Looking at the ability of employees’ efforts to align with the expectations of the business needs for growth should be a daily occurrence. However, managers themselves are caught up in tactics and focus primarily on their own individual performance so much that they cannot step back and see the big picture. More employers are frustrated by the inability of managers to be relevant to the business strategy and the priorities required for success. Instilling a new mindset about the meaning of management and the ability to see performance through a different lens is required in the workplace.

How do we shift from the mindset that performance feedback, reviews, and planning is only an annual or semi-annual process that interrupts the flow of business to a mindset that includes high-level awareness and clarity about what the team is strategically doing to work together and be successful on a weekly basis? The flow of business depends on the right people performing the right behaviors to be successful. The following steps are defined to be a simple way to change your own mindset about your department and the focus needed for each person so that you can keep easy tabs on strategic progress each week.

Tips to Help Managers Get into the Groove & Create a Rhythm for Effective Performance Planning

1. Understand the business strategies for your department.

While it seems shocking, few managers are actually clear about the specific strategies they are required to achieve for the business in the next twelve months. Be sure you understand what they are. If you are not clear, propose goals and their strategies to leadership to create your own guiding force that will help you hold your team accountable. Once they are defined and approved, pull the team together and review them. Take a few minutes to allow the team to brainstorm the type of behaviors they think are required to achieve the goals. This simple step will give you a baseline for how well aligned the team is with your expectations. Note the difference for improvement opportunities.

2. Sit back, assess, and communicate.

Get a cup of coffee and take one hour to highlight the performance strengths and needs for improvement for each of your employees. Are they aware of the needs for improvement? If you haven’t communicated them clearly, then they are not. Create no more than three clear developmental goals for each employee. Find time to review these as a follow-up to step one above and explain how the improvements tie in to the departmental goals and strategies for success. Set a time each month to check in for 15 minutes with each employee on their progress of the development goals.

3. Journal weekly activity.

Assign yourself 30 minutes at the end of each week to log your performance observations for each employee. Log them into a spreadsheet or a performance management system like BLOOM® so that you can share the observations with the employee and ask any questions for clarification in your next meeting. By committing to this journaling process each week, you will be instantly more aware of what your employees are doing at a higher level and will be taking time to compare notes with your expectations. This will not only keep you relevant in the eyes of your employees, it will enable you to see the trial for success rather than letting the year slip by without understanding where things went wrong if you didn’t meet your goals.

By focusing on performance and goals at shorter, regular intervals you’re better able to reward progress and to head off disaster. You’re empowered with up-to-date information about your team and can use this knowledge to more easily adapt to new situations and ultimately to more clearly see how your team contributes to the organization’s success.

Share Your Experience

Have you found a successful rhythm for performance/talent planning? How does it compare with what we’ve outlined above?

Methods for Gaining Strategic Performance Management Buy-In

It’s relatively easy to recite pieces of performance reviews without really thinking about the function they serve or the value they provide.  The purpose of performance management is to align employee efforts with business strategies for accurate performance evaluation and feedback for success.  However, do you and your managers understand how certain performance management tools can be utilized to gain buy-in and support for the process?  Below we have highlighted a few methods to consider.

Simple Forms. First, you want to keep the process and its implementation simple. Review forms and goals should focus on the bare essentials. For instance, in BLOOM® only objectives, measurements, and deadlines are tracked for each goal.  Employees and managers can track progress notes for each goal.  However, the progress is kept simple and precise in order to focus on clear expectations for success.

Forced Ranking. While this method can strike fear into some managers, the delivery of how it works is important to get right. A forced ranking system can improve the performance and potential of the collective organization. By ranking employees based on their performance and potential, the lower ranking employees are identified and, based on your organization’s criteria for success, the lowest ranked employees are replaced with higher potential employees. This gains buy-in because it sets a standard for the performance required to keep the average expectation high, which is what high-performers like to see.

360 Reviews. 360 reviews gain buy-in to performance planning because it is not just the manager’s opinion about an employee’s performance – it is also the opinion of peers, direct reports, and customers. When an employee receives feedback from multiple sources, it is hard to argue lack of objectivity in the results. If you are just starting the 360 review process, it is important to get right. Know what you want to measure and be sure that those participating can give good input based on their interaction with the employee being reviewed. 360 reviews can be used to measure observed behaviors around core values of the organization, too – not just job performance. In all, they are a great input to performance planning and feedback process and help employees see themselves through others’ eyes.

