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Strategy – Set Your SAT NAV

  By christinapd • January 20, 2012 - 4:55 pm
StrategySet  Your Strategy: Set  Your SAT NAV

I am afraid I am a strategy geek.  What’s wrong with that? You might ask.  Well nothing except when you start developing a healthy eating strategy instead of a diet, or a university funding strategy instead of saving for your child’s uni course, it’s a bit sad.

Well no, even I’m not that bad, although it’s been proven that many of us take our work pattern home with us, but that’s a whole different blog post!

I wish there were other words in the dictionary to describe strategy.  The Oxford dictionary definition of a strategy is “A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim:” Thesaurus results have unhelpful words like “plan, approach, tactic and even scheme” as alternatives. As you can see it’s very difficult to inspire you with such mundane language.

Setting a strategy that works inspires me.  I know I am in a minority about this, but please bear with me.  Setting a strategy involves so many elements and requires a sharp skillset.  If it is going to be successful that is.  If you have an organisational or team strategy and it’s lying in a drawer waiting for someone to blow the dust off it, then it probably isn’t going to work.   In reality there are many components involved in setting a strategy, too many to mention, so I will concentrate on the vital components.

So what are the vital components of a successful strategy

  • You have to have vision.  If you want to achieve something, then you need to be able to describe, what it looks like, where it is, who is involved, when you want it to happen.  You need to be able to see it, hear it, feel it, smell it and taste it.  You need to be able to describe your vision so it becomes real in your imagination.  Once you have visualised what you want and articulated, this then becomes your goal.   It’s pinpointing exactly where you want to go and every strategy needs at least one.
  • The next part is to plan out how you are going to get to your goal.  Now I know from experience that we are all different.  Some of us love detailed plans with lots of milestones and deadlines.  Others like some key milestones along the way, and don’t want to bother too much with the detail.    Some of us don’t need a plan at all, but that might be a leap of faith too far unless you and your team are wholly committed.  The truth is, the structure of the plan doesn’t matter too much.  If you think about most projects or outcomes you have delivered, there are many ways to skin a cat, or many different routes you could have gone down to get there.   The real trick about having a plan is twofold. Firstly it keeps you focused on achieving the outcomes and secondly, it keeps you moving forward.   That’s why a plan is essential; however you want to detail it.
  • You need someone to make sure you achieve the milestones and to review what is happening so that you can keep on track.  The owner of the strategy needs to be an opportunist and be innovative.  These skills are absolutely necessary when the original plan of how to get there becomes unstuck. The owner will always navigate you back to the right road, so that you will get to the right destination or achieve the right goal.
  • You need to check on progress, and this is preferably someone different from the owner.  Someone who can provide a fresh pair of eyes, or a different perspective, but someone who also wants to reach the goal as passionately as the owner.   In other words your back seat driver.
  • And finally, you need to be able to feel the discomfort of uncharted terrain.  If the plan doesn’t unfold the way you thought and the route you planned out doesn’t look like you imagined it would, don’t panic and stop.  Don’t go back to the beginning either.  You need to trust that sometimes unfamiliar territory is exactly what you need in order to get where you need to go.

So my proposal as a new term for strategy is as you will have guessed by now “SAT NAV.”

You pop in your postcode (goal)

You have a general idea about the direction, timing and route, so you can take money for petrol, or time for a loo break etc. etc. (a plan)

You start driving.  When you take a wrong turn, the SAT NAV prompts you and takes you back to your original route.  (owner)

Your back seat driver will observe as you are driving

A great strategy is like correctly setting your SAT NAV.  You need to be able to trust it will get you where you want to be, you must enjoy the journey, but be vigilant about taking wrong turns.  You need to be flexible about taking another route if you do take a wrong turn.  Sometimes your plans will have to be changed if you want to reach your goals on time.  After all if you’ve ever put in the wrong post code, then you will know how long sometimes it takes to dawn on you that you are going the wrong way.

 

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Underperformance – The Does and Don’t of Managing it

  By Christina Lattimer • January 18, 2012 - 10:25 am
The Do’s and Don’ts of Managing UnderperformanceManaging underperforance

The extension from one year to two years for right to file unfair dismissal claims in April is a welcome change for most employers.  There is a lurking fear that where employment is terminated, that disgruntled employees will resort to including other elements in a claim for example under the Equalities Act.  This should not daunt or deter you.

The extension of rights should not affect your approach to managing underperformance.  I’m sure you would agree, if it took you two years to identify and manage underperformance, there is something wrong.  Your people management skills will make sure that even though there is no recourse to tribunal, your termination processes and practices are fair.  This is especially important when you are managing underperformance.

