Month: January 2011

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The Most Important Word in Performance Management

A-counsellor-in-session-with-a-group-of-people

The most important word in your performance management strategy may be one that typically does not come to mind. Let’s consider a couple of the ways in which we encourage, teach and train our leaders to improve the performance of their teams.

Coaching and/or Counseling

The words coaching and counseling in work performance have been used by different companies in many different ways. Some companies claim to have a true coaching culture where managers are trained to coach employees for performance. Other cultures or organizations may train managers to counsel employees when there is a performance improvement need. More often than not, I find that companies use the word coach when they are actually training managers to counsel or discipline. So these words are actually used interchangeably in many organizations and by many managers. However, there is a difference. Coaching requires that the one being coached is open and has a goal with a timeframe in mind. Discipline and counseling is usually something that is controlled by the company and the receiver may be resistant or may disagree that a performance problem exists.

Training and Development

So, someone in your organization has conducted a needs analysis and has decided that some or all of the employees in the organization need to be trained in a particular area. The topic doesn’t really matter in this case. So the company gets started on the program design. This can happen with an internal training or HR department or may be outsourced to a training company. That really doesn’t matter either. Regardless of who designs and facilitates it, the company has chosen the topic and has created the learning and program objectives. Employees are scheduled to attend because someone other than them feels that they need the training. Right from the beginning the employee has not control. And the scenario gets worse from there when they get to the training and the “trainer” spends the entire time lecturing or doing most of the talking. (Check out the training and development blog on this sight for more on this)

The common thread

Have you figured it out yet? Do you see it? If not, go back and read it until you see it. You are looking for the word CONTROL. That’s right! The most important word in performance management is control. Who has it? You know what happens when employees have no control in their performance management process? They find other ways to take control and usually not in the ways you want! (Another fellow blogger has a great story about how an employee took positive control after a bad performance review-By the way, this is not the normal reaction)

In future posts, I will discuss ways to give control to the employee in this process. What have you done that has worked?

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is available to help you with your Human Resources and Training needs on a contract basis. For more information send an email to smazurek0615@gmail.com or visit www.sherimazurek.com. Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.

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is it all just “common sense” ?

From time to time in my business life, someone will ask, or sometimes say that project management is ‘common sense’, meaning it is just common sense.

Often they are making a statement along the lines of ‘what’s all the fuss about this PM stuff, it’s all just common sense isn’t it’?

Well, my question is, of course, is it just common sense or as some would say, a whole lot more more?

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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.

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A First Set of Questions to Ask Your Potential Client

Female employee raising hand for asking question at conference in office boardroom

Consulting books often suggest a sequence of steps or phases that a consulting project goes through. The nature of the sequence depends on the perspectives of the authors of the books. The initial phase has been referred to by a variety of names, for example, Start-Up and/or Entry. (Some books even mention these two terms as two different phases in the sequence.)

Regardless of the name of the step or phase, the consultant can learn a great deal about the client — and even get a sense for the likelihood of the client’s participation in (and thus, success of) the project — by asking useful questions when first meeting the client. The questions can also impress the client with how thoughtful and thorough you are. (The questions are NOT to discern whether the client is ready for a project — those are a different set of questions). Here are some questions that have been useful to me over the years in order to learn more about the client and the potential project.

(NOTE: The client might refer to the need for the project as an “issue,” if there is a current, major problem, or as a “goal,” if the project is to make good things even better. When asking questions, use the term that your client uses. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, most of the following questions use the term “issue.”)

