Tag Archive for: Your Leadership Matters

performance

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance – Summary

/0 Comments/in /by

performance

This blog is part of a series of blogs focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”. Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee. These interactions and activities result in the achievement of goals and expectations. More importantly, they result in employee success and organizational success.

The previous three blogs overviewed the importance of ongoing conversations. They also outlined an approach to take when providing feedback. This feeback focuses on “landing” the message vs. just “sending the message”. Leaders, managers, supervisors, team leads and anyone else who oversees or manages the work of others need to commit to providing meaningful and helpful feedback on a regular basis that is authentic and clear. This blog will summarize the key concepts that must be employed to effectively manage the assessment and feedback stage of the process of managing employee performance.

The Fundamental Purpose of Feedback

There are two basic reasons that managers assess and discuss with an employee the actions/behaviours or outcomes that the employees demonstrate relating to the job performance that was expected. The feedback (a better word would be performance conversation because it should be a two-way dialogue) is given to:

  1. Reinforce a desired action/behaviour/outcome so the employee will know to do it again; or
  2. Correct an undesired action/behaviour/outcome.

Actions/behaviours/outcomes that are considered “desirable” is based on an expectation setting process. This process outlines what the organization wants from the employee and how they partner to give the employee value in return. Ideally, the performance leads to success for both the organization and the employee.  Times are changing. The idea that employee performance is only about the organization is gone or is soon to go. So, with mutual success in mind, we engage in conversation to reinforce and correct action/behaviour/outcome that needs to be modified or changed.

Key Principles

Research has demonstrated that conversations focused on sharing insights into the employee’s progress should be prioritized. It should no longer be considered by managers as something to get to “when I have time” or ”when I’m finished my real work”. Managers should share with employees what they do and don’t do well. There should be regular conversations (progress updates) with a focus on actions/behaviours/outcomes that have a significant impact on organizational success and/or employee success. Every conversation should focus on ensuring that the employee understands the message and the choices that they have to respond to the situation. The manager’s mindset needs to be on “landing” the message, not just “sending” the message.

Framework for the Conversation

Managers can employ a process that FEEDs the employee. This is part of ensuring that the message “lands” and that organizational and employee success is achieved. A little bit of forethought using a four-step process, will dramatically increase the effectiveness of the conversation. FEED stands for:

1 – Facts, Focus and Framing – What happened, what message should “land” & what context is important

2 – Expectations – How what happened compares to what was expected.

3 – Effect – What impact did the action/behaviour/outcome have on the employee and or organization

4 – Dialogue – What is the other person’s perspective

Managers who consider the purpose of feedback, embrace the key principles and employ the FEED framework will undoubtedly see greater success. This success will benefit the employee, the team, the organization and their own leadership. In the next blog, we will tackle how to have a difficult conversation in situations involving disagreement or conflict.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. You can connect with me via email or telephone or leave a comment right here on the site.

Until next time,

Dave

David Town, CHRL, ACC is a facilitator and coach of leadership and management principles that enable individuals and organizations to build greater leadership competency, resulting in higher performance and higher employee engagement. David has a particular focus on effectively managing conversations involving confrontation or conflict. As well, he provides insights and assessment strategies for integrating character competencies into leadership skills resulting in increased trust and reduced risk for leaders. David is a member of the International Coaching Federation and is President of Your Leadership Matters Inc.

feedback

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance Part 3

/0 Comments/in /by

feedback

This blog is part of a series of blogs focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”. Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee. These interactions and activities result in the achievement of goals and expectations. More importantly, they result in employee success and organizational success. The previous two blogs emphasized the importance of ongoing conversations and choosing an approach focused on “landing” the message vs. just sending the message. Managers of employee performance need to commit to providing meaningful and helpful feedback on a regular basis. This feedback must be authentic and clear. This blog will continue the topic of how to assesses performance through ongoing conversations with a focus on how to structure the actual feedback conversation so that it “lands”.