Managing underperformance can be the most time-consuming task you have to undertake.  It takes a skilled and experienced manager to be expert and slick when it comes to raising individual performance.  One of the most frustrating experiences for a team is when they feel they are carrying a member who is not pulling their weight.

The respondents in the CIPD Report entitled “Performance management in action” which can be found “confirm that performance management is an enduring tool that has a pivotal role to play in the management of people”. Whilst this is an excellent way to bring on talent and drive up results, the downside for any manager is managing underperformance.

Underperformance can appear at any stage in the employment lifecycle.  Obviously you need to be extra vigilant in any trial period.  I have seen many managers give people the benefit of the doubt and live to rue the day they confirmed a permanent appointment, when they really had niggling doubts.   This is a time when you need to have a zero tolerance approach.  Either someone cuts it or they don’t.

So what are the do’s and don’ts of managing underperformance?

Don’t

  • Miss the telling signs in the trial period.  Follow up on any issues which arise during that time.
  • Wait until the next performance review. Deal with any emerging problems as soon as they become apparent.
  • Develop an attitude or fixed view of the employee, there may be many reasons for underperformance
  • Ignore what other people are saying about someone’s underperformance; subtly check it out, if you don’t at first agree
  • Wait until a major incident or disaster occurs
  • Wait until everyone else in the workplace is totally fed up because of the underperformance.
  • Confuse a performance issue with a conduct issue.  Misconduct of course impacts on performance, but they are two totally different issues.
  • Wait until the underperformer goes off on sick leave.

Do

  • Have a fair and equitable way of measuring performance for all employees
  • Use your internal policies and procedures for managing underperformance.  Your policies should be designed to assist you to get it right.  If they don’t then you should raise it with whoever develops them.
  • Identify the precise areas of underperformance.  Exactly what element of performance is the employee not achieving? Performance can be lack of productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, or under developed skill set, to name a few.
  • Have clear examples and facts about the underperformance. Do not rely on hearsay, because your boss told you to do it, or gut feelings.
  • Keep an open mind about the reasons for underperformance.  You do not know what is going on in the employee’s life.  Don’t assume they are underperforming and they just can’t hack it.
  • Talk to the underperformer as soon as possible, and listen to what they have to say. Let them know you are concerned, not accusing.
  • Ask them about external factors, their own views about their performance, and what they think the expectations of them are.  Ask them about training and skill sets.
  • Develop a clear and SMART action plan.  The outcomes of the action plan must actually prove to you that the employee is capable and willing to bridge the performance gap, and be able to sustain it without constant supervision.
  • Meet regularly and give honest accurate feedback about their progress.  Listen to how they perceive it and amend the action plan if there are credible reasons for lack of progress.   Use your judgement about how often you might do this though!
  • Give them every support in terms of training, mentoring, materials and guidance they might need.
  • Be kind.  The majority of people want to do well at work and it can be a nightmare experience for them if for some reason their performance isn’t up to scratch. Genuinely wish them well and hope that they succeed.
  • Be confident.  You know how you want your team to work.  Don’t settle for anything less, and expect great not mediocre results for your team.

If you’re managing underperformance and actually manage to raise performance, then this not only instils a sense of achievement for the employee, but also gives a great message out to other staff that you are fair and tuned in to what is happening.   Your team might not know when underperformance is being successfully tackled.  But they certainly do if it is not being addressed at all.

What do you think?  Do you have your own Do’s and Don’ts when managing underperformance?  I’d love to hear from you.

Managing Underperformance

 

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Employee Surveys, 10 Ways They Fail

  By christinapd • January 14, 2012 - 11:30 am

Employee SurveysEmployee surveys can be costly mistakes

Despite the heading, I do not advocate ditching your employee survey.  Employee surveys are great ways to find out globally what your employees think about your organisation, their experience as an employee and also how bought into your vision, values, mission etc they are.

The problem is that an employee survey can become the big elephant in the room and create even more embedded views by the very people who should be advocating your business.  If your employees feel obliged, or even worse cynical about completing an employee survey, then you should be picking this up from the survey results or lack of them.

I once ran an employee survey for an organisation about how well a team was doing “living” their vision and values.  One of the values was, “Employees views will be surveyed about how well we are doing.”   You would think that the team would rate that quite well, given they were going through an exercise which was doing just that.  But no, about a third of the employees voted negatively; the team weren’t living up to that value.   You can’t get away from the fact that, their denial was pointing to a deeper problem.

I have heard many managers dismiss employee surveys.  If they don’t believe in them, well you can’t blame their staff.

So if your employee survey displays any of the following characteristics, my advice to you is to ditch it and start again.