  1. Is the situation a problem or issue?
    (If it is a “remedial” situation, then there’s a much greater likelihood that the client will be very energized to participate in the project.)
  2. Or, are things OK now, but the project would make things even better?
    (If this is the case, it might be a challenge to keep the client energized.)
  3. Who first asserted the need for a project, or for change? External stakeholders, such as investors or customers?
    (If so, then the client might be very motivated to move things along in the project. If external stakeholders were involved, then they might want to be on a Project Team during the project.)
  4. Or, did internal stakeholders suggest the project?
    (If so, it will be even more important to cultivate strong buy-in of organization members.)
  5. Did the need for a project suddenly arise or has it been planned for a while?
    (If it suddenly arose, there might be more likelihood of stronger client participation in the project.)
  6. How long ago did the need for the project arise?
    (If it was recent, then there’s more likelihood that the client will show stronger participation in the project.)
  7. Did your client try any strategies to address the issue before?
    (If so, what did they try? Training? If all they tried was training, then they might have a very short-term view of how to fix things.)
  8. What did your client want to accomplish in their previous efforts to address the issue?
    (It’s extremely important to understand what they consider to be “success” for now.)
  9. How did your client decide what to try?
    (The answer to that question will tell you how your client makes decisions — by one person or by consensus. )
  10. What were the results of their efforts? How did your client measure success?
    (Did they take a systematic approach or an impulsive approach? The answer to that question tells you a lot about whether you’ll need to persuade them to be more methodical or not.)
  11. Did your client make any effort to manage change, when addressing their issue?
    (That question starts to alert them to the need to carefully manage change, and opens the door for you to start teaching them.)
  12. How did they decide to seek assistance?
    (The answer to that question will reveal how they made decisions, but also why they are considering you.)
  13. Did your client establish criteria for selecting a consultant, for example, do a Request for Proposal?
    (If they did an RFP, they very likely are quite thorough in analyzing their issue and in ensuring they get the best consultant. They probably will be the same way with you.)

Also see

  1. The topic Consultants in the Free Management Library.
  2. Phase 1 of the consulting process.
  3. Assessing Client’s Readiness for Change.

Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 763-971-8890
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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Marketing and Backlinks – The Key to SEO

How Google Views Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other sites that are directed to your site. Backlinks are widely regarded as one of the primary building blocks of SEO – important for high ranking by search engines. Google, for instance, gives more credit to sites that have a high number of relevant, high-quality backlinks because Google believes that is an indication of the site’s importance. As a Marketing strategy, backlinks are basic.

How do you get high quality, relevant backlinks?

IMPORTANT: Many of the promotional tactics below involve posting meaningful, keyword-rich content on the internet. This is the critical marketing strategy you MUST implement in order to drive interested traffic to your site – your ideal customer. This method is called ‘organic’, and is the backbone of search engine optimization.

Choose only high-ranking sites. (Page rank is Google’s way of assigning a relative importance indicator to a site, for the purpose of its search algorithm.) Post ONLY relevant material. Your content should ALWAYS include a link back to your site. If you use automated tools and receive irrelevant, low-ranking backlinks, search engines will actually penalize your site for it. There is NO shortcut method that is automatic, instant, or any other easy way to gain permanent, niche-targeted traffic that yields recurring buyers.

AVOID these link-building strategies:

They’re called ‘black hat’ techniques, and search engines will penalize you. Stay away from them:

  • ‘Link farms’
  • Inter-linking (exchanging links from sites with the same owner)
  • Sites that ‘rank’ less than four
  • Purchasing links
  • Sites that engage in illegal activity

Concentrate on getting highly ranked, relevant, natural backlinks. Place your links only on sites with a page rank of at least four. Five + is better. To quickly determine if a site ranks well enough to warrant your time and your link, use this free Page Rank Checker tool: http://www.prchecker.info/

One important ratio to track is the ratio of inbound to outbound links. You want to have MORE links point to your site (inbound) than links on your site pointing elsewhere (outbound). Periodically check the number and source of backlinks (inbound) to your site by using this free tool: http://www.backlinkwatch.com/ Then count the links in your site. Calculate inbound/outbound. The answer should be greater than one. Example: 202 inbound / 37 outbound = 5.45 – Good!

BACKLINK TIP:

Webconf’s free tool offers you a natural way to find relevant sites that invite link requests. Enter your long tail keyword. The result is a list of websites that include the keyword and “Add link”, “Add site”, “Add URL”, “Add website”, etc. You can check their page rank, contact the sites you like, and request to add your link. This takes time, but quality backlinks are essential to achieve recognition by search engines. As part of your marketing plan, try to add a few each day. http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php

Have you found helpful tips for building high quality, relevant backlinks?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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Free Team Building Exercise: Blindfold Square

A-group-of-people-blindfolded-and-holding-each other
This quick team building exercise gets small teams to communicate when they can’t see one another or their progress.
Free blindfold team building activity
Communication is the key to success with this team building exercise

Overview
The challenge is to take a length of rope and lay it out on the ground to make a perfect square. Throughout the task all team members must wear blindfolds. Continue reading “Free Team Building Exercise: Blindfold Square”

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VUCA Prime – A Leader’s Response

Developing Leadership Capacity - Ask for Their Best!

