Managing People

Leadership and the Tao; Greetings for the New Year

January 1, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

About 2400 years ago, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote in his classic Tao Te Ching,

The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence
the people are barely aware.
Next comes one whom they love and praise.
Next comes one whom they fear.
Next comes one whom they despise and defy.

When you are lacking in faith,
Others will be unfaithful to you.

The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words.
When his task is accomplished and things have been completed,
All the people say, “We ourselves have achieved it!”

Are your people the core of your own leadership model? In the New Year, how will use this ancient wisdom to inspire people around you to grow and contribute? How will you empower them?

Wish you all a bright, prosperous, inspired New Year!

Keeping a Diary on Employee Performance

December 8, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Blog reader Sasawat from Bangkok (Thailand) asks:

“I recently joined a multinational chemicals company that uses a performance appraisal system. I supervise seven engineers. To help me do their performance evaluations at the end of the year, should I maintain a diary to record their projects and actions?”

Most managers rely on employee performance in the period immediately preceding the performance evaluation deadline. Unfortunately, they do not weigh performance from throughout the year (or quarter, if their organizations use a quarterly review system.) Some employees exploit this behavior by slacking-off during most of the year and by shaping-up in the weeks before a performance evaluation is due.

Keeping a Diary on Employee Performance A log or a diary will help managers record employee projects and behaviors in one location. Clearly, recording significant and relevant examples of employee performance helps managers write objective performance summaries.

Recording events in a dairy every week, however, becomes overwhelming when you have seven employees. Instead, ask each employee to keep a diary of his/her achievements. Review this information with your employee once every week. Give regular, specific feedback, both affirmative and corrective. This ensures that you keep yourself informed of your employee’s work and demonstrates that you care about his/her current work and achievements.

When a performance evaluation is due, study the employee’s diary along with your notes, if any from your weekly meetings. You should not have to dig through your files or seek reports from various sources. You will have accumulated all the data you will need, in one place, to help you prepare for an effective performance evaluation statement and discussion.

How to Give a Good Compliment, in Six Easy Steps

December 5, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of our most significant aspirations is that people around us value our contributions at work, home and elsewhere. We desire that our supervisors, friends, or family members appreciate our good work; we are hungry for their compliments.

Praising and recognizing people around us are an essential skill that we need to develop to be effective. One of the many reasons we fail to recognize the positive contributions of people around us is that we may not feel comfortable praising others or we may not know how to recognize people. Here is a simple framework.

Observe. Look for opportunities to recognize your peers, team members, friends, family members, bosses and other people you interact with everyday.
Smile. A smile is a true indicator of your cheerfulness and passes your good feelings to the recipient.
Right away. Praise as soon as you make your observation. Your message will be relevant, sincere and will have the most meaning only when delivered immediately following the recipient’s behavior.
Be specific. Describe what the recipient did so that he/she understands the specific reason for your praise.
Detail the impact. Tell the recipient how his/her action or behavior impacted you or your organization. Explain how his/her contributions are reflected positively upon him/her.
‘Thanks.’ Offering praise often involves just smiling and saying “Thank you. I appreciate your work.” This sends a message that you acknowledge the value of the work and want the recipient to repeat his/her behavior.

An example. “[Smile.] Hey Stella. When you presented our logistics proposal to our clients, I think you did an excellent job with the flow of arguments. Your illustrations clearly drove home the advantages of the new system. Our clients were very impressed with your leadership on this project. Our Divisional Vice-President who was in the meeting complemented you. Thank you for a job well done. Keep it up.”

Making people around us feel valued in a sincere manner goes a long way in improving our inter-personal relationships. In addition, observing, acknowledging and reinforcing good work motivates people around us.

Black Friday and the Shopping Craze

November 24, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the first day of the holiday shopping season. The retailing industry terms this day ‘Black Friday’.