  1. You have a lower than 70% return rate
  2. If the focus of the survey is to get a good response rate
  3. If more than 50% of your staff state in the survey that they don’t believe something will be done about the results of the survey
  4. If your managers believe that employee surveys are a waste of time
  5. If following the survey, there is no real or lasting research or work completed on the results
  6. If the questions on the employee survey don’t actually tell you anything meaningful
  7. If you don’t give your employees dedicated time to complete the survey
  8. If the employee survey is your only means of getting staff feedback
  9. If you dismiss even one single response in the survey as being a whinge
  10. If your managers don’t understand or aren’t mature enough to deal with the negative results from a staff survey and turn it into a positive experience.

I hope you found my list useful.  If you have any reasons to add, or any views, I’d love to hear from you.

 

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Your Employees And Your New Years Resolution

  By Christina Lattimer • December 30, 2011 - 10:40 am
If your New Year’s resolution doesn’t include some positive steps for your employees, then you are missing a trick.

There are some great enlightened businesses out there who know that the secret to longevity and real business success is made up of two critical, unequivocal elements which include their employees.  A great engaged workforce who love what they are doing and secondly fantastic innovative customer service. Yes, there’s a lot of other elements in-between and around, but none of those will amount to much if the two most critical factors aren’t in place. If you’re one of those businesses then great.  Congratulations, please get in touch, I would absolutely love to feature you. If you aren’t, then I’d also love to hear from you as to why not , your employees are important right?  The reason I suspect that there are businesses out there who don’t get the first two factors right is because of the report published  by CIPD  in October 2011 which discloses that stress and mental illness has become the biggest reason for absence across the UK. A discussion about the report , which can be found here http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2011/12/news-review-2011-sickness-absence.htm  talks about the heightened threat of job insecurity, the perils of lack of work/life balance and the necessity for flexible working, and wellbeing strategies at work.   A lack of attention to any of these for any business may well end up with a cost attached. So what are we to do?  We can’t wave a magic wand and wish away the economic reality.  We know that there are employees who have greater resilience to uncertainty and increased hours/workload, less pay etc.  These unfortunately are the features of the economic climate that seem to be in play.  There are some employees who find it more difficult to cope with such measures. I am an idealist.  I would dearly like to think that we can make people happy at work.  I am thankfully though through years of practical hands on experience, also a realist. I know that there are many factors to achieving an engaged workforce, not least the attitudes and beliefs of our employees.  What I do know though is that we can help people navigate diffic ult terrain in a different way.  A way which minimises stress and enhances work-life balance, and promotes engagement and commitment. Dame Carol Black has suggested a number of measures to help the situation.  These are also outlined in the report above.  The suggestions are helpful, although some may be difficult to implement in reality.  I do understand though the realistic approach being suggested given the size of the problem.  We all know that a sticking plaster is essential while we wait for healing to take place.  Without the sticking plaster we may bleed for much longer. It’s also essential  though that we need to practice not getting hurt in the first place.  And this is where an internal people strategy is vital.  A strategy to help your employers navigate the terrain; to understand how important their wellbeing and commitment is to the success of the business as well as to their own lives.  You also need great people managers.   Managers who know how to motivate and get the best out of your people are vital to the success of your business. Stephanie Bird of CIPD reported “Last year’s government-commissioned review of employee engagement highlighted the link between effective leadership and people management skills, enhanced employee engagement and improved business performance. Yet the UK invests less in management development than its main international competitors, and its managers are rated less positively by employees.” I have worked with organisations in the past who when it was pointed out that it might be beneficial to  pay attention to the wellbeing, engagement levels and work/life balance of staff, have considered such scrutiny “naval gazing” when they should be focusing on the important outcome, customer focused results.  It is sometimes a successful strategy to only focus on outcomes, in the short term.  In the long term, though it doesn’t sustain or make the business a great success. If you don’t get the int ernal customer service right, then the external customer service will usually be hanging by a thread.  Don’t let this happen to you.  The right balance can be beneficial to your business. Additionally if you whip your employees with the “economic reality”  stick and use it as an excuse not to pay attention to them, then in happier times, they will march through the door and take all of that experience and skill with them. Research is indeed now showing the benefits of a happier more engaged workforce.  Why not plug into these benefits now, and make a commitment to your people for 2012. If you’d like to see more about solutions for managing employees, see related links below. What do you think about the issue?   Do please post your comments.   Your Employees        

 

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If you are a leader, you are continually developing and "Sharpening the Saw".  If you lead and manage teams, then you must read about our Inspirational New Leadership Programme.  Sign up now to find out more details when we launch in July 2014.  There is no obligation to undertake the programme, if you sign up today, you will simply be sent more information about the programme.  You can unsubscribe at any time!  Click below to register for further information.