BCA

By Steve Woodburn

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By Scott H. Brown

You know the feeling. All day you have been distracted by that 2pm appointment on your calendar; “Annual Performance Appraisal with Supervisor”. Your palms are clammy, your thoughts are distracted and you find yourself questioning whether your boss really knows your true value and what you accomplished this year.

In many organizations, the annual performance appraisal is tied to merit pay increases and possibly future promotional opportunities. When supervisors look to promote from within, often the first question they ask is “may I see the candidate’s performance appraisals?” But are these annual performance appraisals really the best source of data to measure someone’s promotional worth or merit increase?

Annual reviews mean keeping records

To answer that question, let’s first take a look at the timing. Annual performance appraisals take place annually, just as the name implies. This means that a supervisor should have been keeping records of all the positive contributions the employee made to the Company in the past year as well as all of the mistakes the employee has made over the past year.

More often than not, the record of the employee’s performance contains far more of the negatives from the past year rather than the accomplishments. Because let’s face it, there is a far bigger need to keep records of issues than there is to keep a record of accomplishments in the mind of most managers.

Most supervisors have not been trained

Secondly, most supervisors have not been trained on how to write and conduct performance appraisals effectively. This lack of training, when coupled with a lack of oversight from a third party, can lead an employee to be reviewed on an incomplete and sometimes biased recollection of his/her body of work. Managers commonly make rater errors, not because they mean to, but because they don’t know how not to make these errors. Included in these rater errors are the mistakes of:

Recency – giving far too much weight to a recent success or failure

Halo/Horn effect – looking at a miniscule sample of the total body of work and deciding the employee is either better than actual (halo effect) or worse than actual (horn effect).

Same as Me Effect – if the employee takes a markedly different approach, he/she may be reviewed more harshly for not doing it like the rater would do it.

Comparison Effect – comparing employees only to each other rather than to a pre-determined set of criteria. The best employee on a rotten team may be rated as a star when his/her performance may only be average compared to the job description.

Bias Effect – placing personal bias against an individual because of any number of reasons can affect the rating either way significantly. If the rater does not like people from cold weather climates, the individual’s performance will have little bearing on the outcome of the performance appraisal.

Conflicting Messages – telling the employee all year that his/her performance is acceptable and then delivering a different message during the review process can erode the confidence the employee has in the supervisor and the company. This issue is much more common when the employee’s supervisor changes during the year and rates the performance against a different standard than the previous supervisor used.

Critical Incidents – providing too much weight to a spectacular incident that occurred throughout the year. While it may work in the employees favor is the incident was positive, it can have devastating effects if the incident was negative.

In addition to these rater errors, timing of actual feedback can have a significant impact on actual employee performance. Feedback, either positive or negative, that occurs at the time of an incident or at the close of a project is far more effective in shaping employee behavior than feedback that is only provided once a year.

This is especially true for younger workers in an organization who are accustomed to receiving immediate feedback from immediate rewards for most everything in their life.

Younger workers expect immediate feedback

From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn to drive-thru’s to microwaves, younger workers have been programmed to expect immediate feedback and immediate rewards. If praise is consistently not delivered when a success is achieved, the employee can begin to feel as though he/she doesn’t matter.

Conversely, if coaching feedback is not delivered, it loses its value of being applied to the specific discrepancy of performance.

For all these reasons, it is apparent that the annual performance appraisal, when used individually, is not only a poor tool to use when looking to make a promotional or compensation decision, but is also a poor tool to use when looking to impact employee behavior and performance. But I do not recommend scrapping the annual review process all-together.

Combine appraisal with other tools

Rather, I promote using the annual performance review in concert with other tools:

•Train all raters on how to effectively rate an employee’s performance
•Train all managers on how to document the good as well as the bad that is witnessed over the course of a year
•Establish a vetting process to ensure oversight in to the review process to reduce rater bias and rater error
•Implement a coaching in the moment program to ensure all supervisors become excellent sources of immediate positive and constructive feedback
•Augment the annual review with a monthly touch base between the manager and the employee
•Ensure other metrics are utilized to verify the employee’s true contribution to the success of the organization

These tools will contribute to better business decisions

By putting all of these tools to use in your Company, you will not only increase engagement of your employees, but you will also have the tools necessary to make better business decisions in regards to your people.

My HR Business Partner is an Orlando, Fl based human resource consulting firm specializing in delivering expert human resource advice and solutions to ensure our clients build a competitive advantage through their people. We specialize in helping small-to-mid sized businesses who either can not afford their own HR department or who need specialized services not available from their in-house staff. Visit us today at http://www.myhrbusinesspartner.com.

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From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership, (CCL)

Have you ever been assigned to a team and thought it was a waste of your time? Or been named “team leader,” but unsure where to start? Or found yourself on a team that’s floundering or falling apart, unable to work together?