Four Step Framework

I have developed a four-step framework for providing feedback in an effective manner. As a way to remember each step of the process, the four steps are based on the word FEED. Connecting the concept to a story can be a great way to remember the concept, so let’s do that for our feedback framework.

In our story, a young woman with great potential joins an organization and is matched with an experienced executive who is entering the twilight of her career and has been asked to mentor the new employee. When they sit down at their first meeting, the experienced executive asks the young woman “what would you like from me – how can I help?” The young woman remarks that she prefers an environment where people are engaged, care about their work, relationships matter and employee success matters. She continues with an observation that all too often there is an environment where people are indifferent, relationships don’t seem to matter, and management appears to only care about how the company is doing. She then asks, “how do I build an atmosphere where relationships matter, and people feel supported?”

The wise executive answers “Relationships are a like a living being. They are alive and need sustenance. Like any living entity, the one you feed thrives. If the sustenance you deliver provides clarity, builds engagement and supports employee success, that is what will thrive.  Take a few days to think about that, and let’s meet again to talk about what I’ve said and what it means to you.”  With that, the meeting ends.

Feedback Process – FEED

The key concept from the story is “whatever you feed will thrive”. A framework for having great conversations with people is all about your ability to FEED. FEED stands for:

Step 1 – Facts, Focus and Framing

  • Facts – Describe the situation – the specific behaviours and outcomes.
  • Focus – What will be the focus of the conversation? Identify the message that you want to “land”.
  • Frame – How will you frame the conversation at the beginning – what context will be helpful for the message to “land” better?

Step 2 – Expectations

  • Revisit the expectations. Confirm the “target” expectations that have been communicated and discussed in the past.

Step 3 – Effect

  • Discuss the effect of the actions taken. Review the impact of the actions/outcomes. What difference does it make to the recipient of the feedback, to co-workers, to the customer, or to the organization? Connect the impact to outcomes that are important to the recipient (explain an example).

Step 4 – Dialogue

  • Invite the other person to share their perspective. Engage in dialogue – an exchange of thoughts.

If you do a good job FEEDing an employee when assessing their performance, success will grow. In the next blog, we will summarize the key elements of assessing performance.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. You can connect with me via email or telephone or leave a comment right here on the site.

Until next time,

Dave

David Town, CHRL, ACC is a facilitator and coach of leadership and management principles that enable individuals and organizations to build greater leadership competency, resulting in higher performance and higher employee engagement. David has a particular focus on effectively managing conversations involving confrontation or conflict. As well, he provides insights and assessment strategies for integrating character competencies into leadership skills resulting in increased trust and reduced risk for leaders. David is a member of the International Coaching Federation and is President of Your Leadership Matters Inc.

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance Part 2

/0 Comments/in , /by

This blog is part of a series of blogs focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”. Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee. These interactions and activities result in the achievement of goals and expectations. More importantly, they result in employee success and organizational success. The previous blog emphasized the importance of ongoing conversations. Managers of employee performance need to commit to providing meaningful and helpful feedback on a regular basis as opposed to a few times a yea or only during an annual meeting. This blog will continue the topic of how to assesses performance through ongoing conversations with a focus on how to structure feedback conversations. We will now explore how to assess performance and provide employees with meaningful information on how they are doing.

Employee Assessments

The previous blog provided compelling evidence to support the assertion that assessments of employee performance take place on a continuing basis. When the performance assessment takes place, it is important for an employee to know where they are relative to where they’re supposed to be. When the performance indicates that the employee is on target, the manager should provide positive reinforcement to ensure the behavior continues. If an assessment of performance indicates that the employee is not on target, the manager should provide corrective feedback to enable the employee to get back on course. Although performance assessments take place on a regular basis, most managers are not able to spend all of their time constantly sharing feedback. There needs to be a balance.

How Frequently Should Managers Have Feedback Conversations with Employees?