Recap from VUCA – A Leader’s Dilemma

A multinational organization faces a major structural reorganization that contains significant functional changes and leadership challenges. Facing the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) are four leaders responsible for implementing a significant part of the organizational change without losing strategic momentum.

Finding VUCA Prime

Like most organizations, the act of bringing in a high profile external consulting firm eight months ago signaled to every executive in the business unit that significant change was possible. Without question, they each had their own story of what that would or should entail. Seated around the table were four corporate leaders who knew the nature and extent of the impending reorganization before it was announced. Their task was to make it happen without losing focus, momentum, and direction – to change horses at a full gallop over rough terrain without falling off.

The conversation was at first intense, but not adversarial. Dave, my client, led his colleagues in a lively dialogue that confirmed the key volatilities, uncertainties, complexities, and ambiguities – VUCA – that we had previously discussed. Increasing destabilization in any one of the four VUCA elements could have a negative snowball effect, yet stability was neither possible nor helpful.

In VUCA situations, the destabilizing events impact different parts of the system differently. Actions that amplify (increase) the positive and dampen (decrease) the negative help leaders harness the instability and act their way forward, learning as they go. Identifying and applying these two types of interventions is a major challenge and opportunity for leaders in a VUCA world. Enter VUCA Prime – Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility. VUCA Prime is the contribution of Bob Johansen,[i] emerging from his work with corporate, military, non-profit, and government leaders as they navigated their VUCA challenges. They suggest where and what to amplify and dampen within a VUCA situation.

The forces of VUCA and VUCA Prime exist in dynamic equilibrium, and leaders can balance the energy of either side with its complement. The dynamic interplay of VUCA and VUCA Prime generates the energy that can drive organizations to adapt, change, and evolve with the conditions of their environment (the sum of the political, economic, social, technological, and government/regulatory background). As the five of us pondered what to do next from a leadership development perspective, we began to see places within the current and new organization that needed less Volatility and others that needed more Volatility. In both cases Vision was a complementing force that we could work with. With the group’s input, Dave and I designed a leadership development plan for the executive team as part of the restructuring kick-off and the 2011 goal-setting and planning process. The exercises we used set the conditions for the executive team to think and act in new ways.

Lessons for Leaders

Useful methods for weaving together the dynamic forces of VUCA and VUCA Prime (the weaving is represented by the infinity symbol) include:

Volatility ∞ Vision: Future Back

  • An exercise that views today from the perspective of the desired future and creates milestones for getting there

Uncertainty ∞ Understanding: Adaptive Change Model[ii]

  • This model of change weaves together the transactional/doing aspects of change and the transformational/relational aspects of change

Complexity ∞ Clarity: Sense making

  • A method of tuning in to weak signals in the environment, searching for what might be possible in order to act with informed sensibility

Ambiguity ∞ Agility: Safe Fail and Ritual Dissent

  • An exercise that combines rapid prototyping of ideas and action with the practice of listening to the creative criticism it generates

Next Blog Post

Leading the dynamic between Volatility and Vision.

[i] Bob Johansen, Getting There Early, 2007, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco.

[ii] http://noetic.org/library/publication-articles/adaptive-organization/

Dr. Carol Mase integrates business and biology to offer clients novel tools and methods for adaptive change, leadership, and organizational effectiveness.

President | Cairn Consultants
Carol@CairnLLC.com | 215.262.6666

www.CairnConsultants.com | www.Knowesys.com

Skype: carol.mase

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A Performance Review That’s Not a Winner

A-female-worker-performing-a-veview-of-employee-performances

A not so great performance review doesn’t have to be a career setback.

Recently I coached a talented project manager who had received a not so stellar performance review that could impact her career advancement. Getting negative feedback from your boss is not a joyride. In fact, it can be devastating. I know from experience. So what do you do?

My first reaction was to go home and hide under the bed covers – not a very mature response. But the next day, I let go of my embarrassment and started a list of concrete actions that would lead to performance improvement. I then went to my boss, now feeling more confident, and reviewed my list. We agreed on two performance areas that needed improvement; scheduled training and special assignments to develop specific skills; and finally set a time table to keep me on track.

What did I learn from that experience?

1. Reflect before reacting.
It’s far too easy to be defensive. Let the results sink in before you do anything. Does the feedback ring true? Is there concrete evidence? Does it resonate with things you’ve heard in the past?