If so, it’s time to go back to basics.

It may seem impractical (even silly) in some work settings, but the best thing you can do is take time to create a team charter.

“For teams to be successful, they need to have a basic understanding of why they exist, where they fit, and how they’ll accomplish their objectives,” says CCL’s Laura Quinn. “The process of talking through the team’s purpose, context, roles and how people will work together will boost your efficiency in the long run.”

A team retreat may feel like a relic from the past in some companies, but it’s important to set aside several large blocks of time for the team to work on the charter. During your planning sessions you, or another team leader, will want to walk members through key questions, capturing responses on flip chart paper or other visible way. Consider rotating the facilitation and note-taking roles as team members discuss:

• Team Purpose: What kind of team is this (work team, project team, management team, coordination team)? Why does the team exist? What “work” does the team do? What topics belong “in” this team and what’s “out?” What is the team responsible for accomplishing?
• Context: Who are we accountable to? With what other groups/teams do we connect? What do they want/need from us?
• Goals: What specific results do we expect from our efforts? What outcomes? (cost, quality, speed, service, quantity, coordination of X, innovation of X) How can we measure that?
• Roles: Who is on the team? What perspective does each member bring? Are there special roles (e.g., leader, facilitator, etc?) or sub-groups within this team? What do subgroups require of us?
• Work Processes: What processes will we use to do the team’s work? (step by step) How often will we meet? Who determines and manages our agenda? How will we connect with our stakeholders and other sponsors of our work?
• Decision-Making: What decisions are made within this team? What is out of bounds? What level of decision-making responsibility do we have? What decision process will we use?
• Communication: How will we communicate and connect to others within the organization?
• Norms: What do we expect of each other? How do we agree to handle conflict? What are our team norms and/or operating principles?

Once you’ve tackled the topics above, have a person or subgroup combine the team’s agreements into a single document. A written team charter can be creatively displayed in your team’s work area, posted electronically and referred to in meetings and discussions.

Team Evaluation should follow

Periodically, the team will want to go back to the charter and consider these questions:

• How well did our work actually reflect our stated purpose? Did we get distracted or did we stay true to our purpose?
• How well did we meet the needs of this team? Did we meet stakeholders’ expectations? Did we coordinate well with others who rely on our work?
• Did we reach our intended goals? Do the measured results of our work demonstrate that? What got in the way of us being as successful as we might have been?
• How clear were roles on this team? Did we make good use of a variety of perspectives? Were roles executed well?
• Were our work processes effective? Did we stick to what we had agreed to in our charter? Why not? What new processes might help us be more effective?
• Were decisions made efficiently and effectively? Did we include the right amount of input? What surprises or frustrations did we encounter, if any? How might we do it differently?
• How well did our communication plan work? Did we stick to it? What methods worked particularly well? Where did we not do so well?
• How well did we live within the norms we created? Did they help us achieve our objectives? What norms do we want to add? Delete? How can we be better in the future?

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By Bernard Donkerbrook in Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

Leaders and bosses are used to being listened to. They expect it. Some find it quite satisfying to be the person others listen to and look up to. They enjoy the attention and influence in this role. But being in the spotlight also means taking responsibility for your impact on others.

As boss or executive, you need to remember that you are being observed all the time. Big decisions and actions are front and center, but even small things can have unintended consequences.

Everything you do is observed

Everything you do (or do not do) is observed, analyzed and discussed by your people. What you talk about, include on an agenda and get personally involved with – as well as what you choose to avoid or delegate — sends powerful messages. Your employees then draw conclusions and implications about “what it meant” — whether you meant it that way or not!

Many managers are unaware that their behavior genuinely matters, or are oblivious as to how their behavior may be interpreted by others. For example, maybe you don’t make eye contact with an employee as you walk to the cafeteria; unbeknownst to you, this can be perceived as a sign of disapproval or unimportance, thereby increasing employee anxiety or mistrust. And you thought you were so self-aware!

To better understand the impact you are having on those around you, take a careful look at three things:

What You Say: Of course pay attention to the words, but your impact goes further. What you emphasize, what you repeat and the tone you use all have impact. Are you supportive or critical? Are you sending positive and encouraging messages or demanding, pressuring messages? Is your body language consistent with the words spoken? Remember, your people “listen” beyond the words to what you appear to convey.

What You Do: Your actions send a message of what and who are really important to you regardless of what you espouse. What relationships do you choose to develop and which people do you avoid? Which ones will you listen to and which do you overlook, dismiss or interrupt? Are you warm and open to some people and not to others? How do you listen? Do you have good eye contact when others are talking? Or are you focused on what you will say next? Are you distracted, keeping one eye on your smart phone?