Ideally, conversations on performance should take place anytime there is a behavior action that has a significant impact on the individual or the organization.  This ensures that the positive “on target” behaviours that have a significant impact will continue and the “off target” behaviours that to not meet expectations are corrected.

What Approach Should You Take to Lead to Success?

Once the decision has been made to share performance feedback with an employee, the next question is “What approach should I take in order to effectively share my assessment with the employee so that it will lead to success?” (aka “How do I give them my feedback?”). This is where the correct mindset is critically important. When giving an employee feedback, managers often define a good conversation as one where they have told the employee what was wrong (or right) with their behaviour. This does not capture the real objective of the conversation. In order for feedback to truly be integrated with the overall objective of performance management (which is helping employees succeed), the goal of the conversation is not just about sending the message. The ultimate goal of the conversation is to “land the message”.

Red Auerbach was a very effective coach in the national basketball Association. He was once quoted as saying; “It’s not what you tell your players that counts. It’s what they hear.” (Red Auerbach, Leadership Wired, Mar. 12, 2004). I believe this is a profound insight. When talking with managers regarding the struggles they have with employees who don’t seem to respond to their feedback, I often hear the managers defend their actions by explaining to me how many times they spoke to the employee to tell them how to correct behavior. As a manager, rather than measuring how many times you said something to an employee, you should be measuring if the message was received and understood. This is where the term “landing the message” becomes critically important.

Landing the Message

“Landing the message” means that the employee has fully understood the message and the implications of taking action as a response to the message. When we accept that “landing the message” is the goal we are trying to achieve when sharing performance assessments, it can offer great insights into the type of approach needed to achieve this goal. When we are able to land the message, we are on the right path to help the employee achieve success. With this in mind, the next blog will provide a framework for giving feedback in a way that encourages dialogue and builds understanding on how to achieve success.

As always, I welcome your feedback. You can connect with me via email or telephone or leave a comment right here on the site.

Until next time,

Dave

David Town, CHRL, ACC is a facilitator and coach of leadership and management principles that enable individuals and organizations to build greater leadership competency, resulting in higher performance and higher employee engagement. David has a particular focus on effectively managing conversations involving confrontation or conflict. As well, he provides insights and assessment strategies for integrating character competencies into leadership skills resulting in increased trust and reduced risk for leaders. David is a member of the International Coaching Federation and is President of Your Leadership Matters Inc.
Maximizing Personal Productivity

Maximizing Personal Productivity Part 2 – Developing a Process for Time Management Decision Making

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Maximizing Personal Productivity - Time Management Decision Making

This blog is the second in a series on the topic of “Maximizing Personal Productivity”.  Part 1 focused on the importance of understanding that time is a fixed resource and There really is no such thing as “I don’t have time” – there is only “I didn’t decide to spend my time on that!”.  The mindset we need to adopt to be successful centres on choice – we have the power to decide how we spend our time, although it is clear that the choices may sometimes be very difficult.  In order to make good decisions, we need to develop a process that helps clarify which choices most closely align with what we really want to achieve.

There are two key steps to an effective process relating to how you spend your time.  They are:

Step A – Organize and Assess

This step is all about ensuring that you collect and organize all of the requests and opportunities to spend your time and you assess the requests in order to decide what you will spend your time on to provide the greatest return relative to what you want to achieve each day, week, month, etc.

Step B – Focus

This step examines best practices for maintaining your focus on the activity you chose to spend time on.  This step is critical to the maximization of personal productivity.

Let’s look at some important components of Step A – Organize & Assess.  There are two parts to the Organize & Assess process.  The first part involves dealing with incoming time-takers and the second part is all about regular planning.  For this blog, we’ll deal with the first part – managing incoming time takers – and leave the second part for my next blog.

Managing Incoming Work/Play Opportunities

One of the key challenges in managing how you spend your time is managing the volume of incoming work/play opportunities.  Emails, phone calls, meetings, client projects, regular job expectations and personal activities can create an almost overwhelming list of things to do.

