
Trust is precious: it must be earned
My people don’t have enough talent
I want perfect people
Key 2: Define the right outcomes
“Forcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer dissatisfaction. If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step approach alone cannot get you there. Instead, you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to teach, and then you must focus them towards simple emotional outcomes like partnership and advice. If you manage to do this, it is something that is very hard to steal.”
Key 2: Define the right outcomes
How do you know if the outcomes are right?
Key 2: Define the right outcomes
What is right for your customers?
What is right for your company?
What is right forthe individual?
Let them become more of who they already are
Focus on each person’s strength and manage around his weaknesses.
Don’t try to fix the weaknesses.
Don’t try to perfect each person.
Focus on each person’s strength and manage around his weaknesses.
Do everything you can to help each person cultivate his talents.
Help each person become more of who he already is.
Key 3: Focus on strengths
Key 3: Focus on strengths
Casting is everything
If you want to turn talent into performance, you have to position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to do. You have to cast her in the right role. Everyone has the talent to be exceptional at something. The trick is to find that ‘something.’ The trick is in the casting.
Key 3: Focus on strengths
Spend the most time with your best people
‘No news’ kills behaviour
It’s the fairest thing to do
It’s the best way to learn
It’s the only way to reach excellence
And the best way to break through the ceiling
Key 3: Focus on strengths
Managing around a weakness
Determine if poor performance is not due to you as manager tripping the wrong trigger!!
Determine if poor performance is trainable
Determine if it’s a weakness or a non-talent
Devise a support system
Find a complementary partner
Find an alterative role
Key 4: Find the right fit
A rung too far
Most employees are promoted to their level of incompetence. It’s inevitable. It’s built into the system.
Key 4: Find the right fit
The PROBLEM with climbing the ladder
One rung does not necessarily lead to another.
The conventional career path is condemned to create competition and conflict. Why not create heroes in every role?
Conventional ‘wisdom’ programmes employees to hunt for marketable skills and experience to climb to the next rung. This thinking is often flawed.
Key 4: Find the right fit
“BEFORE you promote someone, look closely at the striving, thinking and relating talents needed to excel in the role. After scrutinising the PERSON and the ROLE, you may still choose promotion. Since each person is highly complex, you may still end up promoting someone into a position where he struggles. No manager finds the perfect fit every time. But at least you will have taken the TIME to weigh the FIT between the DEMANDS of the role and the TALENT of the person”.
Key 4: Find the right fit
Create heroes in EVERY role
Set up levels of achievement for EVERY role
For every role, define pay in broad ranges, with top-end of lower-level role overlapping bottom end of role above
Set up ‘creative acts of revolt’ (special projects)
What Great managers do
Key 4: Find the right fit
Level the PLAYING FIELD
Hold up the MIRROR
Create a SAFETY NET
Key 4: Find the right fit
The art of tough love“Tough love is a mind-set. An uncompromising focus on excellence with a genuine need to care. It focuses great managers to confront poor performance early and directly. It allows them to keep their relationship with the employee intact. Even if the employee has to be ‘let go’. Understanding that each person possesses enduring patterns of thought, feelings and behaviour liberates managers who have to confront poor performance. Because it frees the manager from blaming the employee.”
The art of interviewing for talent
Ensure talent interview stands alone
Ask a few open-ended questions and then try and stay quiet
Listen for specifics
Talent clues: rapid learning
Talent clues: personal satisfactions
Know what to listen for
The art of performance management
Keep the routine SIMPLE
Meet FREQUENTLY: minimum once a quarter
Focus on the FUTURE
Ask employee to keep track of HIS OWN performance and learnings
What great managers expect of every talented employee
Look in the mirror any chance you get
Muse
Discover yourself
Build your constituency
Keep track
Catch your peers doing something right
How to operate if your manager is not quite ‘perfect’
If she’s too ‘busy’, schedule a performance planning meeting
If you are forced to do things ‘her way’, tell her you want to define your role more by outcome, than by steps
If you receive inappropriate praise, suggest alternative ways
If she constantly intrudes, ask if ‘OK to check in less frequently than current practice’
If your ‘problems’ are of an entirely different nature, if your manager consistently ignores you, distrusts you, takes credit for your work, blames you for her mistakes or disrespects you… then get out from under her. You deserve better.
What companies can do to create friendly climate for great managers
Keep the focus on outcomes
Value world-class performance in every role
Study your best
Teach the language of great managers
Master keys that senior management of a company can use to break through ‘conventional wisdom’s’ barricades
“Great managers make it all seem so simple.Just select for talent, define the right outcomes, focus on strengths and then, as each person grows, encourage him or her to find the right fit. Completing these few steps with every single employee, your department, division or company will yield perennial excellence.”
End thoughts
NOBODY said all this is EASY!
A great manager sometimes has to STRUGGLE to BALANCE the competing interests of the company, the customers, the employees and even her own.
End thoughts
End thoughts “The needs of the COMPANY and the needs of the EMPLOYEE, misaligned since the birth of the corporation over 150 years ago, are CONVERGING.
The intersection of the company’s search for VALUE and each individual’s search for IDENTITY are forces of change that have seeded into the corporate landscape for over 10 years.
The best managers are those who know how to be CATALYSTS and speed up these forces of change.”
AcknowledgementsAll images from Flickr under Creative Commons licences
http://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/3469322016http://www.flickr.com/photos/alele/2293155601
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28031327@N05/2615751976http://www.flickr.com/photos/foreby/2785429894http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragesoss/2374914189http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/359188253
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnian/2266798033http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/233228813
http://www.flickr.com/photos/splityarn/3428570139
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnandketurah/2886955130http://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/1154746963
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazy_jenius/2268675201
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/2962194797http://www.flickr.com/photos/angelsk/3450497836
http://www.flickr.com/photos/e3000/256560692/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugopan/72708544http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpsfender182/3006123707
http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/63656900
http://twitter.com/alexgrech
http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/3437441877http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendelsohn/532213817
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