What You Pay Attention To: You send signals by what you recognize, what you reward and whom you reward. The meetings you attend versus those you don’t tell people how you feel about the topic, the person and/or the priority. What you put on the agenda, follow up on or focus on will be given more weight than other projects or issues. Ask yourself: What do I personally get involved with? And what do I rarely pay attention to?

Consider Susan, the CEO of a small marketing company, who believed in the importance of diversity within the company, particularly to reach the range of clients she was targeting for growth. She conducted an appropriate off-site meeting, presented her strong views and expectations at the quarterly management gathering and assigned an implementation team. After that meeting, however, it was business as usual. Susan proceeded to focus on the next client crisis, ignoring the necessary continuing attention that building diversity requires.

Avoid creating a gap between words and actions

Bad manager? Poor leader? Not really. Susan forgot, with the best of intentions, that what she does and what she does not do have a huge impact. She inadvertently sent the message that “other” things were more important than diversity. By creating a gap between her words and actions, Susan undermined her efforts at supporting diversity — and undermined herself as a leader.

Are you getting the idea? Your ordinary actions and behaviors have an impact on the people around you. If you want to be influential as a leader, you have to accept the scrutiny, be highly self-aware and think carefully about the messages you want to send. Psychologist and author Nathaniel Branden says it well when he paraphrases a favorite Spanish proverb: “Take what you want in life — and pay for it.”

Bernard Donkerbrook is a coach and management development consultant based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

It’s easy to be impressed by the natural leader, the brainy student, the gifted musician or the star athlete. “What talent!” we think. But talent alone doesn’t lead to success, says Carol Dweck, noted psychologist and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “Success comes with a growth mindset.”

People with a “growth mindset” believe that ability or talent can be developed, says Dweck. In contrast, people with a “fixed mindset” see ability as built-in: “You either have it or you don’t.”

Dweck’s research has shown that our beliefs about innate talent can either support or stifle success. If you have a growth mindset, you are willing to take risks, accept mistakes and seek out chances to learn. You become resilient and view setbacks and challenges as learning opportunities.

The belief that you can’t improve your ability actually stunts achievement. If you have a fixed mindset, you feel the pressure to repeatedly prove yourself in areas of “strength” and you avoid activities and experiences that may reveal weaknesses. As a result, you don’t gain the experiences, perspectives or skills that are needed to succeed at work or adapt to change. A fixed mindset also makes it hard to admit to or correct mistakes.

Growth minded individuals gain self confidence by taking on challenges

Dweck has also challenged the view that innate ability fuels self-confidence. In the short-term, people feel good and confident because of their natural abilities — until setbacks or challenges cause them to question themselves. People with a growth mindset derive self-confidence from the very act of taking on challenges and pursuing them with vigor.

What are the implications of Dweck’s work for leaders? “To succeed in a world where our work is always changing, where challenges are unpredictable and competition abounds, we need to be agile learners,” says CCL’s President and CEO, John Ryan. “We need to apply our new knowledge. Perhaps most of all, we need to believe we can rise to the challenge.”

It takes hard work and real focus

“By taking on a growth mindset, we can learn new behaviors and modify deep-set behaviors at any age,” Ryan continues. “It takes hard work and real focus, but all of us really can learn new and effective behaviors — and help take our organizations to new levels of performance.”

Dweck agrees. “If an organization believes in natural talent, they are not developing the potential talent,” she says. “Not only are these organizations missing out on a big pool of possible leaders, but their belief in natural talent might actually squash the very people they think are the naturals, making them into defensive nonlearners. The lesson is: Create an organization that prizes the development of ability — and watch the leaders emerge.”

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From: World Advertising Research Center (WARC)

Brand owners such as Kraft and Adidas are considering making use of facial recognition technology in a bid to provide shoppers with more targeted information in stores.

Intel, the technology company, is one of a number of firms that has created software capable of scanning the faces of consumers, and then determining the approximate age and gender of the person concerned.
Christopher O’Malley, director, retail marketing, of Intel’s embedded and communications unit, told the LA Times:  ”You can put this technology into kiosks, vending machines, digital signs. It’s going to become a much more common thing in the next few years. 

Adidas, the sportswear manufacturer, is working with Intel to test digital “walls” in several UK and US stores, displaying certain products on screens depending on a shopper’s specific profile. For example, a female consumer in her fifties would be shown a range of Adidas goods, roughly split between 60% footwear and 40% of other items from its portfolio.

“If a retailer can offer the right products quickly, people are more likely to buy something,” Chris Aubrey, Adidas’s vice president, global retail marketing said.