Measure Behaviors. Role descriptions and performance reviews should focus on the behaviors required for success. For example, if excellent customer service is a driver for a position’s success, identify the behaviors and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that can be measured and make expectations clear. This also proves to the employee that you have thought through the formula for success in his/her position and that you have guidelines to offer for assistance. In BLOOM, these Key Results Areas are associated with role descriptions and then imported to each employee’s performance review so that performance feedback is consistent and relevant every step of the way.

Individual Development Goals. Development goals gain buy-in because they provide focus on the top three to four areas for improvement that an employee can achieve for success.  A person can focus on only so many things at once, so it is important to be realistic about both the number of goals and their complexity. Fewer goals mean a great ability for the employee to concentrate on each, which ultimately increases the likelihood of reaching them. This is helpful to gain credibility and understanding with employees on an individual basis.

Individual Performance Plans. Performance plans are different from development goals in that performance plans focus on the business-related strategies and action steps that an employee is responsible to meet for the organization. These responsibilities should align with the developmental goals assigned for the skills and talents needed to achieve the business strategies. This gains buy-in because employees directly see how their efforts and development tie in to the business’s growth and achievements.

Regular Feedback. Checking in regularly helps employees and managers gauge how things are going between performance reviews. When the employee is on track, affirmations often inspire increased effort. When the employee is off track, corrective measures can be identified. Perhaps the greatest impact a manager can make in building credibility and relationship with an employee is to be skillful at providing open, honest, and trustworthy feedback.  Delivered well, even bad news helps an employee know where they stand and removes the fear of the unknown.

Putting It All Together as Strategic Performance Management

Each of the above components must to work together in an integrated system for the performance management strategy to be effective and sustainable. We designed BLOOM® to incorporate each of the essential elements, which helps HR, managers, and employees stay on the same page.

Share Your Experience

What other elements would you add to the list?

Benefits of Performance Planning

Making the switch to “performance planning” is more than semantics. It’s a shift in mindset that signals a commitment to developing your employees and supporting their career goals. There are a number of benefits to regular (we suggest 6-month) performance planning sessions:

• Employees get regular, actionable feedback.
• Managers and employees collaborate on the employee’s career plans and path, which leads to a more open, supportive relationship.
• Managers gain a clearer perspective of different people in different jobs, which strengthens their management skills.

Effective performance planning requires managers to have a strong, conscious understanding of the underlying philosophy. They must have clear processes or standards or other helpful guidance for helping the employee grow and develop in their particular role and in their future career.

Steps in Performance Planning

The steps below are based on our years of experience in the Human Resources arena and align with what you’ll find in BLOOM®.

1. Review and update an employee’s role description
   Role descriptions are important for a number of reasons:
   • Keep employees informed about role specifications and expectations
   • Communicate company needs
   • Serve as a tool for conflict resolution
   • Provide an objective basis for performance planning sessions
   • Make company metrics related to a job clear and top of mind
2. Give the employee a self-evaluation form (and their revised role description)
   The manager should review the structure of the form with the employee and reiterate that the performance planning session is an opportunity to work together on the employee’s career goals. The employee’s self-evaluation will go into BLOOM® for future reference and planning.
3. Managers must complete a self-review to evaluate their own supervisory performance
   Since performance planning is a collaborative process it’s essential for managers to reflect on their part of the relationship and to pay attention to how they are supporting the employee’s growth and development.
4. Managers must complete a performance evaluation for the employee
   Prior to the performance planning session, managers need to review available information from the employee’s past sessions. If you’re using BLOOM® this includes reviewing the employee’s performance logs (praises, concerns, and so on). It also means entering 2-3 of their own goals for the employee and setting expectations and assignments for training. This adds to the goals the employee already set for himself and demonstrates a willingness to further challenge and support him.
5. Managers must submit all documentation to the department manager
   Also prior to the performance planning session the manager must submit all documentation to the department manager for review. Review any questions or concerns to ensure that the session is productive and on target with the organization’s goals.
6. Conduct performance planning session
   If it seems like there is a lot to do before sitting down with the employee it’s because there is. Rather than rushing into a review un- or ill-prepared wastes time and energy; doing your homework and planning a thorough session pays off.The anticipation of a session can be stressful, so here are a few tips a manager can use to make the session more productive and more encouraging:
   • Control the environment — Schedule a time and location that reduces the chance of interruption.
   • Establish the purpose — Review the benefits of performance planning and provide an overview of what’s included in the meeting.
   • Seek input — Ask open-ended questions to engage the employee, and remember to listen carefully at all times.
   • Share assessment results — The employee should go first, walking the manager through the employee’s self-evaluation. The manager should go second and provide candid and specific results with corrective and positive feedback.
   • Discuss the employee’s strengths — Ask the employee for his input about his strengths, and share your opinion about them as well.
   • Set specific goals — List opportunities for improvement, identify training needs, and set realistic but challenging goals.
   • Close with a synopsis — Summarize what you discussed and review any Human Resources communications concerning policy changes, wage scales, and so on. Sign the session’s forms and explain next steps. Thank the employee for his/her time and work.
7. Forward paperwork to the Human Resources department
The notes from the performance planning session will become part of the employee’s permanent file, so they go to Human Resources for review. In BLOOM®, once HR approves the review it is available to the employee and to the manager for future reference.

