Blog — Page 57

ABC’s of Performance Management

Why do people act the way they do? What are the consequences that drive performance?

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Mission Statements

What makes a great mission statement….and what are mission statements that suck? What is a mission statement and why do you need one?

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Mission Statements Podcast Slides

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Skip Level Meetings

What is a skip level meeting? Find out why Skip Level Meetings are important, and exactly how to conduct one.

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Skip Level Meetings Podcast Slides

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High Potential Leadership – Accelerated Development Programs

So it’s time to select who will participate in your Accelerated Development Program and your thinking about your team and who might be the best of the best to put forward, who deserves the opportunity. You start looking through your teams performance reviews and 360 results, you start planning for the talent review meetings … HOLD ON! I love the enthusiasm you have for developing people but I need to ask you to back it up.

Contrary to common practice, do not start with a process aimed at identifying the high potential talent in your organization. Start by determining the leadership requirements that exist for the organization; start with the identifying your Business Requirements.

What competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors) are going to be required in order to successfully execute your strategy over the next 3–5 years?
Where is your bench weaker/stronger?
Where is the company growth going to come from that will require new leadership?
Where are the likely future vacancies going to be?

When you are considering who will be selected to participate in your Accelerated Development Program ….. start with an organizational assessment rather than a talent assessment.

If you’re like most companies there is a limited amount of resources of time and money that you can spend on Accelerated Development Programs. In a larger organization leveraging traditional identification process will still likely lead to a large number of candidates who are labeled as High Potential. Don’t misunderstand, everyone should have development plans and be supported in their development, however the truth of the matter is that organizations should be proactive in allocating additional development resources against those individuals who are most likely to meet the leadership requirements of the organization. You need to make sure you are getting the biggest benefit from your development efforts.

Leverage your organizational analysis in determining some of the criteria for selection. If your bench strength is weak in the sales department and really strong in operations then concentrate your selection to the program by choosing individuals interested in building a career in sales. YES, even at the expense of not including a high potential individual from Operations. If your business requirements for leadership are heavily weighted in a specific geography you may consider not including some individuals that have indicate that they are not willing to relocate, in favour of some who are. The goal of accelerated development programs is to accelerate the development of selected individuals to meet the needs of the business. Don’t invest more money and time where it’s not needed at the expense of where it is needed.

What Toyota can learn from OJ and Barack Obama

There hasn’t been a fall from grace like this since the OJ trial. Ok… maybe this recent Tiger Woods thing, or the fact that people set the expectations for Barack Obama way too high could be close seconds, but the fact that Toyota isn’t absolutely perfect seems to be disturbing a lot of people.

Toyota is a well run company – despite their recent setbacks. What separates well run organizations from those not so well run is the ability to respond to challenges, not the absence of any troubles.

I have no doubt the marketing people at Toyota are freaking out, but they do have some credibility they can spend on this issue. What they shouldn’t do, is announce to the world there isn’t really a problem, and carry on with business as usual. This is the corporate equivalent of OJ going out on his own to look for the “real” killer.

Toyota needs to step-up, acknowledge what went wrong, tell everyone how they intend to fix it, and then get back to completely dominating the global automobile industry. Too much spin, and they’ll lose even more credibility.

And while we’re talking about supposedly world class companies, can we have a reality check? I have studied and held up organizations like Southwest Airlines, General Electric, and Disney myself as examples for managers to look to. In many cases I would stand by this advice. However, we need to realize that even the best run entities are not going to do everything right all the time. In fact, it is probably closer to the truth that these companies really only do things right marginally more than every other organization out there.

Don’t get me wrong… much like I find President Obama to be an impressive guy, watching people’s unrealistic expectations of him be constantly deflated, people need to look to the Toyotas of the world in the proper context. They are not perfect, and they will make mistakes. They also can’t be all things to all people.

I bought Southwest Airlines stock about 8 years ago, because they were such an impressive company. So impressive, that I would lose my shirt if I sold those same stocks today. I also bought Southwest stock before ever flying with them. I have no doubt they serve their niche well – I’m just clearly not one of their target customers: “What do you mean you won’t assign me a seat?”

Leaders in big organizations and small should watch Toyota very carefully in the coming weeks and months. They will either come through this stronger than ever, or crash and burn horribly. Either way it will be instructive.

How do you think this will end? Will Toyota recover like Tylenol did after the poisonings, or will Mr. Toyota end up driving down an LA freeway with a gun to his head?

The Business Review Meeting

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A business review meeting is a specific type of recurring meeting that is held to discuss individual or team scorecards and progress toward objectives. During the business review meeting, teams apply problem-solving tools to issues that are impacting their performance. Team leaders, managers and senior leadership assume coaching roles which emphasize positive feedback and recognition.

The purpose of a business review meeting is to:

Reinforce the accountability and action plans of each team or individual
Share ideas and learn about interrelationships in the business
Celebrate success
Identify and remove barriers

Roles of leaders in the business review meeting process:

Articulating the organization’s vision
Involving people in deciding how to achieve the organization’s vision
Supporting employee efforts to realize vision by providing coaching, feedback, and role modeling
Recognizing and rewarding success

The business review meeting process:

Business review meetings are scheduled on a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) and include a presentation of key performance measures (individual and/or team). Baselines (historical performance), current data and projected trends are presented for each goal or critical success factor. Key successes are shared with the group as well as required interventions and actions to overcome barriers. Working together, the team develops action plans to improve performance – steps to reach objectives are identified; individuals are assigned responsibility for each step; target completion dates are established for each step and expected results are communicated.

