Performance Management/Improvement – What is the Problem?

April 26th, 2012

In our experience, the performance management process is one of the most misunderstood concepts, and one of the most poorly used.

Performance management, unfortunately, is usually used as a blunt instrument to get rid of a long-standing low-performing staff member. People thrown into the formal performance management process are already written off – the entire aim of the process is for the person to be sacked or pushed out of the organisation.

Rarely at this stage of the game is there any real interest in the actual development of the person. And often the attitude is that there is no time for that sort of rubbish anyway.

However most of the time, this formal performance management process seems to fail – and fail everyone. People then become cynical about the process – managers feel unsupported by the process & the organisation. They think, “there’s no point putting people into the process, it doesn’t work”. Staff feel extremely threatened by the process, and it leaves a stigma on them. So the process becomes even harder, & underperformance is ignored or tolerated.

The result is underperformers keep underperforming. This means less productivity in a resources scarce environment – everyone seems to be trying to do more with less these days. But in this situation, more resources are needed because the ones there aren’t being utilised properly.

More often than not, as budget is tight, everyone else on the team gets loaded up with the work. Or more of the rare and valuable budget (taxpayers’ money!) has to be spent on more people being paid to fill the gap & do the job.

In addition, keeping on an underperformer & not addressing the situation can effect and lower the productivity of the rest of the team – they can become a cancer. It creates resentment, & breeds unhappiness – and further reduces productivity. Often, those hard-working team members who are performing well think, “why should I bust a gut when Joe Bloggs is swanning along at 50% capacity & still getting paid the same?”

Then what usually happens, what we call “The Forgotten Good Syndrome”, kicks in: the excellent performers drop down a notch to very good, the very good go to good, the good go to satisfactory, & the satisfactory become more underperformers. And productivity drops further.

So, why does this happen? And what can be done to change it?

In regards to why – well, performance management is usually seen by the organisation, managers and staff members, as a single, stand-alone step i.e. the final step…out!

Organisations and managers regularly jump straight into Step 3 (see Figure 1) & miss out on Steps 1 & 2.

A staff member gets put directly into Step 3, the formal performance management process…then, usually quite justifiably, appeals that process. The appeal is often upheld…because it comes to light that the person has never (or rarely) been told they’re doing a poor – or good – job in the first place.

They usually have not had any direct, constructive and meaningful feedback about their lack of performance, and little or no constructive feedback as to what to do to get up to the required standard. On top of that, there is often not a culture of regular, positive, constructive, enabling, motivating feedback on a day-to-day basis, so staff don’t know what they are doing right or wrong. The result is the staff member keeps doing what they think is the right thing.

Often there are no clear expectations, benchmarks & boundaries of what is expected of a person. And if there are, many managers fail to enforce these benchmarks & boundaries until they have been so badly eroded & the line is so blurred, it feels like it’s too late to do anything about it.

If a person hasn’t been told honestly, directly, constructively and respectfully by their manager that they are underperforming in the first place, is it fair that they are thrown straight into a formal performance management process? Of course not – so it fails.

If the person hasn’t been told honestly, constructively & respectfully by their supervisor what to do to improve their performance, asked what help they need to step up to the required standard & then given that help – how can they be expected to step up to the required benchmark? Is it fair that they are thrown straight into a formal performance management process? Of course not – so it fails.

If they don’t even know what the required benchmark is, if there is no clear standard of ‘satisfactory’, realistically, how can they be expected to meet that benchmark? It’s hard to justify, so the performance management process fails.

Before we go any further, let me clarify one thing – this is not to say it is all the manager’s fault. Not at all.

The individual must also take responsibility for asking for feedback on their performance. For clarifying with their manager what the required benchmarks are. They must take responsibility for asking for feedback on their performance, even if the manager isn’t giving it. That is something that rarely happens in many places – there is often an entitlement mentality, when everything is the manager’s fault. This shouldn’t be so, it is a two way street.

However, the manager must take a significant burden of the responsibility, as this is their job after all! But, many managers are not equipped to do this – few are trained in how to do any of it, and many understandably are scared of doing it and shy away as a result. This exacerbates the problem.

And when underperformance hasn’t been addressed, for whatever reason, when someone can & does step up & starts constructively addressing it, it creates a lot of tension, resentment and backlash. People can feel singled out & persecuted, and wonder why it has suddenly happened when things have been running this way for years… So complaints are often made, and so managers also feel persecuted…, then often it all becomes too difficult & quietly gets pushed aside.

So, what can be done?

