Posted on Jan 1, 2016
Leaders when was the last time you asked the question - what can I do to make you more effective?
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Leaders when was the last time you asked the question - what can I do to make you more effective?
That is one of the first questions that I started using in the healthcare industry where I buy dormant healthcare debt from around the country. It is one way of getting a dialog going with potential clients and it can be used with your team. It can encourage a thoughtful reply from your team members. For those reasons alone, it's a question that I would recommend to any leader who's looking for a candid and insightful communication with his or her team members.
Good leadership questions aren't just for those who work in large organizations or businesses. They'll work equally well for someone with a small team or even at the squad level for those of you in the Army. That's because everyone has opinions, and when given a chance, in a safe environment, they'll share them. Great questions can bring great insight. They can help you make important changes and facilitate progress with any team or organization.
RP Members I welcome your comments, added suggestions, and candid feedback
More to follow.........
That is one of the first questions that I started using in the healthcare industry where I buy dormant healthcare debt from around the country. It is one way of getting a dialog going with potential clients and it can be used with your team. It can encourage a thoughtful reply from your team members. For those reasons alone, it's a question that I would recommend to any leader who's looking for a candid and insightful communication with his or her team members.
Good leadership questions aren't just for those who work in large organizations or businesses. They'll work equally well for someone with a small team or even at the squad level for those of you in the Army. That's because everyone has opinions, and when given a chance, in a safe environment, they'll share them. Great questions can bring great insight. They can help you make important changes and facilitate progress with any team or organization.
RP Members I welcome your comments, added suggestions, and candid feedback
More to follow.........
Leadership
Leadership Development
Knowledge
Effectiveness
Edited 8 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 10
5
5
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This is an important question for a leader to reflect prior to assuming the leadership role. Answering this question forces the leader into a position of service and puts subordinates, peers, and superiors on equal footing.
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Scrap Annual Performance Appraisals
By Gwen Walsh
C-Level/Executive Performance & Branding/Marketing Services
Finally! Influential organizations including Microsoft, Dell, New York Life and Accenture are leading the way as they scrap the beyond-archaic, valueless, time-wasting, check-the-box-obligatory, annual performance appraisal/review process.(1, 2) Now it’s time for the rest of the world to follow suit. Why? Because it makes 1,000% business sense! 90% of performance appraisals not only fail in improving performance, but a percentage actually damage your top performers’ psyche.(3)
A powerful alternative
Throw your performance appraisal process out the window and consider the following instead…
Genuinely engage your people via a bi-directional, dialogue- and listening-rich venue where you get to know your people and they get to know you
Leverage a casual “touching-base” forum whereby you can positively and consistently influence, inspire and coach your people
Understand what your people need real-time to deliver positive outcomes, then enable needs-driven solutions so you’re positioning both them and your organization for success
Ensure that your people are razor-focused on evidence-based accomplishments vs. getting mired down in busy work
Remain in lock-step with your people so they never surprise you and you never surprise them
Rapidly adjust to changing organizational priorities
Quickly and accurately discern your top, middle and bottom performers then enact thoughtfully-constructed plans that will fulfill your top performers, uplift your middle performers and exit your bottom performers
Replace the painful, time consuming, worthless, rushed and oftentimes nerve-racking mid- and year-end reviews with an organic and sustainable approach that is powerful, efficient, timely, simple and results-focused
What’s the downside of abandoning the heavily-ingrained appraisal process?
There is no downside! You know as well as I do that the appraisal process is fraught with problems.
Establishing new year goals oftentimes becomes an exercise in futility. Many of the goals that are initially teed up eventually go by the wayside as the year progresses because: 1) the funding never comes through; 2) market conditions change; 3) organizational priorities change; 4) priorities stomp on other priorities in the battle for limited resources; 5) accountabilities change, etc. Equally fluid are the new and unanticipated goals that magically fall (actually plummet) from the sky and land smack dab onto our plates as we’re continuously drinking from the company fire hose. Net/net…by year-end many of the original goals are no longer relevant and the new goals never made it into the reviewee’s performance plan. So what do the reviewer and the reviewee do at review time? Punt! They spend an inordinate amount of time 1) trying to recall what happened throughout the year; 2) trying to collect data and piece everything together; and 3) writing verbose performance review paragraphs — the reviewee trying to justify his/her recommended ratings and the reviewer not only responding to each reviewee comment, but writing summary paragraphs that oftentimes resemble War and Peace.