In theory, stores expect to switch from losses (accounted for in red color in financial statements) to profits (accounted for in black color.) Stores, big and small, offer hefty discounts and attractive promotions to lure shoppers. Consequently, Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Stores open as early as 5:00am and publicize low-ticket items to attract shoppers. Often, stores carry limited quantities of deeply discounted items. Thus, shoppers scramble to enter the stores and fight to lay their hands on these items. See interesting news stories of shoppers fighting for bargains here, here and here.
Most stores offer discounts for only a few hours in the morning. For instance, today, Wal-Mart’s discounts were limited to 5a.m. to 11a.m. Shoppers transit from store to store and families split-up to reach various stores before discounts terminate.
Stores hope that once shoppers are tempted to start the day at their stores, they will buy less-discounted and regular merchandise. Clearly, they risk margins in an effort to boost sales numbers, one of the key metrics in the retailing industry.
In 2004, Wal-Mart decided to scale down on Black Friday offers in an effort to increase margins. Sales were poor; Wal-Mart stock dropped 4% the day it announced poor sales figures.
This year, major retailers including Wal-Mart [WMT] and Target [TGT] reported weaker-than-expected sales numbers for October. Wal-Mart announced just 0.5 percent increase in same-store sales for October; these numbers were short of the 2 to 4 percent increase that it had initially expected. Consequently, Wal-Mart announced aggressive discounts on a wide-range of goods including consumer electronics.

As I hopped from store to store hunting for bargains and gifts this morning, I ignored a few questions the investor in me had: Do Black Friday promotions pull sales from later in the shopping season? How many customers return goods they purchased on Black Friday? If a retailer fails to capitalize on the Black Friday craze, can it make up during the rest of the shopping season? Are sales numbers more important than margins?

You don’t praise people? What are your excuses?

November 23, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.”
* William James

Offering praise and recognition All of us have an innate desire to be appreciated and valued for our contributions at work, home and elsewhere. However, we often fail to recognize the positive contributions of people around us. We neglect opportunities to talk about them in positive regard, appreciate their work and encourage them.

Why we don’t praise

Here are the typical excuses we offer for not praising people around us.

“They don’t need to be praised for just doing their jobs.”
“I have too much to do. I just don’t have time.”
“I don’t think people care about being praised that much.”
“I just don’t think about it.”
“I have high expectations and expect a lot from others.”
“Hey, it’s not my job.”
“My boss doesn’t praise me. Why should I praise others?”
“My (company or national) culture encourages modesty; so, people around me don’t expect praise.”
“Negative reinforcement is important. Only when my employees are criticized, will they improve.”
“If I praise people, they think they have made it. They will stop improving.”
“I find it difficult to express my feelings.” “I don’t like to praise”

Praise Matters

None of the above is a valid reason. Offering praise and recognizing people amounts to acknowledging and favorably noticing their efforts. Our recognition serves as a powerful positive motivator because it nourishes their self-esteem and makes them feel confident of their abilities. This increases the likelihood that they will continue to grow and will keep improving in their roles.

Praising and recognizing people around us are an essential skill that we need to develop to be effective around people. Look for opportunities to recognize your peers, team members, friends, family members, bosses and other people you interact with everyday. Offer sincere appreciation and make them feel valued. At the minimum, just smile and say “Thank you” more often.

Postscript Notes

Happy Thanksgiving to our readers in the United States. Make sure you offer praise to your hosts and / or the people who prepared for the festivities. Do not eat too much.
Readers not familiar with Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States can find more information here and here.
Thank you all for reading my thoughts on this blog; I appreciate your support.

How to Prepare for Meetings

October 26, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Preparing to Attend Meetings Meetings are important organizational tools. Whether as one-on-one conversations or as larger all-employee information sharing sessions, meetings are integral components of getting work done. Despite some obvious benefits, most meetings are not very productive and are longer than necessary. One of the primary reasons for the lower productivity of meetings is that attendees come unprepared.

Assume you have consented to attend a meeting because your participation is critical to the objective of the meeting. What questions will you ask to prepare for the meeting?