Why have a business review meeting?

Opportunity to assess the current performance status of each team or individual
Opportunity to highlight and recognize good performance
Opportunity to gain input from peers and management on ideas, scorecards and action plans for the next time period
Opportunity for leaders to focus the team on critical issues, goals and objectives
Opportunity to make decisions as a team
Opportunity to give and receive feedback

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The Business Review Meeting topic bundle includes:

Business Review Meeting Cheat Sheet (pdf)
Business Review Meeting Booklet (pdf) containing:
- In-Depth Topic Overview
- How to Make a Successful Presentation at a Business Review Meeting
- How to Lead the Business Review Meeting Process
- Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about business review meetings
Business Review Meeting Podcast (mp3)
Business Review Meeting Podcast Slides (Powerpoint)

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RACI – Creating a Responsibility Chart

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What is a RACI Responsibility Chart?

RACI is an acronym for the four major headings in a responsibility chart:

Responsible – this position does the work to ensure that the action is completed
Accountable – this position is ultimately responsible for ensuring completion of a function, activity or decision, but may delegate responsibility to another. Only one position should be accountable for every action or decision
Consulted – This position is involved prior to a decision or action taking place
Informed – This position is told of an outcome of an activity or decision afterwards

RACI Responsibility Charting Guidelines

Focus on the position, not on the individual currently occupying the position
Ensure the level of detail is appropriate to the positions on the RACI Responsibility Chart. Organizations should have cascading RACIs from the senior team down to the individual contributor level
The RACI Responsibility Chart should be revisited and tested regularly as business conditions change
The first RACI Responsibility Chart will be an iterative process, and may not 100% accurate at first. Further refinement is encouraged
Place accountability (A) and responsibility (R) at the lowest feasible level
There can be only one accountability (A) per activity
Minimize the number of Consults (C) and Informs (I)
Avoid listing mundane activities like ‘attend meetings’

Horizontal & Vertical Analysis of a RACI Responsibility Chart

Once the RACI responsibility chart has been populated, it is important to review and analyze the work to ensure that the tasks, decisions and functions will be properly executed. View the chart horizontally to ensure that each action or decision is properly supported. View the chart vertically to ensure that workload is properly distributed amongst a team or work group.

Using a RACI Responsibility Chart to enhance or validate job descriptions

After a RACI has been conducted with a group, it is wise to cross-check the data on the RACI responsibility chart with what is written in the job description. In some cases, items from the job description should be noted on the RACI. responsibility chart. Most often Accountabilities and Responsibilities from the RACI responsibility chart are used to update job descriptions.

Using a RACI Responsibility Chart to enhance KPIs or Scorecards

A good use of the output of a RACI responsibility chart is to note what KPIs, data and other management information is required for an incumbent to successfully execute his or her accountabilities and responsibilities. In many cases the RACI responsibility chart can provide a solid guide as to what should be on a scorecard for the positions featured in the RACI chart.

Get the Complete ‘RACI Responsibility Charting’ Topic Bundle

The RACI Responsibility Charting topic bundle includes:

RACI Responsibility Charting Cheat Sheet (pdf)
RACI Responsibility Charting Booklet (pdf) containing:
- In-Depth Topic Overview
- RACI Horizontal and Vertical Analysis Check-Sheet
- RACI Job Description Template
- Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about RACI Responsibility Charting

RACI Responsibility Charting Example from the Oil and Gas Industry (Excel)
RACI Responsibility Charting Presentation – use this if you want to roll it out in your organization (Powerpoint)
Easy-print versions of the Wily Manager Tools contained in the RACI Responsibility Charting Booklet (pdf)
RACI Responsibility Charting Podcast (mp3)
RACI Responsibility Charting Podcast slides (Powerpoint)

The RACI [topic bundle] is excellent! I recently took on a new position and found that a key issue plaguing my boss was in working with one of our business units. In listening to the issue I pointed out that roles and responsibilities seemed to be the underlying issue. I had just read your RACI [material] and was able to lay out how we can work with them in a more effective way by taking the lead and following the RACI model. He agreed and liked the idea of using the model to address the issues and establish a new process flow with the unit. – Vivian Myers, NY

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Management Lessons from NBC Late Night Programming

What a debacle.

Of course, the whole situation becomes exaggerated when you add in multi-million dollar severance packages, and inflated celebrity egos. But when you look at the situation purely from a management perspective what is to be learned?

Here’s what we know:

NBC didn’t want O’Brien to leave, so they made a deal with Leno to retain O’Brien
NBC didn’t want to offend Leno to a point that he might shop his talent elsewhere
As a result, they shuffled all the deck chairs, and when it was clear it wasn’t working, they again tried to split the difference and come out with a compromise that would placate all concerned. Wrong again.

What Jeff Zucker and the kids at NBC management failed to realize is that sometimes you don’t get to pick a good option. Sometimes, as managers, we are called upon to determine which option sucks the least.

Back in 1993, NBC had a similar management choice to make when replacing Johnny Carson. Their managerial decision making at the time caused them to lose David Letterman to CBS, which likely guided their decisions a decade later. In retrospect, say “no” to O’Brien, and potentially losing him, as they lost Letterman, may very well have been the option that sucked the least.

There are thousands of managers out there right now facing decisions where there may not be a best option. These decisions won’t make the news, and there probably won’t be a $45m severance expense, but making difficult decisions is a burden of leadership.

So do the right thing… if you can’t figure out an option that will work best, determine the one that will suck the least, and get on with it.

Either that, or follow the example of Jimmy Fallon, and just stay quiet and below the radar until the whole thing blows over.