Mirroring a racing-against-the-clock Road Rally, it’s a mad dash to the review wrap-up finish line. Crunching through a hoard of performance reviews in an incredibly tight window doesn’t promote quality thought and outcomes. Some reviewers and reviewees are so short on time that they expend little effort on: 1) capturing reviewee performance evidence; 2) interactively discussing performance outcomes; and 3) offering and receiving targeted coaching designed to materially benefit the reviewee. The scramblers just do enough to “eke by” so they don’t land on the ever-dreaded “failed to submit a performance review” list. In fact, I’ve run into multiple cases where reviewees claim that they’ve submitted their performance reviews for reviewer evaluation, with the documents disappearing into the black hole. No acknowledgement. No interaction. No discussion. No nothing.
Relying on mid and annual performance appraisals has become a great excuse for not regularly and consistently engaging employees throughout the year, e.g., “While I’d like to meet with my directs more often, I simply don’t have the time. They’ll have to make do until mid-year or annual review time.” That's not leadership.
Surprising the reviewee or reviewer has become somewhat the norm. Both parties believe that they’re on the same page, then reality strikes. The reviewee thought that he/she had performed at a higher level than the reviewer-provided rating or the reviewee was caught off guard with aged and/or unsubstantiated performance feedback or all of the above. Awkward. I hear these kinds of reviewee complaints OFTEN.
Sending any one of the below leadership messages (or a combination thereof), which has only served to further widen the employer/employee disengagement gap:
I’ve lost track of what you accomplished during the year.
What you’ve been working on during the year was not what I had expected you to work on.
Why didn’t you get “X” done?
Here we are at year end and you didn’t begin to accomplish what I had asked you to accomplish at the beginning of the year.
You think you went the extra mile, but you really didn’t.
I don’t have the time to properly invest in you (and you don’t have the time either), so let’s rush through this process and just declare it “done”.
I surprised you but not in a good way.
I didn’t bother to meet with you after you submitted your review because it’s just not a priority for me.
Etc.
How the alternative works
About 16 years ago, when I was employed by a company that wasn’t bureaucratically-constrained, I revisited what I would call “the spirit” behind the performance appraisal process. I ultimately scrapped the traditional approach and instead, implemented a highly engaging, conversational, outcomes-focused method designed to benefit the employees, the firm and me. I further tweaked the method as I’ve rolled it out to my clients. It includes the following key components:
Key Component #1
Every 2-week 1:1 dialogue with each direct report. For leaders who believe that they have no time to meet every 2 weeks with their directs, I’d recommend that you take a step back and seriously reassess your priorities. Also consider the following as a possibility — if you were carving out the quality time to positively inspire, influence and coach your people, there would likely be little to no need for you to be immersed in tactics and fire fighting. The irony — tactics and fire fighting are likely precluding your ability to spend quality time with your directs.
Key Component #2
A 1- to 2-page dialogue template prepared and submitted in advance, by each direct, that includes brief talking points only (requiring ~30 minutes prep time; eliminating all verbosity)
My 1:1’s weren’t meandering status update sessions. My intent was to purposefully ensure that:
Rich, bi-directional, in-the-moment discussions were occurring regularly
We were developing authentic, candid and trust-based relationships with each other
I was doing my part to position my directs, their teams and the firm for success
My directs were doing their part to position their teams and the firm for success
We were factoring in performance and behavior-based feedback from multiple sources including customers, peers, colleagues, other managers via a simple scorecard system
We could adjust on a dime, meaning, as changing market conditions impacted organizational goals and priorities, we could quickly adapt real-time
I was stepping in exactly where and when needed to remove roadblocks
My directs and I remained in lock-step — I wasn’t surprising them — they weren’t surprising me
We remained focused on “accomplishments” and “evidence” (aka results) vs. “activities” (busy work)
All follow through’s and commitments — theirs and mine —were recorded, completed and honored
Whatever needed to be said, by my directs and me, was said plus recorded
My directs and I both retained a copy of each completed template so neither of us could claim amnesia at some point in the future
Key Component #3
While my firm permitted performance appraisal flexibility, they still insisted on appraisal form completion. Because my directs and I had recorded our interactive discussions and progress throughout the year, there was no need to scramble at year end, create anything new, try to recount what had occurred throughout the year, etc. Our work was already done! All we had to do was insert the following into the “official” review form:
Two BRIEF performance summary statements, one written by my direct and one written by me.