Have I read the meeting agenda? What is the objective of the meeting? What is my role? How will I contribute to the meeting?
What segment of the meeting is relevant to me? Can I join late or leave early if I am not required throughout the length of the meeting?
Is this a follow-up to a previous meeting? What action items had I agreed on then? What results will I present? What questions will arise?
What relevant pre-reading material should I seek?
What research do I need to do? Whom on my team should I talk to regarding items on the agenda?
What is the desirable outcome? What is the undesirable outcome? Is there a compromise?
What positions am I prepared to take on key issues being discussed in this meeting? What facts and charts will I present to support my position?
Who are the other attendees? What positions are they likely to take on key issues? Why? What are the likely group dynamics: who will support me, who will oppose my positions? What counter arguments will I present?
What other attendees should I talk to prior to the meeting to garner support to my position? Can I invite additional attendees to the meeting to help support my position? How will I persuade other people to see my point of view?
What action items am I willing to take? Do I have the necessary resources? Will I participate in follow-up meetings, if scheduled?

Meetings are all about sharing thoughts in a collective setting. They are only as good as the ideas that attendees bring to the discussions. By asking the above questions, you will contribute to focused, productive meetings. You owe it to yourself, the meeting leaders and to your fellow-attendees.

Overcoming the Temptation to Please

October 18, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.
– Dale Carnegie

We desire that people around us like us; we yearn for their respect and affection. We depend on the choices these people make: be it in a job interview with a corporate recruiter, a performance review with a boss or a project delegation meeting with a team member. Clearly, the more likeable we are, the more people are ‘on our side,’ and therefore, the more likely they will make decisions in our favor.

Doing what others want to gain their approval regardless of the merit of their wants is, therefore, a temptation. Companies are tempted to pursue short-term profit-enhancing strategies to satisfy stock market expectations. Politicians are tempted to devise welfare schemes to help garner votes in an upcoming election. A professional is tempted to please the boss by agreeing to everything the boss asks.

We need to be tough-minded—we need to base our decisions and actions on facts, not personal inclinations. It takes courage and discipline to resist the lure of pleasing others. Making an objective decision that is unfavorable for a requester may disappoint him/her; however, a candid explanation of the rationale behind the choice often appeases the requestor. Being tough-minded does not mean being inflexible or insensitive. Being tough-minded involves doing what is just and right after careful consideration of procedures and people.

I encourage you to reflect on your actions and decisions by asking yourselves if you make these choices to please other people or if you make these choices based on the virtue of facts. Improving your likability should be a wish and not a goal.

Respect for Employees: Cases from RadioShack and Northwest Airlines

October 6, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi

Lisa Haneberg wrote about RadioShack [RSE] laying off 400 workers and informing them of the decision via email. Lisa’s Management Craft blog article records her thoughts on this choice.

Human resources… People are not just resources like computer systems and Post It notes. Our employees, all of them, even the underperforming ones who ought to be let go, are our partners. They are our business family. Even when it is the right thing to do to let someone go, we need to remember that they are important partners. How we leave a relationship is just as important as how we enter into it.

‘101 Ways to Save Money’

Northwest Airlines terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport This reminds me of another instance of careless mistakes at Northwest Airlines. The company, currently operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, is considering additional layoffs and pay cuts for employees.

A few weeks ago, a booklet distributed to likely-to-be-laid-off ground workers is reported to have advised them on saving money: “don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash” and “take a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods” along with more sensible tips like “brown bag your lunch” and “refinance your mortgage.” See the full list of ‘101 Ways to Save Money’ here.

Irrespective of the organizational and financial state of the company, including tips such as the above in employee communication is careless, insensitive and insulting to the dignity of the workers, especially when they are candidates for potential layoffs. An appropriate supervisory review of this publication prior to release could have easily avoided the bad publicity and ill will that this incident generated.

