Category: Performance Management

Group. Project. These are possibly two of the most dreaded words to an Massachusetts Institute of Technology Student, inducing fears of getting stuck with the slacker partner or pulling an all-nighter to throw together a half-effort project.

The biggest of these projects is a semester long research project in a lab class, for which I have so far invested upwards of 20 hours a week, one all-nighter and countless late nights with my two partners. The class has a required team building component, one that we were all contemptuous of at first. Team building? Setting ground rules? Why should we waste our time learning things like that when there was real work to be done? Continue reading “3 steps to forming cohesive teams”

To the point, this is a post on what most people call “teamwork.” Bored already?

Believe me, I understand. Traditional talk on teamwork is overdone and underused. But the fact remains that most market evolutions rely on a team—somewhere, somehow, some way. And that’s why what happens inside teams, from a Presidential White House Cabinet to the Board of Directors at GE to your team, might be one of the most important topics we could talk about. Continue reading “The Ultimate Team”

Many leaders and organizations bring in a team building expert when things are going horribly wrong, feel better for a day or two and predictably go back to the same old type of interactions. This approach gives team building a bad name or makes it appear ineffective when it can actually be a powerful tool to create positive workplaces.

Let’s talk about five key reasons why team building doesn’t work for many companies and some tips on how you can make it much more successful: Continue reading “5 Key Reasons Why Team Building Doesn’t Work”

The topic of employee engagement seems to be one that is quite popular in recent years especially with all the changes that have occurred in the landscape of the workplace. It has been sited that a culture of high engagement is necessary to help overcome the fear of the fleeting workforce with the improvement of the economy and the increase in hiring in some organizations. In the January issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine, Tom Roth discusses five key elements to creating a culture of engagement. One of those elements is creating a culture of inclusion. In explanation of this, Roth makes a statement that employees don’t necessarily hate change, but actually hate having change imposed upon them. Think about that for a moment.
In a previous post, I discussed the need to include employee control in your performance management strategy. Roth is right; employees hate having things imposed upon them. They hate that their supervisors have complete control in the performance management process as well. So, what can you do?
Often times, the issue comes down to miscommunication and mixed messages. You have given supervisors a great deal of responsibility for the performance of their work teams. You blame them when a member of their team fails to meet performance expectations. So it seems perfectly logical that they would assume the position of power and control in a performance management discussion. Additionally, you required that they get all those forms completed on time and if your company completes reviews for everyone at the same time, then you are basically asking them to add an entirely new job for themselves in the few weeks prior to the deadline. The result is a rushed review form and most likely an even more rushed review conversation. And since this may be the only document you require of them on performance for an entire year, this may just be the only performance discussion this employee gets at all.
If you want to give employees more control in their performance management process, then your managers and supervisor can’t hold the conversation for the performance review once a year or only when there is a problem. The conversation needs to be two way throughout the year. In fact, I say find a way to abolish the performance review all together. Focus your supervisors on all the time two-way feedback and you may be surprised with the result. Doing what you’ve always done get what you always get. Do you need to change it?

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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.

Based on five dysfunctions of a team Patrick Lencioni pinpoints the issue of building a great team and group behavior.

“Team building is not complicated”, declares Lencioni, president of his own management consulting firm and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Watch the short video below hear Patrick’s great advice: Continue reading “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”

Despite rising unemployment recruiters of senior managers are claiming it is still far from easy to attract talent. People in secure employment are far less willing to switch jobs than they were two years ago.

It is therefore imperative to develop the talent within our organisations, a fact supported by a Deloitte survey Continue reading “The Importance Of Developing Talent Within An Organisation”

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.

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”

What separates the greatest teams from the rest is their mix of talents and, crucially their understanding of one anothers’ strengths.

When team building there are a number of questionnaires (or psychometrics) that can be used to help teams identify their strengths and preferences. When this information is used to assign roles and tasks true teams are formed.

All teams need a blend of the following: Continue reading “How to work like a team of superheroes”

Wouldn’t it be good to know that every decision you take over the next 12 months will be the right one. This may sound impossible but there is a way to significantly increase the likelihood of your decisions being correct.

The secret is understanding. Without understanding we are very likely to make bad or the wrong decisions, with greater understanding we should have, not just the facts but also the instinct to make the right choices.

The key to gaining understanding is to ask the right people the right questions, whether they be staff, colleagues, customers or even our bosses. Here are some four pointers towards asking the right questions: Continue reading “Team building by asking questions”