Monthly Archives: January 2012

Refresher employee development

Posted on January 25, 2012

At a breakfast networking meeting I went to this morning, we had a guest, Chris Edmondson,  doing a 10 minute presentation on communications. He referenced Albert Mehrabian’s work which identifies three main components of communications – words, tone of voice, and nonverbal behaviour – and their relative importance. Chris is an energetic and engaging speaker who clearly knows his stuff.

For me, there was nothing new conceptually, but it was a timely reminder; as I was listening and reflecting, I reckoned I had not been presenting myself recently as well as I can and should.

I came away with three important thoughts:

1)  In a previous life I used to do the same sort of presentations as Chris. I used to run day-long skills development programs on such things as communications. So I know the models of good communications. But, do I use them?

As I have not run programs on communications for a long time – I work mainly 1:1 and with small groups now – I have got out of practice of standing up and talking. I would never claim I was ever the world’s greatest speaker but with planning and practice I was competent. I was ‘consciously competent’. There were perhaps even times when, in the flow, on a roll, I was more than competent.

So, Chris’s presentation has brought what has been sitting in the back of my brain, lying there forgotten, to the conscious front on my brain. Next time I speak, I have promised myself that I will pay more attention to Mehrabian’s model and again be consciously competent.

2) My second thought follows from the first. How easy it is to let slip what we learned to do years ago. As the world changes aorund us, we need to regularly check we are still competent at what we do. As I don’t make so many public presentations these days, I don’t get much opportunity for feedback about how well I communicate. Chris’s presentation made me reflect. Hearing something we already know well can still stimulate reflection and learning if it is done in an engaging way.

3) The third thought was that I don’t have to do much to get back to being a competent public speaker. As they say, you never forget how to ride a bike. I don’t have to ‘learn’ a model of good communication; I learned that years ago. I just have to switch it on again and with a little conscious practice I reckon I can soon be competent again.

Thanks Chris! 10 minutes refresher well used.

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Employee development as a motivational tool

Posted on January 18, 2012

Hah! Now we know for a fact, most managers are ineffective! Surprise, surprise. A study by Heike Bruch and the late, great Sumantra Ghoshal find that 10% of managers take purposeful action, 40% are energetic but unfocused, 30% have low energy, are little focused and tend to procrastinate, and 10% are focused but not very energetic.

Whose fault is this? Well, when I developed the model of competencies required by top managament in a large industrial company, number one on the list was “Create the conditions in which employees can maximise their commitment and value to the organisation”. So you will know what my view is.
During the recent holiday period, I visited a client abroad where we have 14 key employees doing the bquest program. I met them in person at the start 4 months ago but I have been working regularly with them on their development through Skype since then. So the visit was to get them together, with their top managers, and check the energy, focus and commitment to results from everyone were still high. (In many development programs, you sometimes get a dip after the initial burst of enthusiasm.)

After the meeting, which was high energy and fun and showed a lot of cross-function development actions were going on, one of the top managers said to me “I was shocked, in a positive way, how person X has changed. Before, he just did his basic job. He did it well enough, but now he is finding time to make important improvements to his team and to the business.”

By using bquest, the top management in the client company were ‘creating the conditions’ for their key employees. In effect, they were saying to them things like “We think you are important to the company. Your ideas are important to us. You have permission to look at new ways of doing things. Put your mark on the business. Show us what you can do. If you want to do something different, we and bquest will support and help you.”

Employee development, if done well like bquest, is highly motivational; it inspires, it energises and, by focusing, it achieves results.

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When employee development is a performance problem and not a learning need

Posted on January 10, 2012

As regular readers will know, I focus on employee development to improve performance, both performance of the person and of the business. Meaningful employee development can take some time and effort, so it is always worth checking if it is really necessary to ‘develop’ someone. Is there a better way? A quicker way? Here’s an example:

A client has a longstanding employee who, over the years, has generally performed well. At least, what he has done well has always been much more than what he hasn’t, and the client has learned to accommodate the employee’s weaknesses by giving him only the work that he does well. The job has been evolving as the business has evolved.

Over the last year or so however, the behaviours of the employee have been causing other employees to make more and more negative remarks about him. He appears to have lost some personal motivation and drive to achieve results, his criticisms of others have become more strident and damaging of  morale, and his weaknesses now outweigh his strengths. He appears to be in a downward spiral.

What do you think the client should do?

I have always liked an old book by Robert Kent – Managing People; 25 Steps to Improving Employee Performance. (You may find a copy on one of the second-hand book websites. Or check out Robert Kent’s company, Mansis. ) He takes you through 25 Yes/No steps such as 1) Is the employee aware of the job duties? Does he/she know what to do? No? Then tell the employee what to do. Yes? 2) Then is the employee aware of his performance? No? Then arrange for performance feedback. Yes? 3)  Then, etc.

After step 24, he says ‘If you have been through steps 1 – 24 (and you have not solved the employee’s performance problem) then you are probably being led down the garden path. Forget diagnosing the reasons and just enforce the performance standards. Consider discipline.’ In my opinion, after the 24 steps, excellent advice!

In my client’s case, using Kent’s framework, our discussion revealed that the client was failing at step 1 and step 2. Yes, I said it was my client who was failing, not the employee. The employee could do the job more or less well, but it was my client who was failing to give the employee clear direction and who was failing to give performance feedback. (We haven’t bothered yet with steps 3-24; not getting steps 1 and 2 right means the employee doesn’t have a chance, so we need to address these first!)

Now, my client has a bquest learning contract focusing on learning how to set objectives and KPIs (for the employee’s new work), how to assess the competence and commitment of the employee to do the (new and old) jobs, and how to monitor performance and give feedback. Basic competencies for any line manager you would think, but how often do we see basic competencies absent?

There are two morals of this story then. Firstly, some performance issues do not require ‘learning’, they just need good, basic management and giving the person the right direction that shapes the desired behaviours. Secondly, you need to identify the corrrect person for learning and development!

Happy New Year!

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