Well, a good performance management process should be a performance improvement process. It should ideally encompass the steps in Figure 1. If you have Steps 1 & 2 in the organisation, then:

  1. Underperformance will be a lot less prevalent, if it exists at all – staff and managers will know what is required, staff will know what they are doing well & what they need to improve & will be asking for help. The Forgotten Good Syndrome will be a rare disease! And as John McGrath says, “catch people doing something right!”
  2. Underperformers are identified early, and given every available assistance to be successful, to improve, up-skill and step up. And they normally do.  People rarely come to work to do a bad job!
  3.  If people continue to underperform, they are put into a formal performance management system that gives them every possible chance of success in improving.
  4. If they haven’t stepped up to the required benchmark, given they have had all of the assistance above, is it then fair that they are asked to leave the organisation? Yes, I think most people would agree it is.
  5.  We end up with a fair, equitable performance improvement/performance management system that works – for everyone!

Please contact us (02 9474 1005 or email info@southerncrosscoachbing.com.au)  to find out more about our Performance Management & Performance Improvement Programs and how we can assist you develop Performance Management in your team and/or organisation.

 Southern Cross Coaching & Development Pty Ltd (www.southerncrosscoaching.com.au) has worked with the Public Sector for many years, so we understand the nuances of the Public Sector and can work with you to achieve what you need.

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2012 ICF Global Coaching Study – Executive Summary

February 10th, 2012

ICF’s first ever global industry study to provide a baseline picture of the profession, identify what coaches saw as the major challanges, and estimate the size of the profession.

This paper is a summary of the findings of the 2012 ICF Global Coaching Study. The study was commissioned in 2011 by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and was under taken by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

2012icfglobalcoachingstudy_executivesummary

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Making 2012 More Boom Than Bust

January 19th, 2012

During the research for our recently released book, Let Go to Grow; why some businesses thrive and others fail to reach their potential (Palari Publishing, 2011), we spoke with more than 100 small and midsize business owners. We discovered that it is possible to have a profitable, growing business in this economy, but you need to be willing to take a close look at how you are managing your business. Focusing on four key steps can help you to have a breakout 2012!

Adventure is just bad planning

Have you had enough of the rollercoaster, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants method? Try planning instead?there is a simple three-step process. First, you have to set written goals. What do you want to achieve in 2012? It seems like such a simple question, but many businesspeople go year after year without ever deciding exactly what they want to achieve. Amazingly, these business owners are often surprised when results are disappointing. What are your revenue goals? What profit percentages do you want and need to make? Do you want to expand operations or launch a new product line? Commit your specific goals to writing.

Second, develop a plan to achieve your business objectives. What do you need to do differently in 2012 to meet these goals? Map out a step-by-step process that will result in achieving the goals you set. The plan should consist of a clear set of action items, completion dates and the name of the one person responsible for each action step. When more than one person is responsible, no one is accountable. Resist the temptation to assign more than one person to any single action step.

Finally, execute your plan and review progress periodically. These reviews must be scheduled and they must be a priority. Executing your plan and holding people accountable for results is very important, but it may not be considered urgent. Without discipline, the urgent will always overtake the important. Don’t fall into this trap.

Start with good people

It has become a cliché to say that our people are our greatest asset. While perhaps cliché, it is also true. You need good people with great skills to serve your customers and/or make your products. One hurdle we see small business people struggle with is acting on difficult employee issues. These can include underperformance, poor attitudes and mismatched skills. It is especially difficult when a loyal employee can no longer perform well because the job has outgrown his or her abilities. We have seen entrepreneurs reluctant to remove or layer a long-term employee, or worse, a family member or friend who is struggling to perform in a job to which they are not well suited. The situation is bad for all concerned. The employer, the employee and customers suffer.

In 2012, first review your goals and action steps. Next, imagine the roles, skills sets, behaviors and cognitive capabilities you will need to achieve your goals successfully. Finally, take a hard look at the individuals on your team. Be brutally honest when you consider whether they have or could reasonably acquire the skills and other attributes necessary to help you complete your plan. If not, you will need to make some difficult decisions.

Don’t delay. We have never heard anyone say, “I think I fired Mary too soon. I should have given her several more chances.” On the other hand, we have often heard small business people lament, “I wasted so much time giving Mary chance after chance. Why did I wait so long to make that change?” You need good people to execute your plan. You must help your folks develop the skills they need or get folks that already have them.

Don’t fall into the insanity trap

You have probably heard the quote that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. The truth is that poor processes breed poor results and the results won’t change until the processes are improved. If you want to do things faster, at a lower cost, and with better quality in 2012 you will need to develop better processes.

The first step is to document your existing processes. Write them down. It’s not sexy and no one is going to pay you an extra nickel because you have documented processes, but this is the only way to ensure consistency across the organization and it’s the only way to launch a process improvement initiative. You can’t improve a process until there is agreement on how things are currently done.

