Performance Management - Common Rating Errors

To be truly objective writing a performance review, you must look at the individual employee’s performance behaviour and rate accordingly. Watch for these common rating errors.

Contrast effect – The tendency of a rater to evaluate people in comparison with other individuals rather than against the standards for the job. Of the five managers with objectives to reduce turnover by 10%, four of them reduced it by 20%, yet one receives a Below Target because they reduced turnover by 10%.

Halo/Horns Effect – Inappropriate generalizations from one aspect of an individual’s performance to all areas of that person’s performance. Rating an Above Target to a manager who is great at a specific operational task yet has difficulties coaching their direct reports.

Similar-to-Me Effect – The tendency of individuals to rate people who resemble themselves more highly than they rate others. Rating a Below Target to a manager who is an effective recruiter yet who style of recruiting is not your preference.

Recency Effect – The tendency of minor events that have happened recently to have more influence on the rating than major events of many months ago. Rating Above Target to a manager who in the past month did a great job organizing the back room who had performance problems earlier in the year.

Central Tendency – Generally occurs when we choose to give all employees similar ratings rather than thinking about them as individuals and giving them realistic ratings focused on their own performance. Rating all managers On Target for their people objective even though one manager clearly leads to team in developing people.

Considerations When Assigning Ratings

- Whether or not the results were accomplished in the set time frame.

- The extent to which the result met or exceeded the standards of performance (Did the performance exceed expectations in only a few areas, or across of the board?)

- The relative importance of each of the objectives within the category.

- Obstacles that impeded performance. There may have been a circumstance in which an employee was on track for accomplishing the objective until some unforeseen and uncontrollable event occurred. If this was the case, you may choose to not lower the employee’s rating substantially.

- Were contributions made to the organization in a way that met your expectations?

- Would performance at a lower level have been acceptable?

- As a manager, is your judgement clouded because the employee may have achieved results using a different style or method that might have?

Times of Change - Effective Tactics to Lead Change in Your Organization

John Kotter (who teaches Leadership at Harvard Business School) has made it his business to study both success and failure in change initiatives in business. "The most general lesson to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually require a considerable length of time. Skipping steps creates only the illusion of speed and never produces satisfactory results" and "making critical mistakes in any of the phases can have a devastating impact, slowing momentum and negating hard-won gains". From John Kotter’s book Leading Change, he summarizes the eight phases as follows:


1] Establish a Sense of Urgency
Talk of change typically begins with some people noticing vulnerability in the organization. The threat of losing ground in some way sparks these people into action, and they in turn try to communicate that sense of urgency to others. In organizations it is typically employee turnover, financial struggles or low morale. Kotter notes that over half the companies he has observed have never been able to create enough urgency to prompt action. "Without motivation, people won’t help and the effort goes nowhere…. Executives underestimate how hard it can be to drive people out of their comfort zones". In the more successful cases the leadership group facilitates a frank discussion of potentially unpleasant facts: about the new competition, flat earnings, decreasing market share, or other relevant indicators. It is helpful to use outsiders who can share the "big picture" from a different perspective and help broaden the awareness of your members. When is the urgency level high enough? Kotter suggests it is when 75% of your leadership is honestly convinced that business as usual is no longer an acceptable plan.


2] Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
Change efforts often start with just one or two people, and should grow continually to include more and more who believe the changes are necessary. The need in this phase is to gather a large enough initial core of believers. This initial group should be pretty powerful in terms of the roles they hold, the reputations they have, the skills they bring and the relationships they have. Regardless of size of your organization, the "guiding coalition" for change needs to have 3-5 people leading the effort. This group, in turn, helps bring others on board with the new ideas. The building of this coalition – their sense of urgency, their sense of what’s happening and what’s needed – is crucial.


3] Create a Vision
Successful transformation rests on "a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees. A vision helps clarify the direction in which an organization needs to move". The vision functions in many different ways: it helps spark motivation, it helps keep all the projects and changes aligned, it provides a filter to evaluate how the organization is doing, and it provides a rationale for the changes the organization will have to weather. "A useful rule of thumb: if you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are not yet done with this phase of the transformation process".


4] Communicate that Vision
Kotter suggests the leadership should estimate how much communication of the vision is needed, and then multiply that effort by a factor of ten. Do not limit it to one meeting, a presentation, or a couple of mail outs to employees. Leaders must be seen "walking the talk" – another form of communication -- if people are going to perceive the effort as important. "Deeds" along with "words" are powerful communicators of the new ways. The bottom line is that a transformation effort will fail unless most of the members understand, appreciate, commit and try to make the effort happen. The guiding principle is simple: use every existing communication channel and opportunity.