If you’d like more information about BLOOM® or our methodology please feel free to contact us or leave a response here.

When you’re running a business, you need to be sure that the members of your team are right for the job and that the roles they fill are aligned with your overall strategy. That’s what we’ve been talking about in our last few posts, and now we’re shifting gears a bit to further explore how you can use assessments to guide employee development so that your people are consistently performing and form the team you trust to get the job done.

We recommend the Kolbe Indexes® as most effective tool for predicting performance

The Kolbe A, B and C Indexes® provide a holistic understanding of the natural instincts and unique talents of each employee. Understanding these instincts enables you to form synergistic teams and empowers managers to develop effective approaches for successful leadership. Any size company can benefit from the Kolbe Wisdom® system.

Understanding Kolbe®: How we all solve problems

Human instinct is the power behind all actions and is the source of mental energy. The Kolbe Indexes® supplement assessments that measure intelligence and personality so that you can optimize hiring, deployment, retention, and effectiveness.

Research, both academic and practical, has shown that our creative instincts shape how we accomplish tasks and solve problems. To reiterate what we’ve discussed in previous posts, the Kolbe A Index® identifies four action modes that form these instincts:

• Fact Finder: the instinct to probe
• Follow Through: the instinct to pattern
• Quick Start: the instinct to innovate
• Implementor: the instinct to demonstrate

Ways to use Kolbe® results for employee development

Whether you’re looking to hire someone, choose the best person for an important project, or build a successful business team, the Kolbe Wisdom System® can help you assess and deploy your workforce for maximum productivity.

Practical application: act on the knowledge you gain from index results:

• Help employees set attainable, measurable personal goals that are supported by their natural instincts
• Understand how personal goals further the overall vision of the company
• Identify areas where employee training is needed
• Implement a performance management system (we of course recommend BLOOM) to monitor and track training completion, performance, and goals
• Set new goals when past goals are met
• Regularly and effectively communicate
• Establish incentive programs that encourage and reward personal growth and productivity

An Example: Adapted from Wendy Buckingham’s article, “Basic Instincts” (pdf)

A manager who is a Fact Finder will research all the possible details to present to her team. If the team is largely comprised of Quick Starts, whose instinct is to take an idea and run with it, the team will be frustrated with the amount of detail the manager provides and will be anxious and inattentive. In turn, the manager will feel that her team does not value her work or contributions. By understanding team members’ instincts, the manager can adapt presentations so they are more easily digested by Quick Starts – for example, leading with a summary – and still have all the background information available when questions arise.

Insight is trained and certified in the Kolbe Wisdom® process, and we can apply the results from the Kolbe system to help you:

1. Create effective teams by choosing individuals with complementary talents.
2. Improve how existing teams perform by examining the complete array of talent within a team and explaining how to deploy talent and problem solving.
3. Reduce employee stress and conflict and increase communication by understanding how people optimally operate in the workplace.
4. Help employees harness their instinctive talents in synergistic ways by discovering their own process to meet a challenge.
5. Determine the best candidates for a given position by comparing an applicant’s talents to what a job demands.

Contact us to learn more about how Kolbe Indexes® can impact your organization.

By definition, a team is a group of people that has a common purpose, mission, or goal. Its members are interdependent, and they agree that they must work together and collaborate to effectively reach their goal.