Once processes are documented, look for ways to streamline the operation. Can waiting time be removed? Generally, this is where most of the opportunity lies. Can steps currently performed in series be done in parallel? Can steps be eliminated altogether because they are simply unnecessary? Is it possible to automate pieces of the operation? Answering these questions will help you identify ways to do things more quickly and at a lower cost.

Finally, when a problem arises, first fix the immediate situation. Make it right for the customer. This has to be the priority. But, your work isn’t done when the customer is satisfied. Don’t miss the opportunity to fix the underlying cause. Ask the question, what do we have to do to ensure that this problem never happens again? Fixing the root cause of the problem will improve quality in the future.

Measure more than once

When we begin working with an entrepreneur one of the first things we do is review their financials and other metrics. Frequently, we notice two opportunities for improvement: the financial statements can be enhanced to enable more effective management decision making and metrics other than financial statements can be developed.

First, for management decision making, financial statements should generally be prepared on an accrual basis rather than on a cash basis (small businesses may well choose the cash method for taxes). The reason is that accrual accounting does a better job of matching expenses with the revenue they generated.

Second, P&Ls that simply have revenue, a number of cost categories and a bottom line profit are generally less useful for management decision making than they could be. It is often useful to separate the cost of delivering a product or service from overhead. Third, if the company has managers that are responsible for expenses and/or revenue, the specific areas of responsibility for each manager should be broken out separately. This allows clear accountability. Finally, to be useful for management decision making, financial statements must be completed in a timely manner. Many small businesses go months without producing financials. This is a huge mistake because problems can go unnoticed. At most, the books should be closed within two weeks of the end of the month.

When a business reaches the size that the owner can no longer be involved in every transaction, additional metrics, beyond financial statements, will be required. When the owner isn’t involved in every transaction, he or she can’t possibly know everything that is going on in the business. By the time problems turn up in the financial statements, it can be too late. Consider a business that ships products to customers. If shipments start to go out late, this will eventually show up in the financials in the form of lower revenue because customers have become frustrated and taken their business elsewhere. Unfortunately, the damage is done. The customers are gone. What’s needed is a metric that alerts the owner to late shipments while there is still time to correct the problem.

Source:

Business Know How

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Planting your Seed: a story of Courage & Honesty

September 15th, 2011

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. “The young executives were Shocked, but the boss continued.

“I am going to give each one of you a SEED today – one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with   what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then   judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be   the next CEO.”

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.
By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure.
Six months went by — still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.  Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot.

But she asked him to be honest about what happened.

Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot  to the board room.

When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety  of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young  executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO. “Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!”

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought,

“The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!”

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed – Jim told him the story. The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives,

“Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!

His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed. “How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.

Then the CEO said,

“One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow”

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you.

Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!”

The Moral of the Story

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
* If you plant hard work, you will reap success
* If you  plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

http://www.theeducator.ca/philosophy/planting-your-seed/

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7 tips for SME business owners to take a [long] holiday

August 22nd, 2011

For many SME business owners, and especially sole traders who are the business and sell their time, taking time out of a small business and having a holiday can be more stressful than not having a holiday at all. Even the thought of it can cause a business owner to break out in a cold sweat and set the pulse racing – I know, I’ve been there!

Here are some top tips to help get you to that well-earned break – which was, after all, one of the main reasons you started your business up in the first place! Rarely will everything be ideal, but there are some things you can do to make it happen and make it happen more smoothly than it might otherwise.

1. Bite the bullet and go for it! The world will NOT end!

Decide you ARE going to take a holiday and just get started! Sometimes it’s as simple as that. If you wait until your business is perfectly systemised to run without you, you’ll likely be retired before that happens – so be realistic and be kind to yourself!

The world will NOT end if you aren’t there – really, it won’t! I’ve taken holidays when I was the only person in my business and thought my business would collapse, and have known many sole traders to take holidays thinking the same, but our worlds and businesses are still turning! In many cases (mine included), the businesses are actually turning better.

2. Be realistic – but set boundaries.

If you are a sole trader and sell your time, or you are the business, then you are unlikely to be able to take a complete break where you don’t have to check emails or voicemail and make the odd phone call. That’s often just the way it is. Accept it. That alone can make you relax a bit.