5] Empower Others to Act on the Vision
This entails several different actions. Allow people to start living out the new ways and to make changes in their areas of involvement. Allocate budget money to the new initiative. Carve out time on the upcoming meeting agenda to talk about it. Change the way your company is organized to put people where the effort needs to be. Free up key people from existing responsibilities so they can concentrate on the new effort. In short, remove any obstacles there may be to getting on with the change. Nothing is more frustrating than believing in the change but then not having the time, money, help, or support needed to effect it. You can’t get rid of all the obstacles, but the biggest ones need to be dealt with.


6] Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins
Since real transformation takes time, the loss of momentum and the onset of disappointment are real factors. Most people won’t go on a long march for change unless they begin to see compelling evidence that their efforts are bearing fruit. In successful transformation, leaders actively plan and achieve some short term gains which people will be able to see and celebrate. "When it becomes clear to people that major change will take a long time, urgency levels can drop. Commitments to produce short-term wins help keep the urgency level up and force detailed analytical thinking that can clarify or revise visions".


7] Consolidate Improvements and Keep the Momentum for Change Moving
As Kotter warns, "Do not declare victory too soon". Until changes sink deeply into a company’s culture -- a process that can take five to ten years -- new approaches are fragile and subject to regression. Again, a premature declaration of victory kills momentum, allowing the powerful forces of tradition to regain ground. Leaders of successful efforts use the feeling of victory as the motivation to delve more deeply into their organization: to explore changes in the basic culture, to expose the systems relationships of the organization which need tuning, to move people committed to the new ways into key roles. Leaders of change must go into the process believing that their efforts will take years.



8] Institutionalize the New Approaches
In the final analysis, change sticks when it becomes "the way we do things around here", when it seeps into the bloodstream of the corporate body. "Until new behaviours are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are subject to degradations as soon as the pressure for change is removed". Two factors are particularly important for doing this. People have to be helped to make the connections between the effort and the outcome.


Kotter writes, "There are still more mistakes that people make, but these eight are the big ones. In reality, even successful change efforts are messy and full of surprises".

Understanding & Connecting with Your Team

"Leaders matter greatly. But in searching so zealously for better leaders we tend to lose sight of the people these leaders lead. Without his armies after all, Napoleon was just a man with grandiose ambitions. Organizations stand to fall partly on the basis of how well their leaders lead, but partly also on the basis of how well their followers follow."
- In Praise of Followers, Robert E. Kelley

Who are you without your team? Often items we take for granted the notion that leaders require followers. Moreover, great leaders require great followers. What do great followers want out of a leader? Among other things, followers want a leader that understands what they are working on, why they are doing it and how it is all connected to their larger goals. Also, they want to be involved and connected to making a difference in the business. The challenge is, followers often do not know how to ask for things.

I'd like to introduce you to an article I read a few years ago - The Agenda - Grassroots Leadership, by Polly Labarre, Fast Company Magazine.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/23/grassroots.html

How it can work for you:

1. Read the story about Navy Commander D. Michael Abrashoff.

2. Schedule 30-minute one-on-one meetings with all employees that roll up under your organization. If that is too many people, meet with a minimum of your direct reports along with their direct reports.

3. Ask the following questions:

• What do you like about your job?
• What do you like least about your job?
• What would change about your job?
• At the end of the year, what does success look like?

Note: Some people may be hesitant to discuss these questions. Try and create an environment where people can feel okay with being authentic without consequences.

4. Take what you have learned through all the one-on-one meetings and try to evaluate whether you can make some simple quick changes in your organization that will make a difference to your people.

5. Evaluate where there might be larger areas in your organization that need change. Connect with key stakeholders to voice ideas and concerns.

What it can do:

• Create a platform for open and honest communication.
• Identify potential problems with an individual employee and/or organization.
• Aid in organization alignment to meet the company Mission and Strategy.
• Provide steps to create a better environment to cultivate stability and employee retention.
• Identify opportunities for improvement in your organization with employees and/or work process.

Food For Thought: Confronting the Brutal Facts (yet never lose faith)

I often go back to Jim Collin's book, Good to Great, for inspiring concepts to evaluate my progress as a leader.

Chapter 4 ponders the brutal facts of reality in your organization.

Here are some questions for you to think about:

1. In your organization, what brutal facts are being ignored or justified? What behaviour will be required of you to raise and face these issues?

2. At your next team meeting, focus on creating a climate where the truth can emerge.

• How could you practice leading with questions, not answers?
• What would ensure that you and others engage in dialogue and debate not coercion?
• How can you begin a practice of conducting autopsies without blame?
• In what ways can you build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored?

3. Have you lost a "good" person because they were de-motivated due to brutal facts not being addressed? What did you learn from this experience?

