It is true that we don’t see with our eyes as much as with our brain. Sure the eyes capture the photons - but it is in the brain that we actually do the seeing - largely based on what we are looking for.
If you need proof, try this. NB you will need to hear the soundtrack!
Our ‘findings really do follow our seekings’, and our brain only lets us see what makes sense in the context.
This is especially important when we start to form opinions about people or projects. If we believe that they are good - then all we will see is the good stuff (as our subconscious filters aout what does not fit in with our pre-conceived ideas). If on the other hand we think that people are bad or lazy then all we wil tend to see is the behaviour that serves to confirm our beliefs.
Learning to observe and feedback on a range of work behaviours in a non judgemental, non-evaluative way is a key skill for the effective manager. BTW there is some evidence that women in general tend to be more open to ‘peripheral’ stuff, to pick up on the background and make more sense of it than men. I wonder if there are gender differences in spotting the dancing bear!
They know both what matters to the organisation (vision, values, goals, behaviours, strategy in action) and what matters to individual employees. Their families’ names. Who is terrified of flying. Their favourite hobbies and interests. Who has expressed interest in a leadership role.
They take every opportunity to recognise and appreciate what matters to the organisation and to recognise and respect what matters most to the individual. They help to connect the dots between what matters to people personally and what matters to the organisation.
In my work with Progressive Managers often the largest challenge is that of recognising the good stuff. Often managers do not see enough of what people do to be able to observe (even less recognise) it. And if they are in a position to observe it, often the subtleties go un-noticed and un-acknowledged.
The best managers know what they expect to see an employee doing to support vision, values and goals. They look for it - and when they see it they acknowledge it. If they don’t see it then they will ask questions:
‘Is there anything more that you could do to put our values into practice?’
‘Are there any opportunities that you can see to help reach the goals we have set?’
Good managers know their stuff. They know excellent work when they see it - and they know that they MUST appreciate it. Lesser managers struggle to distinguish excellence from mediocrity - and unwittingly establish a standard that says mediocrity will do.
‘What Gets Measured Gets Done’ gets my vote for the single, most dangerous, least accurate, management ‘truism’ of them all!
Suppose we changed the expression to ‘What Gets Recognised Gets Done’. What difference would that make to the way we do our business?
First of all managers and leaders would have to think about what they want to recognise in their organisation. This is a big question. It speaks to values, performance and ethos. Recognition encourages consideration of many things that cannot be easily ‘measured’.
If Enron had ‘recognised’ more than short term financial performance would things have turned out differently? What are Goldman Sachs ‘recognising’ as they pay out £8.4 billion in performance related bonuses to their staff (UK employees of the bank average £320 000 in Performance Related Pay)? Is financial performance the only thing that matters for Goldman Sachs or do they provide equally strong ‘recognition’ for other things that might matter like ‘ethics’ or ‘long term customer relationships’?
Secondly managers and leaders would have to consider how are they going to recognise it? What does excellence look like, sound like, feel like? You can’t just rely on the numbers. You might have to go and observe people doing the work:
see how they speak to customers
watch how they contribute to meetings
understand how they prepare a paper for the board.
Feedback becomes a primary tool for recognising what works and what doesn’t. It also becomes a primary tool for reward as people start to get recognition and validation for the good stuff that they do.
So the next time someone says ‘What gets measured gets done’ perhaps you should ask them if they really believe what they say.
Many of the managers I know hate this time of year. Because it is not just Christmas that is coming into season.
It is also that time of the year when thoughts turn to performance reviews and annual appraisals. For most managers and staff this is a painful and seemingly pointless and unfair process largely driven by HRs obsessive need to have the paperwork completed and correctly filed.
In many organisations, the annual performance appraisal is a phenomenally stressful exercise with little discernible impact on results. If we’re going to manage and lead high performing organisations, we can’t afford to have performance appraisal “systems” that don’t affect performance.
Writing performance reviews for many of us is a memory feat of Derren Brown like proportions. Our intuition throws up a grading for an individual and then we trawl the recesses of our minds for incidents to justify it. And too often because our memory fails us we just play it safe with a ’satisfactory’.
And if we do rate one of our reports as performing poorly then aren’t we just shooting ourselves in the foot? As the manager we are paid to manage performance - not just to report on it at the year end.
For many managers the difficulties of preparing and conducting effective performance reviews stems from two major causes:
They have not documented enough of the performance management process through out the year - so they are forced to rely on memory. They have very limited notes on which to base their performance review. This means that often the annual review is actually heavily skewed towards performance in the most recent quarter - where evidence is near to hand and memory is reasonably fresh.
They have not been close enough to performance throughout the year to really understand what any one individual has contributed to the success or otherwise of the team. They really don’t know who has been performing and who has not. They have not played a full and active role in either understanding and managing individual performance issues or in developing people to improve performance.
But all is not lost. There are things that you can do to make the preparation and delivery of performance reviews less stressful and more effective.
Through December and into the New Year PMN is running half day workshops in Leeds, Harrogate and Hull designed to help make the process of writing and delivering performance reviews more effective and less painful! Packed full of practical tips and useful tricks to make the process work more effectively and efficiently these workshops will help to make the performance review process much less of a headache.