But make sure you set some boundaries around it – accept you will check your email/voicemail ONCE per day – and ONLY once! Then stick to that. What about my clients, I hear? (in a slightly panicking tone?!?) See Setting Expectations below…

3. PLAN IT!

Without planning, it will likely be a disaster – this rule applies to most things, not just taking a holiday. Remember the 7-Ps: Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance and Panic. Some key things to consider

a. Plan the time you take your break to fit in with your least busiest time
Understand there will rarely be the perfect time, so bite the bullet and work out the best option – otherwise you’ll never get time off! For example, if you are a bookkeeper, the month before the end of the financial year may not be the best option! Identify a time in your client/business cycle that involves the least involvement from you.

b. Plan what you can delegate. Plan what you can systemise.
This is why businesses often end up working better after the owner goes away, as if forces you to look at and work ON the business to make it work better.

The make sure you DO delegate it or systemise it! Talk won’t work. Ask your staff what they can do, how they can help. Ask for their help. You’d be surprised how powerful that can be…amazed, in fact! But that’s another article…

c. Can you find a partner/s who can work on things while you are away?
Can you do a deal to look after someone else’s clients while they are away so someone will look after yours while you are away?  This may not be an option for all, due to logistics and/or cost, but think seriously before you dismiss it. Obviously this involves a great deal of trust and isn’t an option for everyone – but you’d be surprised how often it IS an option when you think about it. Or can you get a contractor in temporarily?

d. Plan way ahead of the game – think about the clients you take on.
Will that new client allow you to take 3 weeks off in the future? If not, do you even want to take them on as a client in the first place?

4. Set expectations

The world will NOT end! Trust me, it won’t! I have been scared, and you may be scared your clients can’t manage without you – and they may tell you that… But they will manage! Mine managed while I was away, so will yours.

The important thing is to tell them you are going to be away, for how long, and that you will be there for emergencies… BUT, set the expectation of when and how often you’ll get back to them, remind them it is only for emergencies.

How many times have people left voicemails and when they’ve been called back the next day, they say “ah, it’s ok now; I’ve sorted it out, thanks”.

Setting expectations is the key. The number of times I put my out-of-office on for a day or two when I’m away training or coaching, and all those normally urgent emails I feel compelled to answer so quickly suddenly can wait for 2 days – purely because I’ve set that expectation.

5. Educate your clients

Think about how you can teach them to fish. I do that when coaching clients as a matter of course, and it is very powerful.

Using the bookkeeper example again – if you have a client with a weekly payroll, can you teach them how to do just enough to get through it while you are away? Make it clear that you will fix things up when you get back if they make mistakes, and not to worry too much!

6. Butt out!

Back off! Let go! Butt out! Resist the temptation to stick your fingers in!

If you say you are only going to check emails/voicemails at certain times or a certain number of times a day/week, do it! If you start emailing and calling clients/staff regularly, they will expect you to be available all the time and you end up not having a break at all.

And if you have delegated to a staff member/trusted person, let them do what was agreed. Don’t be like a builder friend of mine who delegated responsibility to a trusted person, then wakes up at 1am the day after his hip operation to email a client direct! If you need to communicate to the client, and you have set the expectation they will be dealing with a trusted person, go through that trusted person! If you have to talk to the client direct, do it at the agreed time, not showing them you’re available 24/7 – they will expect you to be available then. Stick to the boundaries.

7. Enjoy your holiday!

Don’t forget to enjoy yourself! Make a conscious effort to enjoy your time. It is hard to let go, but if you keep hanging on, you just get tired arms!

Then you will likely drop off the perch when the safety net is away being serviced, as opposed to letting go when you choose to… and the landing – although it may still be hard – will be a lot softer than it might be otherwise!

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Demystifying the Heroic Supervisor

July 28th, 2011
Why senior leaders should not leave the heroics to the shopfloor supervisor. (reproduced from an article by Dr Peter Langford, MAHRI is the director of Voice Project)
Once upon a time a band of well-intentioned consultants travelled to a land far, far away. On their return they told of a mythical hero, who they named ‘Supervisor’. This hero would overcome the weakness of the evil ‘Senior Executive’, and bring engagement and change to all employees. Despite some naysayers, the consultants built a strong following.

But alas, the passing of years brought insight, and the realisation that the Senior Executive could not be dismissed so easily.
As with all fables, there are lessons for the enlightened reader. The ideal of the heroic supervisor has arisen in part from a Harvard Business Review article published in May 1996 where Larkin and Larkin wrote “frontline supervisors – not senior managers – are the opinion leaders in your organisation”.

Many managers and HR professionals hold a misleading, but surprisingly persistent belief that supervisors are the primary source of influence in organisations.

Research by Voice Project at Macquarie University, however, presents a very different story.

  

Using research and consulting data from over 100,000 employees across over 2000 organisations, an extremely consistent pattern of results has been found showing that senior leaders hold far more sway over employee engagement than supervisors.

It is firmly believed that senior leaders are neglecting a critical component of their jobs if they do not recognise the profound impact they personally have upon the engagement of their employees. Much of the belief in the power of supervisors stems from the level of distrust between staff and senior leaders.