To be effective, you need to do the right things right.

As a starting point, you need to have a system to organize all the incoming requests to identify “the right things”.  Choose a system or strategy that you like and can commit to.  Some people use electronic tools while others write lists in journals.  In the end, the best system is one that you are committed to.

Establish a Plan of Action Immediately

The purpose of the system for managing your incoming requests is to ensure that every incoming request for your time is either acted on now, acted on later,  delegated (to someone else) or dismissed.  This is where a tool to organize your list can help.  You need to capture all of the items you’ll act on later in one place so you can refer to them when it is time to act on them.

If you really want an air-tight system for managing future commitments, you need to put them on a list or calendar that you refer to every day.  The routine of keeping and referring to a list or calendar every day is critical to success.

We Often Confuse Urgent with Important

Stephen Covey will be remembered forever for his articulation of the concept of assessing urgency and importance when deciding how to spend your time.  We often confuse urgent with important.  The phone rings and you answer it because it is urgent.  On the other end of the line is a person selling air-duct cleaning, which for most of us is not important.  So, answering the phone was a waste of time.

To be effective we need to do things that are important and avoid doing things that are not important.  Important activities are those which offer the most value in reaching your goals.  We’ll reflect further on the concept of urgent vs. important in the next blog.  However, here’s how it works in the context of the initial filter listed above.

You read an incoming email and have four choices:

  1. Act on it now. You make this choice because it is important and you can deal with it in five minutes or less.  For activities like this, it is more efficient to just do it than to put it on a to do list.
  2. Act on it later. The activity is important and you need to do it at some point.  If you need to do it later in the day or within the next week, the best place to log this activity is in a specific time slot in a calendar.  Otherwise, put it on the to do list.
  3. Delegate it. The activity is important but it isn’t necessary that you do it.  You should target routine tasks that could be done by others.
  4. Dismiss it (delete it). You make this choice because it is not important.

Ok, that’s it.  Simple, right!?  Don’t confuse simple with easy.  The concept is straightforward but the execution is tough.  The next blog in this series will continue to explore the urgent vs important concept in assessing the decisions regarding how to spend your time and will look at a really simple way to think about priority planning.

As always, I welcome your feedback. You can connect with me via email or telephone or leave a comment right here on the site.

Until next time,

Dave

David Town, ACC, CHRL, is a coach and facilitator of leadership and management principles that enable individuals and organizations to build greater leadership competency, resulting in higher performance and higher employee engagement. David has a particular focus on performance management and effectively managing conversations involving confrontation or conflict. As well, he provides insights and assessment strategies for integrating character competencies into leadership skills resulting in increased trust and reduced risk for leaders. David is a member of the International Coaching Federation and is President of Your Leadership Matters Inc.

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance Part 4

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

This blog is part of a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee that result in the achievement of goals and expectations.

Previous blogs in this series answered questions about assessing performance and offered feedback principles that will enable the person sharing a performance assessment to “land” the message.  This blog will provide insights into the concept of “framing” a conversation and how it relates to landing the message.

Planning for a Performance Conversation

Planning for a performance conversation can dramatically improve the outcome of the conversation.  Recalling some of the principles from recent blogs in this series, a manager needs to use the FEED framework in their conversation planning.  FEED stands for:

  • Facts – start with facts
  • Expectations – review what is expected
  • Effect – outline the impact or “effects” of the actions taken
  • Dialogue – invite the other person to share their perspective

Determining the Theme of the Message

Either reinforcement of a desired behaviour or correction of an undesired behaviour, determining the theme of the message an important part of the planning process.  By establishing the theme of the message you want to “land”, you help keep things on track as the conversation evolves and create a way to measure if the conversation was successful.

Framing the Conversation

When you have outlined the FEED approach and established the message theme, you are ready to start the conversation.  You know what you want to say and why you want to say it, but the other person may be entering the conversation with little or no knowledge of your purpose and intent for the conversation.  This is where the concept of “framing” comes in.  When you provide a “frame” for the conversation, you provide context to the receiver that contains insights into your purpose and intentions.  Let’s look at an example of two different approaches a manager could take to invite an employee into a performance conversation.

