Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact » by Nagesh Belludi

Reader Sriram from Chennai (India) asks,

A multinational recently acquired our 35-employee software testing company. Our personnel department sent an email on how this purchase affects us. The email mentioned a new forced ranking system for performance evaluation. Can you describe this system?

Every organization needs a formal approach to track individual contributions and performance against organizational goals and to identify individual strengths and opportunities for improvement. Typically, this system involves placing employees along a performance curve or classifying employees into categories of percentiles for performance.

Jack Welch, General Electric’s former CEO, is often associated with a 20-70-10 distribution: the top 20 percent is rewarded for best performance, the middle 70 percent is rated ‘average’ and the bottom 10 percent is coached for improvement. The ‘rank-and-yank’ system, also associated with Jack Welch, automatically terminates employees in the bottom category, allowing organizations to purge the worst performers.

Although an individual’s supervisor conducts the formal performance review discussion, management higher-ups assign the individual’s ranking following debates on performances of comparable individuals from across the organization. Often, these higher-ups are not knowledgeable enough of an individual’s performance. An individual’s ranking then depends on the supervisor’s willingness to fight on behalf of the individual. The ranking is ‘forced’ because an individual may be ranked in a lower category regardless of whether the direct supervisor (and hence the most knowledgeable reviewer) would have rated the individual that way on his/her own.

In intent, the forced ranking system is an excellent method for rewarding top performers and setting specific deadlines for improvement for poor performers. Despite its appeal, the system has several drawbacks. For instance, the system promotes individual performance over teamwork and often leads to dissatisfaction among ‘average’ and poor performers. In my opinion, most of this dissatisfaction stems from poor administration of the system at the ground level. I will cover this in another blog article.

*Keyword(s): performance appraisal, performance review, forced ranking, evaluation, coaching, managing

The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
* Andrew Carnegie

You may be disappointed if you fail,
but you are doomed if you don’t try.
* Beverly Sills

The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement,
about being better than you were the day before.
* Steve Young

The achievement of your goal is assured
the moment you commit yourself to it.
* Mack R. Douglas

Grief drives men to serious reflection, sharpens the understanding
and softens the heart.
* John Adams

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
* Martin Luther King Jr.

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
* Percy Bysshe Shelley

Real solutions are discovered only where they actually exist
Within the individual’s own essence.
* Vernon Howard

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children…
to leave the world a better place…
to know even one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
* Ralph Waldo Emerson

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
* Langston Hughes

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is:
What are you doing for others?
* Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you know something, it is in your head.
When you believe something, it is in your heart.
* Gabriel A. Bankes

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe -
the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
* Immanuel Kant

I am never a failure until I begin blaming others.
* Anonymous

It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
* Charles Darwin

Enjoyment is not a goal,
it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
* Paul Goodman

Success is liking yourself,
liking what you do,
and liking how you do it.
* Maya Angelou

Count no day lost in which you waited your turn,
took only your share and sought advantage over no one.
* Robert Brault

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

A positive attitude is like a fire:
unless you continue to add fuel, it goes out.
* Alexander Lockheart

Corporations will take 90% less ability for
10% more attitude every day of the week.
* Mark Horstman

If you want to conquer fear,
don’t sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
* Dale Carnegie

I think and think for months and years,
ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false.
The hundredth time I am right.
* Albert Einstein

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.
Begin it now.
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
* Albert Einstein

Originality is not doing something no one else has ever done,
but doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.
* Marie Chapian
[Contributed by Patricia Wiyono]

People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.
* Seth Godin

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
* Max Depree

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Our everyday-time stresses are usually caused by having too much work to do in a given amount of time, or by using available time ineffectively. One critical aspect of effective time management is the discipline of analyzing how we utilize our time.

Below are a few practical questions to help reflect on how we spent our days.