Figure 1 shows results from one specific client that assessed the levels of trust between staff and four levels of managers, as well as with co-workers.

Unsurprisingly, trust in co-workers (the immediate staff in one’s own work unit) was by far the highest, at 90 per cent favourable.

There follows a clear downward trend in trust as the levels of management became further removed.

Trust in senior executives only reached 57 per cent favourable.

Benchmarked against all other organisations in our database, these results are typical of most organisations.

The other primary argument in favour of supervisors is they are in more immediate and regular contact with most staff than senior leaders. In some ways this closeness of relationship appears to provide a convenient ‘out-clause’ for senior leaders, with many CEOs and general managers happily delegating to team leaders the role of managing relationships with staff. Such a decision is dangerously misguided.

In contrast to the poverty of trust in senior executives shown in Figure 1, Figure 2 shows the strong influence of senior executives upon employee engagement, in comparison to the far lower (but still significant and practically important) influence of supervisors.

The pattern of results in Figure 2 demonstrates it is the trust between staff and senior leaders that most impacts staff satisfaction, commitment and intention to stay.

While by no means ideal, staff can put up with a poor relationship with an immediate supervisor if they trust that senior leaders are looking out for the little guys throughout the organisation.

What do these findings indicate? It is clear the biggest gap and priority for most organisations is to build trust between staff and senior leaders. The quality of relationship between most staff and their immediate co-workers and supervisors is already of a reasonable quality, and the impact of these relationships is comparatively low. In contrast, the quality of relationship with senior leaders is worse despite the impact of this relationship being much greater.

These results speak to a need for CEOs, general managers and senior executives to acknowledge and embrace the critical role of relationship manager. Time in their busy diaries must be found for regularly meeting and communicating with staff. To give credit where credit is due, Larkin and Larkin emphasised the superiority of face-to-face communication over memos and emails. The influence is achieved through in-person visits to factory floors, toolbox sessions and town hall meetings. Of course, if such behaviour is irregular and seen to be insincere staff will pull further away. But if the behaviour is repeated and genuine, staff will wholeheartedly lend their bodies and souls to the CEO’s cause.

Recently, the leadership competencies most strongly associated with employee satisfaction were investigated. Surveying staff opinions of nearly 3000 leaders, the top three drivers of satisfaction with leaders were:

1) leaders openly involving staff in cooperative decision-making
2) leaders demonstrating empathy with the experiences of employees
3) leaders managing stress well and minimising the impact of their own stress levels upon employees.

Of course, other more task-oriented behaviours have a significant impact upon the productivity of employees and the strategic positioning of organisations. Nevertheless, these three behaviours highlight some of the ways senior leaders can most effectively build trust among their staff.

It is human nature to want to trust, but it is also human nature to not hand out trust too quickly or lightly. If our supervisors have earned our trust, that’s comforting. But if our senior leaders have earned our trust, that is profound. We shouldn’t dismiss the important role played by frontline supervisors, but the true heroes are the senior leaders who are able to balance an abundance of priorities and still build trust with all employees.

Dr Peter Langford, MAHRI is the director of Voice Project, a research and consulting company based at Macquarie University that specialises in organisational surveys and the diagnosis of culture, leadership and engagement.

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leadership: The impact of status (yours & others) and valuing people, including yourself

June 3rd, 2011

The Only Thing That Really Matters:

Reprinted from Tony Schwartz, Harvard Business Review

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/06/the-only-thing-that-really-mat.html#comments

Think for a moment of the last time you felt triggered — pushed into negative emotions by someone or something. Here, for example, are several of my triggers: feeling taken advantage of, not getting a response to an email I’ve sent to someone, and not being acknowledged for good work I’ve done.

We move into negative emotions — what we call the “Survival Zone” in our work at The Energy Project — when we feel a sense of threat or danger.

But what is the threat exactly? Over the past decade, my colleagues and I have asked thousands of our clients to describe something that consistently triggers them and then explain why.

Remarkably, we’ve found that a trigger can almost always be traced to the same root cause: the feeling of being devalued or diminished by someone else’s words or behaviour. Consider my triggers above.

The struggle to feel valued is one of the most insidious and least acknowledged issues in organizations. Most employees are expected to check their feelings at the door when they get to work. But try as we might, we can’t.

How we’re feeling — and most especially whether or not we feel acknowledged and appreciated — influences our behaviour, consumes our energy and affects our decisions all day long, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Our core emotional need is to feel valued. Without a stable sense of value, we don’t know who we are and we don’t feel safe in the world.