A reference to the completed 1:1 templates that my directs and I both kept on file, e.g., “Please refer to the 1:1 dialogue templates for further details.”
A performance rating that was actively discussed and mutually agreed upon as the year progressed.
Easy. Fast. Efficient. Powerful.
A triple win!
The approach that I began using years ago plus recommend to my clients, works perfectly in organizations that are still holding steadfast to the traditional performance appraisal process. Who wins with the method that I’m suggesting? Everyone! The wins as I see them:
Employees… are being actively : 1) engaged and included in performance and behavior assessment discussions and progress evaluations at every step of the way; 2) listened to with their needs being responded to; 3) supported and aided by their leaders as employees encounter perceived immoveable barriers (promoting a “we’re all in this together” culture); and 4) positioned for organizational and career success.
Leaders…are 1) building genuinely deep and caring relationships with their directs; 2) leveraging regular opportunities to positively inspire and influence their directs; 3) ensuring that their teams are focused on accomplishments and supporting evidence vs. busy work; 4) keeping their fingers on the performance and outcomes pulse by knowing who is consistently stepping up to the plate, who needs some occasional nudging and who is consistently dropping the ball, then responding accordingly; and 5) being conscientious stewards of each organization’s greatest asset — its people.
Organizations…are benefiting from leaders who: 1) are working smarter, not harder as they’re building and sustaining their high performing, outcomes-focused teams; 2) have figured out and have taken action on a better way to inspire, lead and engage their people despite the organization’s misguided faith in and blind allegiance to the performance appraisal process — an approach that has severely outlived its usefulness.
Thought Provokers: If scrapping the annual performance appraisal process makes business sense to you as well, are you willing to try the alternative provided? If “yes”, how might you best socialize and ultimately integrate this method into your environment?
Sources
1 In Big Move, Accenture Will Get Rid of Annual Performance Reviews & Rankings, The Washington Post, July, 2015
2 Microsoft & Dell are Ditching Employee Performance Reviews, Fortune, October, 2015.
3 Why Performance Appraisals Don’t Improve Performance, Psychology Today, February, 2014.
TSgt Hunter Logan COL Charles Williams LTC Stephen C. LTC Stephen F. CW4 (Join to see) CW3 (Join to see) SGM (Join to see) SSG Ryan Rodney CPT (Join to see) SSgt (Join to see) CW3 Kevin Storm CMSgt Mark Schubert PO2 Mark Saffell LTC John Shaw TSgt (Join to see) SFC Mark Merino CH (MAJ) William Beaver WO1 (Join to see) Maj Matt Hylton
By Gwen Walsh
C-Level/Executive Performance & Branding/Marketing Services
Finally! Influential organizations including Microsoft, Dell, New York Life and Accenture are leading the way as they scrap the beyond-archaic, valueless, time-wasting, check-the-box-obligatory, annual performance appraisal/review process.(1, 2) Now it’s time for the rest of the world to follow suit. Why? Because it makes 1,000% business sense! 90% of performance appraisals not only fail in improving performance, but a percentage actually damage your top performers’ psyche.(3)
A powerful alternative
Throw your performance appraisal process out the window and consider the following instead…
Genuinely engage your people via a bi-directional, dialogue- and listening-rich venue where you get to know your people and they get to know you
Leverage a casual “touching-base” forum whereby you can positively and consistently influence, inspire and coach your people
Understand what your people need real-time to deliver positive outcomes, then enable needs-driven solutions so you’re positioning both them and your organization for success
Ensure that your people are razor-focused on evidence-based accomplishments vs. getting mired down in busy work
Remain in lock-step with your people so they never surprise you and you never surprise them
Rapidly adjust to changing organizational priorities
Quickly and accurately discern your top, middle and bottom performers then enact thoughtfully-constructed plans that will fulfill your top performers, uplift your middle performers and exit your bottom performers
Replace the painful, time consuming, worthless, rushed and oftentimes nerve-racking mid- and year-end reviews with an organic and sustainable approach that is powerful, efficient, timely, simple and results-focused
What’s the downside of abandoning the heavily-ingrained appraisal process?