Situation:

Judy, a good performer on your team has been leading a project and things have been going well.  At a meeting this morning, Judy made a mistake in the way she handled a situation and the outcome of the meeting was not what it could have been.  Judy did not make a career altering mistake, however the behaviour has enough impact that it warrants having a performance conversation with her to ensure that the undesired behaviour is corrected.  You have thought through the FEED framework and the message theme and have decided to give Judy a call to set up a meeting with her later today (if she is available).  Below are two different approaches to invite her into the conversation.

Approach #1

“Judy, this morning things didn’t go as planned in the meeting. Please meet me in my office at 3pm today to discuss the situation.”

Approach #2

“Judy, I know you have been working hard on the project and things have been going well.  At this morning’s meeting, there was a situation that seemed to not go as well as it might have.  I am committed to helping you achieve the success you are striving for in managing the project, so I thought we should meet later today to talk about what happened.  Are you available at 3pm today?  We could meet in my office to discuss the situation”.

Approach #1 does not offer much in the way of a frame for the conversation.  The challenge with this approach is that the employee could easily interpret the invitation in a negative context and could attend the meeting with a healthy degree of fear that is less likely to help them in their development in managing projects.

Approach #2 provides insight into the intentions of Judy’s manager and the desire to help them as a frame for the conversation.  This approach is much more likely to put Judy in the right frame of mind to be open to improvements when her manager goes to “land” their message and offer corrective feedback.

In summary, good planning can help with performance conversations.  Effective feedback requires you to develop a framework for delivering the message, identify the theme for the conversation and provide context – a frame – for the message to ensure your good intentions are clear.

The next blogs in this series will offer insights into how to deal with performance gaps and the prospect of confronting an employee with difficult feedback.

As always, I welcome your feedback. You can connect with me via email or telephone or leave a comment right here on the site.

Until next time,

Dave

David Town, CHRL, is a facilitator and coach of leadership and management principles that enable individuals and organizations to build greater leadership competency, resulting in higher performance and higher employee engagement. David has a particular focus on effectively managing conversations involving confrontation or conflict. As well, he provides insights and assessment strategies for integrating character competencies into leadership skills resulting in increased trust and reduced risk for leaders. David is a member of the International Coaching Federation and is President of Your Leadership Matters Inc.

two young business people discussing

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance Part 3

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

two young business people discussing

This blog is part of a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee that result in the achievement of goals and expectations. Read more

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

41108649 - landing

Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee, that result in the achievement of goals and expectations.

This blog is part of a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  The last blog offered insights into how to assess performance and provide employees with meaningful information on how they are doing.  This blog will continue to explore the process of giving meaningful performance feedback. Read more

Managing Employee Performance – Assessing Performance

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Businessman supervising his female assistant's work on laptop computer

This blog is part of a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee, that result in the achievement of goals and expectations.

The previous two blogs offered insights into how to set expectations.  We will now explore how to assess performance and provide employees with meaningful information on how they are doing. Read more

Managing Employee Performance – Setting Expectations Part 2

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

48938495_s

This blog is the third in a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee that result in the achievement of goals and expectations.   The previous blog offered insights into how to set expectations.  Context, clarity and degrees of freedom are key elements in the development of clear expectations.   This blog will continue the topic of how to set expectations with a review of goal-setting. Read more

Managing Employee Performance – Setting Expectations

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Setting Expectations

This blog is the second in a series focusing on the topic of “Managing Employee Performance”.  Managing employee performance in the workplace is comprised of all of the interactions and activities that take place between an employer and an employee, that result in the achievement of goals and expectations. The first blog emphasized the need for organizations to choose the most appropriate focus for performance management – the development of a relationship and work environment that enables the person to perform to the best of their abilities. Read more