From an evolutionary perspective, the need to be valued is primal and survival-based. Sociologist Elijah Anderson respect as a key to the “code of the streets” in inner cities.

“The extent to which one person can raise himself up depends on his ability to put another person down,” Anderson explains. “Many inner-city young men in particular, crave respect to such a degree that they will risk their lives to attain and maintain it.”

It’s not much different in organizations. Across more than 200 studies of the effects of stress, researchers have found that the highest rises in cortisol levels — meaning the most pernicious “fight or flight” response — are prompted by “threats to one’s social acceptance, esteem and status.”

To feel valued (and valuable) is almost as compelling a need as food. The more our value feels at risk, the more preoccupied we become with defending and restoring it, and the less value we’re capable of creating in the world.

Doug Conant, the outgoing CEO of Campbell Soup and co-author of a wonderful new book, Touchpoints, is a rare example of a CEO who truly appreciates the relationship between personal value and the bottom line.

Over the past decade, Conant has spent at least an hour a day writing between 10 and 20 handwritten notes to people in his company — welcoming new hires, thanking employees for their contributions, and congratulating leaders for specific accomplishments.

“Toughness on issues, tenderness with people,” is Conant’s mantra.

Great leaders, I’m convinced, are sensitive to people’s deep need to feel valued because they recognize the same need — and the experience of vulnerability it prompts — in themselves.

When Conant took over as Campbell’s CEO in 2001, the company’s employee engagement scores were among the worst of any Fortune 500 company Gallup had ever polled. For every two engaged employees, one was disengaged.

Gallup’s gold standard for companies is 12 engaged employees for every 1 who is disengaged. Today, Campbell’s ratio is 17 to 1. Since Conant took over, the company’s sales and earnings growth has consistently outperformed the majority of food companies in the S&P, as well as the S&P 500 itself.

Of course, there still aren’t many leaders like Conant, so what do you do if you don’t feel valued in your organization? The answer is to take the matter into your own hands. It’s not the other person’s behaviour that triggers you, after all, but rather the way you interpret that behaviour, and how it makes you feel about yourself.

That’s actually good news, because it suggests you’re not a helpless victim. Rather than focusing attention on the other person when you feel triggered, try turning your attention inward.

First quiet your body and defuse the trigger by taking a deep breath. Next, ask yourself these questions: “Why am I feeling my value is at stake here, and is it really?” Finally, consider how you can hold onto your value without attacking the value of the person you feel threatened by. Blame merely keeps the trigger and the negative emotion alive.

Our challenge is always to reconnect to our own core value — even when someone else’s criticism cuts deep. What that requires, first and foremost, is compassion for ourselves.

Posted in 360-degree assessments, 360-degree Emotional Intelligence assessments, 360-degree Leadership assessments, Coaching, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence Coaching, Emotional Intelligence Training, Executive Coaching, Executive Development, Leaderhip training, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Development, Life Coaching, Management, Southern Cross Coaching & Development, Staff management, Team Coaching, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Get yourself into action! How to take those first difficult steps…

February 1st, 2011

Are you one of the many people who have set a personal/business/work goal or a resolution, or said you’ll do something – even something small, but never actually achieved it – or even got started on it?

Well, welcome to a very, very large club! Many, many people are in the same situation! Why is that?

There are many reasons of course, and fear, lack of confidence, lack of self-belief etc all play their parts. There are many factors in the equation. However, all these things have one problem in common.

And it is a problem that can be overcome! You can get you through those fear & other factors!

The underlying problem is getting into action – taking the first steps on the journey.

People often get ‘goal shy’: it often all looks too much of an insurmountable obstacle & all too difficult, & more often than not, people don’t know where or how to start. Then, as we all know, nothing happens. We never take even the first steps to get things started. And that starts to erode that self-confidence further… it can be a vicious circle.

The old saying by Ghandi that “a journey of 1000 miles starts with one step” may be a cliché, but it’s true. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time*!

I did a fire-walk a few years ago, & the hardest thing was taking that first step – once I was on there, I most definitely got going & kept going!

Helping you take those first steps is often what it is about. Taking those first small actions – getting going with the first small steps on the journey.

Getting going & taking action can help overcome your fears, boost confidence, empower you to feel like you CAN get there! Then you can take more steps, bigger steps, & before you know it, you’re well on the way to achieving that goal without really thinking about it.

Hold yourself accountable to get into action! Use your friends or family, whoever, reward or penalty, to hold yourself  accountable to DO things! Once you get going, things start to roll – for example, you want to get a pay rise, but are scared or don’t know how to go about it.

If you think about the very first steps that you need to take, then you are likely to get it happening. The first step is likely to be booking a meeting with your boss to discuss it – once that is in your – and his/her – diary you will be much more likely to get going on working out what you have to say, writing a case, etc, because there is something to hold you accountable to do something!