There is no downside! You know as well as I do that the appraisal process is fraught with problems.
Establishing new year goals oftentimes becomes an exercise in futility. Many of the goals that are initially teed up eventually go by the wayside as the year progresses because: 1) the funding never comes through; 2) market conditions change; 3) organizational priorities change; 4) priorities stomp on other priorities in the battle for limited resources; 5) accountabilities change, etc. Equally fluid are the new and unanticipated goals that magically fall (actually plummet) from the sky and land smack dab onto our plates as we’re continuously drinking from the company fire hose. Net/net…by year-end many of the original goals are no longer relevant and the new goals never made it into the reviewee’s performance plan. So what do the reviewer and the reviewee do at review time? Punt! They spend an inordinate amount of time 1) trying to recall what happened throughout the year; 2) trying to collect data and piece everything together; and 3) writing verbose performance review paragraphs — the reviewee trying to justify his/her recommended ratings and the reviewer not only responding to each reviewee comment, but writing summary paragraphs that oftentimes resemble War and Peace.
Mirroring a racing-against-the-clock Road Rally, it’s a mad dash to the review wrap-up finish line. Crunching through a hoard of performance reviews in an incredibly tight window doesn’t promote quality thought and outcomes. Some reviewers and reviewees are so short on time that they expend little effort on: 1) capturing reviewee performance evidence; 2) interactively discussing performance outcomes; and 3) offering and receiving targeted coaching designed to materially benefit the reviewee. The scramblers just do enough to “eke by” so they don’t land on the ever-dreaded “failed to submit a performance review” list. In fact, I’ve run into multiple cases where reviewees claim that they’ve submitted their performance reviews for reviewer evaluation, with the documents disappearing into the black hole. No acknowledgement. No interaction. No discussion. No nothing.
Relying on mid and annual performance appraisals has become a great excuse for not regularly and consistently engaging employees throughout the year, e.g., “While I’d like to meet with my directs more often, I simply don’t have the time. They’ll have to make do until mid-year or annual review time.” That's not leadership.
Surprising the reviewee or reviewer has become somewhat the norm. Both parties believe that they’re on the same page, then reality strikes. The reviewee thought that he/she had performed at a higher level than the reviewer-provided rating or the reviewee was caught off guard with aged and/or unsubstantiated performance feedback or all of the above. Awkward. I hear these kinds of reviewee complaints OFTEN.
Sending any one of the below leadership messages (or a combination thereof), which has only served to further widen the employer/employee disengagement gap:
I’ve lost track of what you accomplished during the year.
What you’ve been working on during the year was not what I had expected you to work on.
Why didn’t you get “X” done?
Here we are at year end and you didn’t begin to accomplish what I had asked you to accomplish at the beginning of the year.
You think you went the extra mile, but you really didn’t.
I don’t have the time to properly invest in you (and you don’t have the time either), so let’s rush through this process and just declare it “done”.
I surprised you but not in a good way.
I didn’t bother to meet with you after you submitted your review because it’s just not a priority for me.
Etc.
How the alternative works
About 16 years ago, when I was employed by a company that wasn’t bureaucratically-constrained, I revisited what I would call “the spirit” behind the performance appraisal process. I ultimately scrapped the traditional approach and instead, implemented a highly engaging, conversational, outcomes-focused method designed to benefit the employees, the firm and me. I further tweaked the method as I’ve rolled it out to my clients. It includes the following key components:
Key Component #1
Every 2-week 1:1 dialogue with each direct report. For leaders who believe that they have no time to meet every 2 weeks with their directs, I’d recommend that you take a step back and seriously reassess your priorities. Also consider the following as a possibility — if you were carving out the quality time to positively inspire, influence and coach your people, there would likely be little to no need for you to be immersed in tactics and fire fighting. The irony — tactics and fire fighting are likely precluding your ability to spend quality time with your directs.
