The Workplace Festive Season Has Arrived! (A new take on Appraisals)

It's another festive season and people are getting more and more excited as the time draws near. The workplace is buzzing with delighted anticipation ...

It's appraisal time again!

You can almost feel the glow of excitement of everyone around you on the morning commute to the office. You can almost hear their unspoken wish: 'I do hope I get told my appraisal date today. I can't wait to hear!'

You can pinpoint those whose day has come. They are the ones with the palpable inner glow and the radiant smile that almost lights up the bus or the railway carriage.

Ah! If only every day was appraisal day! 

But what is this I hear? You are telling me to return to the real world, where over half the employees — both managers and their direct reports — dislike appraisals? The world where most people are disengaged and a large percentage resign because of their bosses.

If this is so, why do companies have this annual event? Is it just to determine what kind of increment they will get?

You say that there is no connection between the appraisal and salary awards? So this means all the effort I have put in to streamline what I do to achieve greater throughput does not reflect in the value I receive and therefore, if I hadn't bothered, I would get exactly the same increment or recognition?

Oh? It is also to help you plan my developmental needs?  So if we find my performance is lacking in February, it will be pinpointed in December so I can receive the appropriate training in the following June? Very helpful.

Besides this, how can an effective and objective assessment of my performance take place when so much of what I have done (or not done) over the past year will have been forgotten anyway? The fact that my current manager took over his position two months after I had done that streamlining and was therefore unaware of my real value-add wasn't helpful either.

It all seems rather arbitrary to me.

Why don't many more companies stop doing what has always been done and instead focus on the things that create a culture in which people enjoy producing great results and in which appraisals are a positive experience for all?

So let's get people smiling in anticipation of not only their appraisals but also their everyday work. It can be done. It has been done.

 .

My next trip to India - pioneering powerful performance!

I'm spending a few short weeks in India from late October helping some forward-thinking companies to 'kick start' the Lead To Win concepts with these one-day workshops.

They want to create a climate that boosts morale and performance.


On top of this, I shall be running more two-day intensive "Recruiting Winners" interview workshops, helping interviewers use behavioural issues to identify high performers.

So, my trip is all about hiring and leading for performance and retention.

If you are in India, please take this opportunity to arrange in-house workshops for yourselves if you want to start 'Pioneering Powerful Performance' in your company. 

Just get in touch as soon as possible. I shall be happy to work with you. 

I'm really looking forward to the challenges this visit is presenting!

FREE extract from 'Lead To Win - Pioneering Powerful Performance'

'Lead To Win' is NOT about theories.
It is NOT about leading from the front.

The book 'Lead To Win' IS about practical and logical ways of working with people and systems.
It IS about helping people get great satisfaction from producing great results.

Download and browse this extract to see how the contents of the book can, and have,  helped change morale and performance in a powerful and positive way.

https://app.box.com/s/qm59shgxr9147tuz7p6i

(Please 'Like' this to spread the word!)

. 

Leadership:… Always do what you've always done?

     "Always do what you've always done ... and you'll always get what you've always got."

To be an effective leader, we must be prepared to step outside the mould. We must dare to be different.

However, this does not mean throwing all caution to the wind. What we do should make some sense and provide good chances of success in achieving the desired goal.

It should also result in positive outcomes for others.

I am sure most people in leadership positions want to do a great job, so what prevents them from doing so? 

In a nutshell: they either don't dare to be different or they don't know how they need to be different.

This is what has prompted me to write “Lead To Win - Pioneering Powerful Performance” to provide the how. 

“Lead To Win” distils decades of experience, experiment, study and observation into an easy to read guide. There are live examples that illustrate how the proffered concepts have worked and brought success.

What also helps is the fact that the book contains very little theory. Instead it gives down-to-earth, practical steps, processes and approaches to both people and the work. 

The only question that remains is: Do you dare to be different by helping individuals get great satisfaction from producing great results?

If so, check out the book. Start by reading a sample by taking a "look inside" the slim volume in print or download the sample on your Kindle/Kindle app on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00DT7F13M

If you like what you see, get a copy and read it. Then comes the most important step that many book readers tend to forget: carefully adopt the concepts and make them work for you and your team.