There is an online system that will get you going & get you holding yourself accountable: “Smifffffy – Getting things from ‘to do’ to ‘DONE’ ®” is about holding you accountable for the next actions you need to take. It is designed to get you focused on reward or penalty for the actions you need to take by you holding yourself personally accountable, or better still through getting your friends (or enemies!) involved to hold you accountable.

Most of the time, we don’t do things because there is no-one to hold us accountable, or there is not that really compelling thing to get us doing what may not be the most pleasant of tasks.

Whether you need a system to help you, or you can do it on your own, the biggest key to achieving what you want to achieve it just get started! Take that first a small step! Take some action! Get moving! And get people to hold you accountable for those actions!

You’ll be amazed how far down the road you’ll be or how much of the elephant you’ve eaten* before you even realise it!

"Positive thinking is great - combining it with practical, positive DOING is what gets results" Smifffffy

Go to www.smifffffy.com.au – log-in & get yourself going. It will get you into action & doing the little steps that will get you going to achieve what you need to achieve. You can also use it as a personal reminder system. It uses emails & SMS reminders, so you have the information & reminder on your phone wherever you go! Get your friends involved to hold you accountable to do things – and have some fun along the way!

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" Ancient Chinese proverb

(* if your goal is to lose weight, maybe start the 1000 mile journey rather than eating an elephant ;-) !)

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Posted in Career Coaching, Coaching, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Executive Coaching, Executive Development, Leadership Development, Life Coaching, Management, Smifffffy, Southern Cross Coaching & Development, Staff management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Qualities of Skillful Leadership: Featured Article by Jim Rohn

December 14th, 2010

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:

1) Learn to be strong but not rude.
It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

2) Learn to be kind but not weak.
We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3) Learn to be bold but not a bully.
It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.

4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid.
You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.

5) Be proud but not arrogant.
It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.

6) Develop humor without folly.
That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.

Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth.
Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

www.jimrohn.com

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

3 Critical Keys for Organisational Coaching Success

October 29th, 2010

3 Critical Keys for Organisational Coaching Success – click here to download the pdf document

3 Critical Keys for Organisational Coaching Success

No matter what type of organization you are in, in my experience there are 3 critical things that need to happen for organisational coaching to be successful.

However, they are often the 3 things that many coaching projects miss completely, and why in many cases, coaching has sometimes been seen as a ‘cosy chat’ rather than getting the real, very powerful results it can manifest for an organisation.

These 3 critical aspects all need to happen to ensure the most successful outcome to a coaching program. None is more important than the other as such: I see them as equal sides of what I call the Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success (Figure 1).

The Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success

The Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success

If any one of the three is out of balance, at best the sides of the Triangle will not fit together properly and the coaching program outcomes will be adversely affected: at worst it may collapse and break down entirely.

This can result in significant damage to the organisational development culture, even the organization itself. And will almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of future coaching in the organization – even total loss of faith in the coaching process entirely.

Each of these areas is a topic in itself, which are covered in more depth in other articles, but to briefly cover each one:

1. Correct Coach/Coachee Match

In a 2008 American Management Association and the Institute for Corporate Productivity survey, participants were asked to what extent their organizations used certain criteria to match coaches with coachees. Almost three-quarters of respondents (74%) said matching decisions were either frequently or a great deal based on finding a coach with the right expertise to address specific issues.

Expertise in itself is important, of course, and must be a factor in selecting a coach match. However, to be the sole deciding factor in matching a coach & coachee is like expecting an employee to be the right match for your organization based purely on their skills & not taking into account personality, cultural fit, working methodology, values, etc. Unfortunately many organizations do this with their staff too, which explains why many hires don’t work out (but that’s a topic for another article!).

Many organizations leave the choice of coach to the coachee, which means the coachee gets the coach they want. That can be ok if the coachee is very self aware & critically self-appraised about their development… but many aren’t (which is why they often need coaching!).

To ensure maximum success from a Coaching Program, the coachee needs to have the coach they need… as opposed to want. The two may be very different. Also, the coachee must have the coach the orgnisation needs for the coachee, to ensure maximum success for the organization and hence the individual.

2. Specific Outcomes

I learnt very early on in running organisational coaching programs that without very clear outcomes for an organisational coaching program (i.e. where the organization is engaging a coach to coach an employee) things can go horribly wrong!

When I say clear outcomes, I’m not talking about goal setting here – that’s usually part of the coaching itself. What I mean is when the organization is paying for coaching to develop an individual or team.

