Performance Improvement

Employees don’t know if they’re performing correctly? Huh. That’s a problem…

infrastructureHave you ever heard the old saying “hope is not a strategy?” Hope may, in fact, lead to success or it may not. If it does lead to success, the chance of repeating the success isn’t very good unless you know exactly what you did to achieve it.

In my email this morning was an article from Mark Murphy of LeadershipIQ. I like his stuff; it’s research grounded and generally practical.  The research he presented this morning was a survey of 30,000+ employees who were asked to rate “I know whether my performance is where it should be.”  I guess it’s encouraging that almost 30% said “Always,” and another 14% responded “frequently.” But that’s still less than half of a humongous research sample.

So if over half of a group of employees are not sure if the work they are doing is meeting expectations or not, you have to ask the question, “Is it?” And if it isn’t, is it costing more than it should to duplicate work, correct mistakes or go down the wrong path? Probably. (more…)

The “New” Performance Management – What We Were Supposed to be Doing All Along?

7007262-green-tea-leavesFor years and years and years, HR has pleaded with managers to have more frequent performance discussions, and has introduced technology for the purpose of making it easier to document performance. I can tell you firsthand, it’s been a REALLY tough sell.

Today, GE makes headlines in the Washington Post article, Why Big Business is Falling Out of Love with the Annual performance Review. They join the likes of Deloitte, Accenture, Adobe and Gap shedding a process that has for too long be tedious and of little value by moving to a more fluid system.

They will (gasp) have more frequent performance reviews and use an app to document the dialogue. (more…)

November 10 is the 239th birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

So what, you ask?

First of all, just think about that. Two hundred and thirty nine years of excellence and stellar results. Talk about sustainability!

I doubt that there is an individual who doesn’t think “Wow” when they hear or see a U.S. Marine. The Corps’ reputation of being our elite fighting force is enough to strike fear into our enemies and trust into our citizens. How can an organization sustain that kind of excellence for 239 years?

Listen to the newly promoted Commandant of the Marine Corps, in his birthday address to his Marines – you’ll hear a bit about what makes a Marine a Marine.

Here’s my “so what.” We, the business community, can take lessons from the Marine Corps. This isn’t a new concept; over the past 15 years several authors have followed Marines to try to understand their success, and published their findings. And it’s great information. (more…)