Managing Star Performers No One Wants to Work With

I found this article interesting. Our star performers are typically our bightest, talented and dynamic employees, yet they can annoy their peers and alienate themselves from the team.

Let's not forget about them, just because they know how to do all of the technical functions of their role. Focus on the leadership potential and building upon their self-awareness.

http://www.talentmgt.com/learning_development/2008/October/748/

Great Interview Questions

Have you ever left an interview with a candidate wondering what you talked about and whether you learnt anything about the candidate to make an effective hiring decision?

Try Behaviour-based Interviewing...BBI interviews provide a more objective set of facts to make employment decisions than other interviewing methods. Traditional interview questions ask general questions such as "Tell me about yourself." The process of BBI is much more probing and works very differently.

Employers use the BBI technique to evaluate a candidate's experiences and behaviours so they can determine the candidate's potential for success. The interviewer identifies job-related experiences, behaviours, knowledge, skills and abilities that the company has decided are desirable in a particular position. For example, some of the characteristics most sought after into today's work cultures:

- Ability to operate and work effectively in a team environment.
- Technical knowledge of the function.
- Critical thinking
- Willingness to learn

As the Hiring Manager, it is paramount that you structure very pointed questions to elicit detailed responses aimed at determining if the candidate you're interviewing possesses the desired characteristics. Questions (often not even frames as a question) typically start with: "Tell me about a time..." or "Describe a situation..."

How to prepare for behaviour-based interviews?

The best way to prepare for this type of interview is to equip yourself with a small list of questions that relate to the job you are hiring for, yet will elicit stories from the candidates you interview. It's OK if the candidate uses examples from internships, classes, projects, activities, team participation, community service and previous work experience: you're seeking examples of past behaviour. Behavioural questions should try to get at how a candidate responded to negative or positive situations in their past.

10 Sample Behaviour Based Interview Questions:

1. Give an example of how you applied knowledge from a previous "XYZ" project to a current project?
2. Tell me of a time when you worked with a colleague who was not completing their share of the work. How did you approach this individual?
3. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done
4. Describe a situation in which you found that your results were not up to your supervisor’s expectations. What happened? What action did you take?
5. Intuition, innovation and creativity are winning attributes of any organization. Can you share an example of when you had to create a leading edge initiative or system in order to simplify a process? What were the steps you took?
6. Providing constructive feedback to team members is sometimes difficult. Can you think of a time when you had to share difficult feedback or information that you knew was not going to be received well? How did you present the message in order to gain acceptance?
7. Tell me about a time when you had to gain support for an idea or initiative? Whose support did you solicit? How did you gain their support? What was the outcome?
8. I'm sure there are some highlights and successes in your career history. Can you think of a recent situation that resulted in a significant professional accomplishment that either benefited the project, a financial return or a colleague?
9. Tell me about a time when you had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks?
10. Outline a situation where you had to present an unpopular point of view. How did you deliver the message? What was the outcome?

Effective BBI Tips:

• To ensure questions are from the relevant past, ask candidate's to provide you with the most recent examples. E.g. "Tell me about a time during your last job when..." or "Give me an example from last year when you..."
• To ensure candidate's have multiple examples of the same skill, ask candidates how often their example would occur. E.g. "During the last year how often would this situation occur? or "How many times did you have to speak with them about this issue?"
• Assist candidate's to avoid generalizations, by making the question as specific as possible. E.g. "Tell me what your role was in...".

Assessing the Candidate from a BBI:

Ask yourself the following questions when you are assessing the candidate’s responses:

• Is the example relevant? Does it relate to the criteria for the position?
• Is the example recent?
• Does the example typify the candidate's beahviour or is it an atypical example?
• Is the example a good match to your company's culture and values?
• How does this example compare to other candidates applying for this position?

Meeting Effectiveness

"We always seem to get off track at our meetings and as a result waste a lot of time."


Here are some suggestions to make the most of your meetings:

- Clarify your objective at the beginning of the meeting or at the beginning of the agenda topic. E.g. "What do we want to accomplish by discussing this?"

- Periodically ask yourselves: "Is our present discussion helping us meet our objective?"

- Try using an old stand by - The Parking Lot. Have a flip chart handy headed The Parking Lot. Any issues or discussion that arise that are not on topic are parked on the flip chart for future attention. Ensure you have time at the end of the meeting to decide how and when to handle The Parking Lot items.

- Remember that being off track is o.k. if the group has chosen to go off track. A bit of humor, an interesting side story or an unexpected important issue that needs attention are all examples of potentially reasonable side trips. Being off track becomes a problem when the team is happily off track and doesn't know that it's lost."