In this case, the organization usually has a reason for engaging the coach & usually has a particular outcome or outcomes in mind they want the coachee to achieve. There are unlikely to be cases where there aren’t specific requirements: even if a coach is engaged for an Executive, say, purely as a sounding board, there are still usually outcomes required as a result.

Getting very clear on what these outcomes are is critical – for the success of the organization, for the success of the individual, and for the reputation of the coaching industry as a whole.

Otherwise the coaching can again end up as just a “cozy chat” – which anecdotal evidence I hear says many “Executive Coaching” programs seem have been. And research indicates similarly: in a 2010 Executive Coaching Survey by The Conference Board (http://www.slideshare.net/ledak/2010-exec-coaching-survey-the-conf-board) research showed on average only 37% of organizations formally evaluated the effectiveness of the coaching engagement.

Those “Executive Coaching” programs may have benefited the individual, but that benefit often may not be evident to the organization that has invested in the Executive Coaching.

In my opinion, a lot of damage has been done to the coaching industry because of the lack of clarity of organisational outcomes for the coaching, so the perceived value of the coaching has not been evident. And a lot of damage can be done to the coach and coachee too!

Calculating a bottom line return on investment in itself for any coaching is difficult – especially as a great coach will be getting the individual to “learn how to fish” rather than “give them fish” so the part a great coach plays in the development may be masked.

Getting clear on the outcomes the organization wants so there is a clear and visible outcome is therefore crucial for everyone.

3. Specific Measures of Success

I’ve already stated that getting clear on specific outcomes is critical. However, the next foundation part of the Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success is specific measures of success for those outcomes.

Clear outcomes are great, but how do you know those outcomes have been achieved without a measure?

This sounds obvious, & on the face of it, sounds quite easy. However, when it comes to the nitty gritty of it, this is probably the toughest area of all to nail down.

Ask an organisational Executive how he/she will know the coachee has achieved the agreed specific outcome, & often the answer has more wool than New Zealand!

“I’ll see that the coachee is doing it/doing well/achieving it”… Or “my customers will be happy”.

“Ok, what is the specific measure of that?” “How will you actually see/measure the coachee achieving it?” “How will you know your customers are happy?” “What is the measure of that happiness?” are usually my responses. And they can be difficult questions to answer, and often take a lot of thinking about.

Measures of success are not easy things to get out of a client in an organisational coaching situation. It often takes considerable coaching skill in itself to tease the answers out of the stakeholder engaging the coach – especially when that stakeholder isn’t expecting to be held accountable & to do a lot of thinking themselves, which is quite often the case.

However, it’s worth the effort. Once these measures have been set, the coachee, the coach & the organization know what they are aiming for, & the coaching is a lot more targeted and hence a lot more effective.

In summary, Organisational Coaching can be a real minefield for the coach, the coachee and the organisational stakeholder engaging the coach if things aren’t done properly.

There are, of course other factors the come into the equation, but the key foundation of an organisational coaching job has to be the Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success.

If any one side of that triangle is not there, then the coaching is at best likely to be more ineffective than effective, and at worst, a disaster that could undermine & damage the coachee, the reputation of & confidence in future coaching and even in learning & development support in general in the organization. Not to mention the damage done to the coach, and worst of all, the coachee, who often comes out of things very badly.

So, next time you are doing any organisational coaching, whether you represent the organization, or you are the coach or coachee, make sure you’ve built in all sides of the Triangle of Organisational Coaching Success.

Simon Smith founded & runs Southern Cross Coaching & Development Pty Ltd.

Southern Cross Coaching & Development (http://www.southerncrosscoaching.com.au ) has a rigorous process to develop clear coaching outcomes and measures of success. We also have a unique, proven Coaching Matching Matrix to match coaches to coachees – and we have never got a coach match wrong since we started business in 2006.

Southern Cross Coaching & Development has a team of 15+ qualified coaches & trainers and is one of the very few organizations that offers a 100% money-back guarantee^ around their coaching & training. And we have never had to refund any money since we started in business in 2006.

Southern Cross Coaching & Development (http://www.southerncrosscoaching.com.au ) has been coaching in Public & Private Sector organisations and  SMEs since 2006, so has in-depth experience of organisational coaching (Career Coaching, Executive/Leadership Coaching, Emotional Intelligence Coaching, Resilience Coaching, Business Coaching, etc). And prior to that, the Founder, Simon Smith, was Business Development Manager for a national coaching organisation.

^ The only conditions are: providing participants attend voluntarily, our invoice is paid on time, & in-depth feedback is given if the guarantee is invoked as to what we could do better next time.

Posted in Coaching, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence Coaching, Executive Coaching, Executive Development, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Development, Life Coaching, Management, Southern Cross Coaching & Development, Staff management, Team Coaching | 2 Comments »

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