2. Decide what to change.
What feedback is most important to you as a leader, manager or professional? What are the two or three things you can start working on immediately to get results? It’s important to show improvement quickly so you won’t get labeled as a poor performer.

3. Get support from others.
Ask your manager, as well as other key people (peers, direct reports, mentors, etc) to give you regular feedback as you make the needed changes. Avoid vague questions like: “How am I doing?” Rather, ask for specific feedback. “How was my presentation on target and off target?”

How did the project manager avoid a career setback?

Well she choose to work on her leadership style. She admitted she was a perfectionist – detailed oriented, focused on facts, and very cautious to take a stand fearing it may be the wrong decision. That led to her projects getting behind schedule. So she decided to improve her delegation, decision making and communication skills. She also kept her manager in the loop and requested regular feedback from him.

Bottom line: Her projects are meeting the milestones set by her boss; she is more self assured and able to let go of responsibility and authority; and she’s back on a career track for advancement.

Readers, how have you turned around a poor performance review?

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Non-Profit’s Impact on the Cycle of the Economy

Volunteers participating in a nonprofit reading program

Recently, I wrote an article about how non-profits both must work together as partners, but must also compete for sustainability. I had a response from a fellow blogger from WhyDoParentsBlog http://whydoparents.blogspot.com/2011/01/social-returns-on-financial-investments.html

Jeremy Parrott blogs about non-profit as well. He has a theory that the economy should be like the life cycle of water. The cycle begins with for-profits then cycles to foundations and then to non-profits, where the cycle continues back onto for-profits. Jeremy believes that by having non-profits reinvest their money in for profit businesses that the life cycle of money will continue.

I’m not sure that I agree with Jeremy. While I agree with the cycle, I do not agree with the quantities. I believe that for profits make money, that foundations do thrive as a result of donations from usually individuals who earned their money though the for-profit sector. I also agree that Foundations then support non-profits. However, where I feel this theory falls apart is that, most non-profits spend about 80% of their incomes on salaries. It would not be unusual for them to spend say 5% or more on rent or mortgage and utilities. So a non-profit’s buying power is less than 10% of its overall budget.

My interpretation of what Jeremy had to say was that non-profits need to invest more of their budgets into for-profits to keep the cycle healthy. However, with the structure of funding from foundations presently, coupled with the limited amount of surplus in most non-profits budgets, it is unlikely that non-profits could spend anymore of their budgets on purchasing. Funders like to see as much money as possible going into programming. So too, do donors like to see concrete evidence of what their dollars are buying. By concrete evidence, I mean programs that are impacting people’s lives for the positive. With so much focus on program delivery, most funders prefer to see their money going into salaries rather than into goods. They recognize that goods are a needed part of programming, but for the most part, they still prefer that the amount of goods bought with their grants is still only a portion of the grant.

It is true, that some foundations prefer to fund capital costs, like buildings, or big ticket items, but I have found that while these things are a visible contribution, things don’t necessarily impact people’s lives unless it is combined with the caring, passionate people who work for non-profits. I don’t believe that non-profits can change the cycle of economy anymore than they already have. They have limited buying power and always will because they are in the people business.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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By Ingrid Zacharias, Managing Director, Envisioning the Future International, Email: izacharias@envisioningthefutureintl.ca

Website: http://envisioningthefutureintl.ca/

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A Change Of Pace

colleagues-planning-for-an-event

Whoever said an event had to be a dinner or a luncheon to work?

The key to making any event succeed is to learn, well in advance, what will bring out your audience: existing donors, new donors, corporations, government officials, community leaders, etc.

Almost every event can benefit from an occasional change of pace … whether to a new venue, a switch from a four-course formal black tie dinner to a reception, a breakfast, a lunch, an afternoon soiree … or almost anything else.

Does the venue or type of event (dinner or luncheon) really matter? One would like to think that your supporters would want to join you regardless of these factors. But, unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Take the example of one nonprofit that has been doing a major formal dinner for years, with a theme that had become their signature. Problem was, the audience for this glamorous, glitzy night was shrinking, boredom was setting in and costs to maintain this type of event were zooming.

For months, we worked with a staff committee to come up with and discuss the options. The decision was to change the event from Spring to Fall, do it at a different type of location, and with a different spin.

Out of those discussions was born a “reception,” with a completely different graphic design, a new/unique venue and a saving of several hundred thousand dollars.