- At the end of a meeting in which action items are agreed to recap the understanding of what each person has committed to do. Verify with each member that they understand the timelines agreed to and that they are able and willing to meet them. [In most groups this is assumed and not discussed. When someone makes a verbal and specific commitment they tend to place that action item higher on their priority list.]

- Emphasize the importance of commitments being completed on time and ensure everyone understands how lack of follow through will affect the project and the work of other team members.

- If, after expectations have been made clear and agreed to, a member still does not live up to their commitments address the issue directly. Find out why the member did not follow through and problem solve together.

- Use reminders, if necessary, if a member has a habit of not following through. Although one might argue that members are "adults" reminders used for a period of time may help them to change their behavior.

Working Through Change

To stay on top and remain competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment, we must continually change and reshape the way we run our business. Its likely things are changing around you – perhaps there was a recent change to the staff, or maybe a new policy was just sent over E-mail.

As a manager, you will be better able to manage change if you understand what happens to people during change. Knowing this will enable you to support your staff during change and help you effectively communicate change in your work environment.

What kind of change have you experienced?

Take a moment and review the list below. How many of these changes have you experienced? Think about which of these changes have impacted you the most:

- A new supervisor excited to try new ideas
- Introduction of a new training program
- Change in a policy and/or procedure
- Sudden change in the schedule
- Multiple managers resign in the same month
- Surprise visit from the corporate office
- New business trend
- Equipment failure, e.g. power outage
- Arrival of unexpected product
- Promotion to new position

It’s surprising how even the “simplest” change can bring on a multitude of different feelings and emotions. Think about how you reacted to those changes listed above. If you reacted negatively, what caused your fears or anxiety? If your reaction was positive, what made you feel the change was a good one?

As you consider these questions, realize you are probably not the only one who has experienced these feelings. Everyone is affected by change and reacts differently to change, depending on their personal needs or situation. Therefore, when trying to help individuals manage change, you need to focus on the behavioural clues that tell you what it is they need to accept a change.


Stages of Change

Knowing the stages of change and understanding behavioural clues, will help you support your employees while they adapt to change in their work environment.

Stage 1: Denial
The first stage, denial, happens when you cannot accept that real change is going to occur.

Typical comments during denial are:
“It’ll never work.”
“We don’t have a problem.”
“Nothing is really going to change.”

During denial people need:
- Information as to what’s going to happen: why, when and how it will happen.
- To know how it will personally affect them.
- Suggested actions they can take to adjust.
- Time to absorb and discuss the change.

Stage 2: Resistance
The second stage of change is resistance or anger. During resistance people become frustrated or fearful. Often they will verbally or physically withdraw from the situation. There’s a sense of loss because they begin to realize things will no longer be the same/

Typical comments of feelings during resistance are:
“This isn’t fair.”
“I’m just following orders.”
“Management doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

During resistance people need:
- To be listened to.
- Their feelings acknowledged in an empathetic and supportive way.
- Training new skills, if required.
- Goals to support the changes.

Stage 3: Exploration
During the third phase, exploration, people begin trying new ways of doing things and searching for personal successes related to the change.

Typical comments during exploration are:
“I agree with some of the change, but not all of it.”
“Working with the new manager isn’t so bad.”
“I’d like to make a suggestion that could make this change even better.”

During exploration people need:
- One-on-one coaching.
- Positive reinforcement and praise.
- Safety – evidence that some things are staying the same.
- Follow-up on projects already under way.

Stage 4: Acceptance
During the final phase, acceptance, people often embrace the change.

During acceptance, people often say things like:
“This new system has made my job easier.”
“I’ve heard so much more since our new manager has joined the team.”
“Customers are complimenting us more since the change was implemented.”

During acceptance people need:
- To be acknowledged and/or rewarded.
- To set long-term goals.
- Affirmation that the change is working.

Communicating Change

Knowing the four stages of change will make it easier for you to plan and implement change in your work environment. Clear communication is key to the success of change and it’s important to make a conscience effort to increase communication during change. By keeping employees informed, you reduce insecurity and anxiety that lead to gossip, unproductive behaviour and even turnover. Once you learn your work environment will be experiencing a change, take the following approach:

- Ask clarifying questions as to how and when the change will happen.
- Get a clear understanding of why the change is happening – what are the benefits to your business, customers or team.
- Become familiar with the implementation plan.
- Plan ways to prepare both yourself and your employees.

Once you are ready to communicate change:

- Move quickly to communicate the change.
- Determine the best way to ensure everyone who will be impacted gets the same information.
- Be straightforward, specific and direct about what’s changing.
- Encourage questions and comments. Let the staff give you ideas on how they can support the change.
- Be an active listener by paying attention and caring about what is being said.
- Be available (“open door” policy) to all members of staff.
- Have a plan for follow-up to ensure the change is going well for employees.