You can find out more about the workshops here and can book your place on-line here
I am currently training as a volunteer for STOP HATE UK who had their official launch in Leeds this afternoon. STOP HATE UK raises awareness and understanding of discrimination and hate crime, encourages its reporting, and supports the individuals and communities it affects.
It was really inspiring to listen to victims of hate crime talk about their experiences and describe the importance of the support that STOP HATE UK has been able to offer. I can’t wait to complete the training and start to get more involved.
But why do people hate in the first place? How could we engage with those who might become perpetrators of hate crime and prevent them from offending?
I am re-reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed which I first read when I did teacher training over 20 years ago. It reminds us that the oppressed, in turn, tend to become oppressors. My admittedly limited experience of hate crimes fits this pattern. The perpetrators are themselves victims of oppression both economically and socially. In order to find some power, status and esteem for themselves, they in turn oppress.
I believe that the same effect can play out in the workplace. Old school managers strive to keep employees effective within roles that are tightly defined by job descriptions, targets, objectives and quality standards. The potential and aspiration of the individual comes a very distant second to their pre-ordained utility in the business. Over time this distorts and inhibits their development as a human. Essentially this style of management de-humanises and hatred, frustration, alienation and anger grow. At best, people retire on the job. At worst they express their alienation more powerfully through harassment, bullying and deception.
Progressive Managers on the other hand focus on the development of human potential. Their role is to help people to exploit the opportunities that the organisation provides to further their own development as a person. They build remarkable teams driven by the realisation of human potential - rather than the efficient but de-humanising fulfilment of a job description.
Sometimes saying thanks can be just too much work. You know you should drop someone a thank you card - but it is just too much effort to get to the shops and somehow it never gets done. So you just fire off an impersonal e-mail.
Instead, make it really easy to say ‘Thanks’ by setting up an emergency ‘Thank You’ kit. It should include some beautiful cards or notepaper, some postage stamps, and a selection of small but interesting gifts (I tend to give books or toys!). If you have to regularly thank chocolate loves you might want to look at this new service from Thorntons. (Big Thanks to Jayne Pickard from Encompass Marketing for the idea!)
You might also want to think about recording just how often you say thanks - and who to!
Great managers make people feel good about their work.
They catch people doing something right and thank them for it far more often they catch them doing something wrong. Affirming feedback outnumbers adjusting feedback by about 5:1.
They spend time with their team members observing them working and providing plenty of feedback and praise based on what they see. This is very different to many managers roles that are explicitly designed to ‘manage by exception’. ie the manager only gets involved when something has not gone as planned.
Great managers, when presented with ideas listen carefully for the tiniest germ of potential. Seizing that germ, they talk it through - teasing it, tweezing it, rearranging it - until the team member produces something workable.
Most importantly great managers make sure that team members know that their work is important. That it makes a difference. That they contribute.
Is it the sense of injustice at the widening pay differentials as women take on more responsibility - younger - for less money than men?
Do women have more choices that they can exercise? They are more likely to take up self-employment than men. They may also be more ‘in-demand’ than men as their skill sets leave them better equipped to work in a modern economy. The ’skill sets’ in which women generally outperform men include
better improvisational skills,
more relationship-focussed,
less rank-conscious,
more trust sensitive,
more intuitive,
more collaborative,
more comfortable with ambiguity,
better sharers of information
more able to balance rational thought with intuition and belief,
more articulate,
better at reading non-verbal clues,
better at multi-tasking, networking and negotiating to win/wins,
a preference to take the long view,
an ability to promote egalitarian team working and a
more naturally empowering management style
Or is it because many management hierarchies are still male dominated cultures in which more feminine values linked to the enhanced skill-sets listed above are under valued?
One trend is very clear. Women’s power in a modern economy is increasing. This is driven by their generally superior leadership skills and their influence over just about every major purchasing decision.
This means that organisations that cannot recruit and retain women will be at a significant disadvantage in the marketplace.
“When land was the productive asset, nations battled over it. The same is happening now for talented people.”
My working life has been spent working with a wide variety of organisations. But they all have one thing in common. Each is trying to make the world a better place. Whether operating in the private, public or third sector they have all been about making things better.
People join these organisations because they:
Want to make a positive difference in the world
Develop their own potential and capacity in making this difference
Want to provide food, warmth and shelter for themselves and their loved ones.
They want to belong in an organisation where they can grow, make a difference and earn a living.
They need respectful and nurturing management. The salary to them is important - but in the long run it is personal growth and making a difference that they really value. They need management that focuses on helping them to make their contribution.
Many of the organisations I have worked with have struggled in this area. People lose their sense of purpose and identity as they become consumed by delivering ‘the service’ or ‘the contract’. They become more technically proficient at what they do - but their optimism and belief slowly fades away and performance slowly degrades.
This process is driven by an orthodox approach to management that focuses on tasks and fails to engage with dreams and aspirations. The noble goals are transformed into routine. There is a famous story about the floor sweeper at NASA who proudly told visitors that he was working to help put men on the moon. Well, in many organisations this process of ennobling a job is completely reversed. People doing great work, contributing to great goals, become reduced to ‘marketing co-ordinators’, ‘database administrators’ or ‘account managers’. They get absorbed into management systems, balanced scorecards, customer service standards and the other paraphernalia of modern management and they lose sight of what they are all about.
Managing people with passion has to be done differently. It has to keep the sense of purpose ‘up front’.