Characteristics of successful teams

Regardless of whether we’re talking about the Indianapolis Colts or the editorial department of the Indianapolis Star, there are a number of characteristics common to successful teams:

• Clear goals
• Clear roles
• Clear communication
• Beneficial team behaviors
• Well-defined decision procedures
• A plan for improvement
• Balanced participation
• Established norms and ground rules
• Awareness of the team process
• Scientific approaches

There are a number of types of teams, and they are generally distinguished by three key points: their purpose; their duration (permanent or ad hoc); and their membership (functional or cross-functional). Five types of teams generally seen in the business sector are:

1. Natural work groups: groups composed of people who work together every day
2. Business teams: groups of people who come together for a specific task.
3. Management teams: groups of people, usually peer managers, who come together to coordinate actions of the entire organization.
4. Problem-solving teams: groups of people who come together for a specific period to analyze a situation and suggest working alternatives.
5. New product/service teams: groups of people who come together to design or redesign a product or service.

To be effective, teams have a number of needs that must be met, including:

• Clearly defined purposes and goals that serve the organization
• Clearly defined parameters
• Ability to communicate within the organization
• People with the necessary knowledge and skills to accomplish their tasks.
• Knowledge of how they are going to accomplish their tasks.

How teams operate

To accomplish their purpose and mission, teams must collaborate effectively. Teams that follow a proven process often achieve their goals. An effective process includes:

• Identify the clear purpose, problem, or issue the team will address
• Determine a problem-solving process
• Hold effective meetings (e.g. agendas, ground rules, and established roles)
• Conclude collaborations (e.g. summarize decisions, review action items, and evaluate meetings)
• Follow up (e.g. distribute notes and complete assignments)

In summary, businesses often say they have “great teamwork” but the proof is in the process and the results.

We believe that by understanding that each person has a distinct talent you will frame how they will approach their interests and their work. We also believe that the greater a person’s ability to match his talent with his work, the better his attitude and by his extension productivity will be. In our experience, most organizations don’t encourage the time and effort it requires to provide this advantage, and we can provide some advice on how to make this happen.

Job matching is ultimately a collaborative support process.

The keys to understanding and implementing a unique competitive advantage are to define your organizational goals and expectations and to know your people and support their growth. Integrating these two ideas is a powerful, effective method for increasing efficiency, improving performance beyond your expectations, and as a result retaining your best people.

Before we get to how to match people with jobs, let’s take a step back.

Any business initiative can be derailed without committed purpose and people supporting the necessary actions. The overarching reason for failure is a lack of understanding of these two elements. Specific issues include:

• Not identifying and/or consistently communicating a common purpose
• Losing focus on priorities
• Too much responsibility in too few of hands
• Too little attention to detail
• Poor matches of people to jobs
• Lack of individual ownership toward change
• Pessimism
• Erosion of innovation and creativity
• Complacent leaders without vision

Leaders must work to develop clear, understood purpose and actively align employees and roles with initiatives, otherwise hard work will continually be wasted effort, which in turn will deplete employee morale and retention.

How to get started matching people with the right jobs

Job matching requires meticulous detail in developing a process that is consistently implemented throughout your organization. We find that the best approach is to start in one specific area that is experiencing problems and adapt the following steps to your organization’s needs.

Three Phases of Development: Ready, Set, Go!

To prepare the development of your job matching process, start with completing the following steps:

Get Ready: Inspect and reinforce your organization’s foundation

1. Utilize a process to set specific organizational goals
2. Develop a three-year vision and set up one-year goals for the organization and for individual departments
3. Learn about your employees! Support managers with processes and tools for learning, understand each person by using assessments, and comprehend and track their short- and long-term goals

Get Set: Articulate specific expectations for your job matching process

1. Create job centers for each department by categorizing the main functions in each department. For example, separate job centers in a product department may include line operators, shipping, receiving, and packaging.
2. Detail specific job profiles in each job center, specifying the responsibilities, competencies (i.e. skills, talents, and attitudes), work environment, and training and education requirements.

Go: Integrate the information from steps 1-5 to match people to specific jobs

1. Use a methodology to match your employees with the job profiles
2. Dialog with each employee to discuss fit
3. Set goals (3, 6, and 12 month) with each employee
4. Create a communication plan for each employee to discuss progress
5. Always reward accomplishments with a consistent company reward system

Introducing job matching to your employees

It’s important that a job matching program be a positive, non-threatening process. Here are some tips to achieve that:

• Leadership must communicate the program and already be successfully implementing job matching with their managers
• Leaders must be involved in the training process by sharing their personal experiences implementing the program and the desired expectations
• Don’t enforce the whole system at once. Find a specific starting point, and introduce it bit by bit over a year or longer. You may want to break your job matching process into phases and sequentially introduce each phase throughout the organization, or you may want to implement the complete process one department at a time.

For additional tips and more extensive information let us know, and we will send you an article that includes details about leadership involvement, implementation, feedback loops, and collaborative support.