As alluded to every year in Fortune magazine’s ranking of the ‘best companies to work for’ in America, employees’ attitudes towards their organizations have a profound effect on the performance of companies. Further, better performance leads to higher morale among the employees; this results in a virtuous cycle of company performance and employee morale. The primary means of achieving high employee morale is by co-creating a corporate culture that instills a sense of ownership through empowerment, trust and fair treatment, by instilling pride for personal and organizational achievements and by providing adequate opportunities for personal and career growth.

Interviewing Candidates: Stale Questions Get Stale Answers

October 4, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

One of my former lab mates, who has been interviewing for a job, recently remarked that her interviews are typically boring because interviewers tend to ask identical questions.

The main objective of an interview is to discover more about a candidate’s credentials and objectives to see whether the candidate is a good fit for an available position. An interviewer who asks cliché questions or uses tired language typically leads a dull question-and-answer session. He/she loses the attention of the candidate and fails to acquire comprehensive information about the candidate.

Avoid cliché questions

Job seekers have access to a number of books and websites that describe canned ‘best’ responses to the most popular interview questions. One response to the oft-asked “What are your weaknesses?” question is the predictable “I work too hard and ignore my social life.” Avoid old standby questions and ask incisive questions that make the candidate think.

Instead of “Do you like your boss?”, ask “What do you think your boss’s weaknesses are? How do you complement her weaknesses and support her responsibilities?”
Instead of “Tell me about yourself?”, ask “What aspects of your upbringing have contributed to your success at your current position as the leader of the risk management group?”
Instead of “Why does a career in sales interest you?”, ask “Can you name a few salesmen you admire? Over the years, what aspects of their talents have you incorporated in your sales approach?”

Personalize the questions

To whatever extent possible, review a candidate’s résumé ahead of the interview and customize the discussion. Frame your questions to relate to the candidate’s experiences: “In you résumé, you mention that you led a team of technicians that worked during the weekends to meet an important deadline. Why do you think they cooperated with you and agreed to work during the weekends?”

Relate to the responses

Relate to one or two of the candidate’s responses by mentioning your own experiences: “I once had a customer who …”. Resist the temptation to start a conversation, empathize or add value to the candidate’s response. Be brief. Avoid talking too much about yourself.

Use a fresh tone of voice

On occasion, you may be required to interview several candidates in succession, e.g. while filling multiple positions or in a college recruiting session. After talking to a few candidates, your chosen set of questions may start to sound jaded due to repetition. Watch your tone of voice when asking questions; convey enthusiasm for the candidate’s details and engage in a lively conversation.

Maintain good rapport

Interviewers often over-indulge in note-taking by recording minor details of a candidate’s responses and interpretation of these responses. Although the candidate welcomes the occasional respite from visual attention, too much note-taking can have a distancing effect. Record just an outline or use a graphical note-taking technique, e.g. mind mapping. Review this outline immediately after the interview and add details you want to capture for later review or a consensus meeting.

Pair up with a colleague

Conduct a tandem interview if possible; alternate asking questions and taking notes with the colleague. While one person takes notes, the other person can ask follow-up questions and maintain a rapport with the candidate.

Conclusion

The primary challenge for an interviewer is to see beyond the veneer of the candidate’s carefully-crafted résumé, on-the-surface details of past responsibilities and often well-rehearsed responses to interview questions. A lively conversation is essential to elicit thoughtful, candid responses and enable the interviewer to make an educated decision on the candidate.

Performance Management: What is Forced Ranking?

September 27, 2006 By Nagesh Belludi 4 Comments

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.

Bell curve for forced ranking / performance management

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.

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Managing People

Wondering what to read next?

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Why we don’t praise

Praise Matters

Postscript Notes

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Wondering what to read next?

‘101 Ways to Save Money’

Avoid cliché questions

Personalize the questions

Relate to the responses

Use a fresh tone of voice

Maintain good rapport

Pair up with a colleague

Conclusion

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?