Focus was placed on the organization’s mission,…

…rather than the usual, “Come celebrate and have a ball.” For our venue, we picked a restaurant that had just opened, giving us the advantage, the cache, the visibility of being the “first” to use the facility.

Coupled with the newly designed materials, a lot of advance promotion and targeted marketing, the “goal” of 200 attendees was realized very quickly. We even had to establish a waiting list.

We knew we had room for at least another 50 to 100 people, but having folks believe that it sold out so fast increased their desire/interest in being part of it … an enviable position in which to find ourselves.

That event became the place to be.

Not only did the organization do well with sponsorships and individual ticket sales, but they received contributions from many new donors … who had heard about the event from friends, and wanted to be part of it.

So the answers to the questions of whether a venue matters or whether it is a dinner or a luncheon are: “Yes,” and “No.”

What matters is how you frame it, market it and present it to your audience. It takes all the factors being pulled together in a special way, not just to ensure a successful event, but to ensure how the organization will now be perceived, and what that will mean for its future.

Just because you have always done a specific kind of event doesn’t mean you couldn’t benefit from a change of pace. You could be surprised at the results.

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Have a comment or a question about creating or expanding your special event? Email me at Info@NatalieShear.com. With over 30 years in conference and event planning, we can help you turn your vision into reality.
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Have you seen Natalie’s ebook on Special Events ??

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When Learning Takes Place: PowerPoint vs. Presenter

A-presenter-speaking-and-using-PowerPoint-for-her-presentation

Running a presentation skills seminar at a large federal agency’s training forum, I was impressed by how much learning takes place when participants share ideas in a Power Point-free environment.

I found this post on my LinkedIn Training and Development group and some of the responses given by professional trainers and speakers gave me pause. The responses were simple and direct answers of knowing when learning takes place. There can be clues, but no one really knows when learning occurs. This is what gave me pause. And, when I “pause,” I blog. It’s a bit like cursing at a motorist who cuts in front of you, making you drive defensively by applying your brakes before you really want to. Some people curse, I blog.

Many of the responses to the post above, I’m sure, were thoroughly thought out before being taken to the pen, but in the process of trying to sound intellectual and knowing, the responders lost something basic. At least I found something missing. Maybe the forums, while great formats for discussion, are not so good for the final answers. Are we ashamed to say that learning and effective communication are complex, and we don’t have all the answers? More than likely, I think, some of the writers were lost in trying to find one perfect approach to learning. Finding a simple, guaranteed approach to learning for all participants is no simple task. In my mind anyway. It is enough just to communicate well.

Here’s my perspective:

As trainers, we naturally have to be concerned with the amount of information that is actually absorbed by the people we are training. The same goes for presenters. Learning takes place internally. We can only facilitate it. To try to find a way to ensure it happens is something akin to plugging into our brain’s learning center and transferring information. As far as I know, that’s still science fiction.

We could be closer than I know technologically and I could be wrong, but aren’t we trainers and presenters better served concentrating on what we can to facilitate learning be it through inspiration or motivation, or by outlining the details to make them more accessible? Look back to my post on Training Sessions and Seminars: Who Should Do Most of the Talking? We can try to be all things to all people, but certainly not at the same time. I doubt we can be either, but being the best we can be (please pardon the cliche) is what we need to do. If you want to know what the audience has learned, give them a test, or…I don’t know…ask them. I do. It’s part of the communication process.

The impact of the knowledge presented is related to so many factors, all of which have to do with communication. Even the test is suspicious because of experimenter or tester bias, where the tested individual wants to please the tester and is, therefore, likely to give an answer that is expected rather than a true answer. Tester bias is a natural human behavior phenomenon that is very difficult to eliminate completely. Tell your audiences what you want them to get out of your presentation and there is a good chance they’ll tell you that’s what they got out of it.

Good communicators constantly look for feedback. I am a fan of PowerPoint but I know many a presenter who use it spoon feed information and think just because they present content on a visual, it is received, noted and remembered. A receptive and appreciative audience alone is no gauge.

I think some presenters and speakers think their every word is relished by the audience, evidenced by a laugh or a nod, and would be surprised to find out relatively little real information has reached them. Sometimes it’s not about information but inspiration, motivation, interest, a professional need to be in attendance, etc. I know trainers who do all the right things and are tuned out by their trainees who are not drawn to them as people, so even “chemistry” plays a part.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.