Key Component #2
A 1- to 2-page dialogue template prepared and submitted in advance, by each direct, that includes brief talking points only (requiring ~30 minutes prep time; eliminating all verbosity)
My 1:1’s weren’t meandering status update sessions. My intent was to purposefully ensure that:
Rich, bi-directional, in-the-moment discussions were occurring regularly
We were developing authentic, candid and trust-based relationships with each other
I was doing my part to position my directs, their teams and the firm for success
My directs were doing their part to position their teams and the firm for success
We were factoring in performance and behavior-based feedback from multiple sources including customers, peers, colleagues, other managers via a simple scorecard system
We could adjust on a dime, meaning, as changing market conditions impacted organizational goals and priorities, we could quickly adapt real-time
I was stepping in exactly where and when needed to remove roadblocks
My directs and I remained in lock-step — I wasn’t surprising them — they weren’t surprising me
We remained focused on “accomplishments” and “evidence” (aka results) vs. “activities” (busy work)
All follow through’s and commitments — theirs and mine —were recorded, completed and honored
Whatever needed to be said, by my directs and me, was said plus recorded
My directs and I both retained a copy of each completed template so neither of us could claim amnesia at some point in the future
Key Component #3
While my firm permitted performance appraisal flexibility, they still insisted on appraisal form completion. Because my directs and I had recorded our interactive discussions and progress throughout the year, there was no need to scramble at year end, create anything new, try to recount what had occurred throughout the year, etc. Our work was already done! All we had to do was insert the following into the “official” review form:
Two BRIEF performance summary statements, one written by my direct and one written by me.
A reference to the completed 1:1 templates that my directs and I both kept on file, e.g., “Please refer to the 1:1 dialogue templates for further details.”
A performance rating that was actively discussed and mutually agreed upon as the year progressed.
Easy. Fast. Efficient. Powerful.
A triple win!
The approach that I began using years ago plus recommend to my clients, works perfectly in organizations that are still holding steadfast to the traditional performance appraisal process. Who wins with the method that I’m suggesting? Everyone! The wins as I see them:
Employees… are being actively : 1) engaged and included in performance and behavior assessment discussions and progress evaluations at every step of the way; 2) listened to with their needs being responded to; 3) supported and aided by their leaders as employees encounter perceived immoveable barriers (promoting a “we’re all in this together” culture); and 4) positioned for organizational and career success.
Leaders…are 1) building genuinely deep and caring relationships with their directs; 2) leveraging regular opportunities to positively inspire and influence their directs; 3) ensuring that their teams are focused on accomplishments and supporting evidence vs. busy work; 4) keeping their fingers on the performance and outcomes pulse by knowing who is consistently stepping up to the plate, who needs some occasional nudging and who is consistently dropping the ball, then responding accordingly; and 5) being conscientious stewards of each organization’s greatest asset — its people.
Organizations…are benefiting from leaders who: 1) are working smarter, not harder as they’re building and sustaining their high performing, outcomes-focused teams; 2) have figured out and have taken action on a better way to inspire, lead and engage their people despite the organization’s misguided faith in and blind allegiance to the performance appraisal process — an approach that has severely outlived its usefulness.
Thought Provokers: If scrapping the annual performance appraisal process makes business sense to you as well, are you willing to try the alternative provided? If “yes”, how might you best socialize and ultimately integrate this method into your environment?
Sources
1 In Big Move, Accenture Will Get Rid of Annual Performance Reviews & Rankings, The Washington Post, July, 2015
2 Microsoft & Dell are Ditching Employee Performance Reviews, Fortune, October, 2015.
3 Why Performance Appraisals Don’t Improve Performance, Psychology Today, February, 2014.
TSgt Hunter Logan COL Charles Williams LTC Stephen C. LTC Stephen F. CW4 (Join to see) CW3 (Join to see) SGM (Join to see) SSG Ryan Rodney CPT (Join to see) SSgt (Join to see) CW3 Kevin Storm CMSgt Mark Schubert PO2 Mark Saffell LTC John Shaw TSgt (Join to see) SFC Mark Merino CH (MAJ) William Beaver WO1 (Join to see) Maj Matt Hylton
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What can I do to make your job easier? What can I do to gain trust from you? What are the problems you are having; and how can I help you with them? What can I do to make you feel more involved?
COL Mikel J. Burroughs
COL Mikel J. Burroughs
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