Kraft, the food group, is also in negotiations with a supermarket chain, which it did not name, about the possibility of trialling kiosks that achieve similar objectives. “If it recognises that there is a female between 25 to 29 standing there, it may surmise that you are more likely to have minor children at home and give suggestions on how to spice up Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for the kids,” Donald King, Kraft’s vice president, retail experience, said.

Japan has enthusiastically adopted the technology

Facial recognition tools have been more enthusiastically adopted by companies in Japan, where Universal Studios has employed a system provided by NEC to identify annual pass holders, and thus speed up their entry to its theme park.

“It’s not just [for] clothing stores or restaurant chains,” Joseph Jasper, of NEC’s corporate communications division, said.

Google and Facebook has developed tools for online photos

Facebook, the social network, has developed equivalent tools for online photos, as has Google, which produced software that took the face of someone in a picture and searched the web for images of the individual, but then opted against rolling it out.

“As far as I know, it’s the only technology Google has built and, after looking at it, we decided to stop,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, said earlier this year. “People could use this stuff in a very, very bad way as well as in a good way.”

Data sourced from Los Angeles Times; additional content by Warc staff, 25 August

From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

Several years ago, an EVP of a Fortune 100 company pulled together a team of HR directors from across several divisions. Their assignment was to develop and implement a new HR process across the organization. The problem? Vague goals and unclear direction.

A product team for a large multinational company was in the process of launching two new products in North America and Europe. In the wake of a recent restructuring, the 18-member team struggled with divided loyalties and new pressures. Communication was poor, meetings were unproductive and progress stalled.

Competition was fierce among the functional and business unit leaders that made up a senior team in the global firm. Team members wanted to be on the team because of high exposure, but none of them wanted the other team members to interfere in their own divisions or functional areas. With low trust and high competition, conflict and dysfunction ruled the day.

Each of these teams faltered — but each was able to recover.

“Teams may be challenged by their assignment, but the work context and interpersonal factors are powerful realities, too,” says CCL’s Laura Quinn. “Effective leadership — on the part of the team manager or sponsor and on the part of team members — allows teams to meet those challenges and have a positive impact on the organization.”

Participants in CCL’s Leading Teams for Impact program (and in customized team programs or team coaching initiatives) learn to zero in on specific team needs. “Teams have different needs when they are in planning mode than they have during action phases,” Quinn explains. “They have interpersonal needs as well.”

Planning-Phase Needs. This phase takes place both when the team is planning actions it is about to take or evaluating the impact of actions it has just taken. New teams, re-configured teams and floundering teams benefit from giving time and attention to six planning needs:

• Team charter. Are overall objectives, resources and constraints defined and clear to all team members?
• Goals. What are the measurable team outputs and related milestones?
• Team norms. What standards of behavior do team members agree to? How will they handle routine issues, such as how work is divided or how disagreements are to be resolved? Team norms also help members address unexpected or complex situations.
• Task performance strategy. What is the overall approach the team will take and what key actions are needed to achieve goals?
• Shared understanding. Do team members have a common perspective? What key assumptions may affect performance? Teams can be easily tripped up by different beliefs about the challenges the team faces, the tools or resources available or the desired working relationships among team members, for example.
• Team memory. What relevant knowledge, information and skills do team members have or can access? What gaps exist?

Action-Phase Needs. When teams are in action — engaged in activities that directly lead to goal accomplishment — they also have six needs:

• Monitoring output. How does the team track and communicate progress?
• Monitoring systems. What methods or resources are available for tracking people, budgets and information – and for keeping up with stakeholders, markets or other external factors?
• Coordination. How does the team prioritize and sequence key activities and events?
• Communication. Do team members communicate openly with each other? Does the team experience a high-quality exchange of ideas and information?
• Monitoring team behavior. How is feedback given to team members?
• Maintaining boundaries. How and when does information flow with other groups or units?

Interpersonal Needs. In addition to needs that arise in the planning and action phases, teams have four interpersonal needs:

• Motivation-building. Do team members have a sense of personal accountability for performance? Is the team cohesive and motivated?
• Psychological safety. Is there a sense of trust on the team? Are team members able to speak their minds, knowing they will be respected and listened to?
• Emotion management. How does the team handle emotions? Setbacks, frustration – even overconfidence – can cause an emotional strain among team members.
• Conflict management. Do differences of opinion prevent the team from meeting its goals? Does the team allow healthy debate while avoiding personal attacks or acrimony?

“When team members know about these needs, they have a way to identify and discuss what is working well and what isn’t,” says Quinn. “Teams can then be more focused and proactive in making changes that will lead to better team performance.”

This article is based on “Developing Team Leadership Capability,” by Frederick P. Morgeson, Dennis Lindoerfer and David J. Loring in The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development, 3rd Edition, and CCL’s Leading Teams for Impact program. Look for more “Leading Teams” tips and activities in upcoming issues of Leading Effectively.