• Did I start my day with a clear plan on how I would use my time during the day? Did I prepare a to-do list and assign priorities to tasks on the list? Did this plan give me a sense of control over my time?
• Did I work on the most important tasks at times when I tend to be most focused and productive?
• Did I concentrate on my priorities? Did I feel rushed? How much unplanned time did I spend on pressing problems that demanded my immediate attention or added little value in the context of my goals?
• Did I examine my schedule and priorities before committing to new assignments?
• Was I effective with the use of my time or was I just efficient in the tasks I completed? Did I do the right things to meet my organization’s, team’s and personal goals?
• How will my accomplishments help me progress towards my short-term and long-term goals?
• Did I delegate responsibilities and tasks well? Did I use my associates (administrative assistants, subordinates, subject experts, and other resources) effectively?
• How well did I use my buffer-times: time when waiting for the dentist, time during the train-commute to work, etc.?
• What interruptions and time-wasters did I encounter? Did I attend unimportant meetings or get non-critical telephone calls and email? How could I have avoided these time-intrusions?
• Did I spend too much time deliberating over minor decisions?
• Did I spend enough time with family and friends? Did I spend enough time on my fitness, leisure and spiritual activities?
• Did I accomplish everything I had hoped to accomplish? How many tasks do I carry forward to tomorrow’s to-do list?
• Did I complete a list of things to do for tomorrow and assign priorities to them? Did I leave my workplace, desk and other personal spaces organized?

I encourage you to ask these questions at the end of each day. Seek what you can learn from the experience of the day and what you can do to make every next day better than the previous day. As Harvey Mackay said, “Good, Better, Best. Never rest till good be better. And better be best!”

*Keyword(s): time management, personal organization, productivity

Strengthen me by sympathizing with
my strength, not my weakness.
* Amos Bronson Alcott

It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend
at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.
* Eric Lindros

Look behind the clouds. You will always find the stars.
* Evelyn Loeb

If you don’t like change,
you’re going to like irrelevance even less.
* Eric Shinseki

There is no baser folly than the infatuation
that looks upon the transient as if it were everlasting.
* Tirukkural

He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.
* Moroccan Proverb

For one word a man is often declared to be wise,
and for one word he can be judged to be foolish.
We should be careful indeed what we say.
* Confucius

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.
* Immanuel Kant

Our greatest battles are that with our own minds.
* Jameson Frank

Visit www.Inspiration.RightAttitudes.com for my compilation of inspirational quotations by author and topic. You may also subscribe to the weekly newsletter of inspirational quotations by sending a blank email to iqml-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations

Recently, while poking around the internet, I stumbled upon Lorraine Hahn’s interview of Swami Veda Bharati. In this CNN Talk Asia interview from 2002, Swamiji talks about the practice of yoga and meditation and their benefits.

A simple exercise in meditation

During the interview, Swamiji leads viewers into a few moments of meditation. The following simple steps are worth a try.

1. Wherever you are, right now make no formal effort of any kind. Simply bring your awareness to the place where you are sitting.
2. Be aware of yourself from head to toe. If your eyes close, let them close by themselves, lightly and simply relax your forehead.
3. Just relax your forehead, be still and bring your awareness to your breathing. Only bring the awareness to your breathing. Do nothing with your breath, only follow how the breath is flowing.
4. Pick a name of God or a name of the Buddha or Yahweh or the name of Jesus, in your language, according to your tradition. Exhaling, think in your mind that name without a break. Inhaling, think that name.
5. Observe how the breaths, the mind and the name are flowing together as a single stream. Continue to feel the flow.
6. Maintaining the awareness of the flow, gently open your eyes but continue to feel the flow even with your eyes open. Do you feel any change in the state of your mind? A little calmness?

Why meditate?

After several years of being “busy at college”, I recently restarted my practice of yoga and meditation. For me, meditation is a practice of discovering the existential truth and disciplining my thought and action. Meditation helps me deliberate on the fundamental questions of life: the purpose and meaning of life and my role in the complex web of relationships around me.

What does meditation mean to you? Given your traditions and beliefs, do you see a difference between meditation and prayer? Do you consider meditation as a means for inward reflection and spiritual development? Is it deliberation and deep thought in search for the ultimate truth? Or is it mere stress management work-out to help attain calmness and composure? What are your thoughts?

*Keyword(s): yoga, meditation, prayer, spirituality, stress management