Finally, see the different level of results! (Please note: I will appreciate learning of the successes you and your team achieve.)

If you would like support in implementing the concepts in your organisation, do get in touch. 

.

What Price Customer Experience?

Today I dropped into our neighbourhood supermarket to get a few urgent grocery items. A few friends are coming to join us for tea this afternoon.

I queued at the checkout and, as the lady on the till finished with the customers in front of me, a colleague of hers asked how she was.

"I was fine until I got here," was the reply. A grimace underlined her unhappiness.

This intrigued me so, once she had completed dealing with my items and I saw nobody else was waiting for service, I opened a conversation.

"Sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing your brief discussion with your colleague. I hope you have a good day and feel better soon."

"Oh, that," she said. "It was what I was confronted with when I walked in. We have to speed up to shorten the checkout time."

I looked at her questioningly.

"I think it is wrong. Customers come here to buy their food and won't be happy seeing their food roughly handled." She emphasised the point with sweeps of her hand that demonstrated how things would be almost flung down the slope in the process.

Her point was well made because I recalled such a situation not long ago in their shop and found it difficult to keep my packing fast enough to prevent the accumulation of an unwieldy pile of stuff. Added to this is the fact that once the cashier has finished the processing, she and the queue are all waiting for me to finish my packing and pay my bill so the next customer can be served. All eyes are on me because I am apparently holding up the traffic.

Yes there is a need to process customers swiftly to prevent excessive queueing without the expense of additional staff costs. However, there is also the need to ensure the customers don't feel pressured or feel their food is being badly handled.

This apparent attempt to speed things up can easily lead to more customers accepting the "automatic" offer of help with their packing. It could even tempt them to go somewhere more comfortable to do their grocery shopping.

On the surface, it would seem that an order has been conveyed rather than a problem-solving discussion held. Had it been the latter, this checkout lady would have had the opportunity to raise her concerns, which were based on her value system which, in itself, was customer-centric.

It would have helped rephrase the objectives: how can we speed up customer processing without increasing costs and without making the customers feel rushed?

With my experience with problem solving in a team environment, I would expect some interesting and helpful ideas might well come of such a session. Sharing the issue with those who implement a solution helps focus attention on the satisfying of all stakeholders as well as create workable solutions.

An afterthought struck me as I left the premises. There has been quite a heavy turnover of staff over the past months — old faces disappear and new ones arrive. If my assumptions about leadership style are correct, then a high staff churn is only to be expected — with all its attendant costs.

My Recent Visit to India

Those who know me well will not be surprised to learn that I found an excuse to visit India again recently!

It was good to be back, even if for but a short few short weeks.

During the stay, I worked with companies in Kolkata, Mumbai and Noida, running the two-day workshops "Recruiting Winners".

These were intensive and therefore also hard work. However, all the participants were really enthusiastic, putting in a great deal of effort to learn how to interview for high performing people.
 
Their dedication to becoming far more effective for the benefit of both their company and the people in it made it great to be working with them.

In Kolkata, I had the pleasure of working with the friendly team in IntraSoft Technologies. In Mumbai, the team at USV kept me on my toes and in Noida, OSSCube Solutions made me work hard and have continued to call for further support! 

I am pleased to see they have made changes in order to fully utilise what they have learned. 

What did the Workshops cover?

The Basics:

Why it is so important to get selection right.

Why normal interviews can easily go expensively wrong.

Why the “usual suspects” of Skills, Knowledge, Training, Qualifications and Experience are woefully inadequate measures on their own.

The vitally important aspects:

Identifying the crucial factors that determine high performance in a role.

Understand these core factors in some depth.

How to frame interview questions that will elicit valuable information about these items rather than the “stock” answers one normally gets.

How to dig deeper when probing.

Review of a few past recruitments that went wrong so we can validate to what extent understanding these important aspects might have saved an error.

The feedback received.

"I am happy to share that everybody has got inspired by your training and are using the 'Recruiting Winners' Technique while interviewing.
They have really put the learning into practice. Thank you for such an effective training.


"The workshop was amazing ..."


"I thank you for supporting me in my quest to create a Team of HR Professionals who can make a difference to the business and industry not by just having a certification in HR but actually implementing the ideas of thought leaders in HR profession."