Posts about ‘Performance Management’
by Janna | August 19th, 2011
 When it comes to the challenges of managing people, there’s one hurdle pretty much everyone has to overcome. It often trips up new managers early on, but even experienced ones sometimes struggle with it. And if you don’t learn to deal with this issue effectively, it can really derail your ability to build, develop, and retain a great team.
What is this challenge? Accepting that your people aren’t like you.
I know you may think you get this concept, but my experience is most individuals “get it” intellectually but fight it anyway.
They keep insisting on managing their employees they way they’d like to be managed. They keep trying to get their team members to do things the way they’d do them. And they keep overlooking the fact that what motivates them won’t necessarily drive others at all.
What’s the solution?
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Posted in: Management, Motivation, Performance Management | Make A Comment »
by Martin | July 7th, 2011
 One activity that’s pretty much universally hated by both managers and employees is the Annual Performance Review (APR). Why companies persist in conducting these is beyond me as there’s a much more effective way to review and improve your people.
Before addressing a better method, let’s talk about why almost all managers and employees detest the annual process. For managers, APRs involve hours of preparation. Depending upon how the review system is constructed, the managers typically have to sift back through 12 months of activities for each employee, look for trends, analyze how well individual goals were met, take into account external and internal changes that took place during the year, prepare forms for HR and possibly compute amounts for bonuses and raises. That’s a ton of work for even one team member, and most managers are doing it for at least a half dozen or so direct reports.
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Posted in: Feedback, Management, Performance Management | Make A Comment »
 In a recent post on Alison Green’s excellent blog, Ask a Manager, she recommended managers present a simple question to each of their direct reports:
“What’s NOT getting done right now?”
Her thought was that many employees these days are overloaded, sometimes handling a heavy volume of work and taking on additional projects in order to keep understaffed teams afloat. She’s definitely right on this point, as the lay-offs and hiring freezes of recent years have left many managers I know with bare bones teams where people are often doing the equivalent of a job and a half.
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by Janna | April 12th, 2011
 I’m as big a fan as anyone of solving problems the right way. I firmly believe you should identify all the underlying causes and brainstorm all the possible solutions. I’m a big believer in weighing the pros and cons of various options and choosing a plan of action that will fix the problem thoroughly and completely. I find recurring issues distracting and frustrating and think taking the time to tackle them thoroughly, once and for all, is crucial.
Most of the time.
But I also think there are situations where a quick fix is perfectly acceptable. Sometimes an issue is critical but finding the time and energy to address it holistically is just not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, the problem keeps getting bigger and bigger, impacting more and more people. In these cases, you may need to ask a simple question:
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by Janna | March 31st, 2011
 As every manager knows, you have two types of people on your team: Problem Bringers and Problem Solvers.
Problem Bringers have a great talent for identifying anything that’s wrong and needs fixing. They spend a fair amount of time looking for issues to package up and drop right outside your door. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but we have a real problem here…” is how they call attention to what you or someone else needs to jump right on. They can tell you in detail what the issue is, how long it’s been going on, how bad it’s gotten and, most importantly, how much trouble it’s causing them.
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Posted in: Development, Performance Management | Comments Off
by Janna | March 15th, 2011
 Managers frequently ask me for input on all kinds of performance problems and challenges they’re having with their people. I’ve seen pretty much every undesirable employee trait out there and have offered ideas on how to handle even the worst of them. But there’s one particular issue that I find especially annoying, and I have a hard time being diplomatic when managers ask me what to about it. What is this irritating trait?
Immaturity.
I can’t stand it when people act like 3 year olds in the workplace. When they whine about someone getting something they didn’t, when they complain that they have to do something they don’t like to do, when they pout because you told them they did something the wrong way and need to fix it.
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by Janna | February 3rd, 2011
 So you have a team member you fear is just not going to make it. You’ve spoken with him repeatedly about issues that need to improve. You’ve mapped out a Performance Improvement Plan, offered training and coaching, dinged him at review time to get his attention, had several heart-to-heart talks. You’ve expressed your displeasure and disappointment in a multitude of ways, and you’ve made it perfectly clear he’s not getting the job done.
But nothing is changing. Oh, the problems will sometimes get better for a little while. This usually happens right after one of your sterner conversations. He promises to work on the issues, and for the short-term you do see some improvement. He seems to be focusing, putting some real effort into addressing the problems. But before long you start to notice slippage, and in no time the issues have returned.
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by Janna | January 11th, 2011
I’m often asked what I think distinguishes “training” from “coaching” when it comes to improving employee performance. The question usually comes from managers who are trying to figure out if a certain team member’s performance issue would benefit from either of these activities. In general, here’s what I see is the key difference between the two:
- Training typically addresses tangibles (skills, knowledge, methods, systems, policies, etc.).
- Coaching usually addresses intangibles (interpersonal skills, judgment, professionalism, maturity, etc.).
 If a team member is struggling with a part of the job that requires a tangible element to succeed, go with training. Develop the skills, build the knowledge, demonstrate the method or system, explain the policy—these steps will normally provide the tool or tools the person needs to get the job done.
But if the challenge requires help with an intangible, coaching will likely be what you need to provide. Why? Because coaching allows you to tailor the lessons to address the employee’s personality, style and specific shortcomings. It tends to be fairly interactive and focuses on coming up with solutions that may be unique to
specific situations. It’s usually much more personalized than training.
Let’s look at two areas in particular where coaching is most effective, and then we’ll work through the right way to approach an employee who needs it.
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Posted in: Development, Performance Management | 1 Comment »
by Janna | January 6th, 2011
If I had to choose a single word that describes how both managers and employees typically feel as they approach performance reviews, the one I’d select is dread.
Why? In my experience, managers dread preparing for and conducting reviews because they take a ton of time, involve a process that is usually outdated and/or ineffective and because they are often unsure how their feedback will be received by their team members.
Employees, on the other hand, often dread reviews because they feel like their managers are just going through the motions, checking off boxes and completing paperwork so the folks in Human Resources will get off their backs. Either that, or they’ve been blindsided in the past with negative feedback when they actually thought they were doing a pretty good job.
Either way, in many companies the review system needs a serious overhaul if it’s going to do what it’s supposed to: help employees improve their performance.
If your company’s review process could benefit from some upgrading, here are three simple tips to make reviews much more effective and turn them into something people on both sides of the table might actually look forward to.
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Posted in: Development, Performance Management | 1 Comment »
by Janna | December 14th, 2010
 If you’re a manager, how many people report directly to you? 5? 15? 25? More importantly, what’s the ideal number of direct reports managers should have? Does it depend on your management skills and experience level, or does it have more to do with how good your employees are?
These questions come up frequently in our management training classes. The first one is the question I always ask when we’re getting started in the session. The answers from the participants help me understand whether they’re trying to coordinate the efforts of a small group of employees or a large one.
The rest of the questions usually come from attendees as we start talking about all the things effective managers should be doing with their team members. You know, activities like:
- Giving them frequent feedback on how they’re doing
- Conducting regular (more than once a year) performance reviews
- Addressing performance problems directly and promptly
- Providing ongoing training and coaching to develop their skills
- Helping them set and achieve career path goals
The main thing I hear when we delve into this list of “shoulds” is, “Whoa, there’s no way I have enough time to do all those things with every person on my team!” Why is this a problem? Because most of the time managers have too many direct reports.
So how many is too many?
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Posted in: Leadership, Performance Management | Comments Off
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