Archive | November, 2005

‘Tis The Season For Performance Reviews

by on November 20, 2005 in Career, Creative, Work

Well, at least for my own organization. In my association experience, it tends to depend on your budget cycle. And there lies one of the great problems with the whole performance review: money and performance are tightly linked. So, what’s wrong with that? Everything.

I could go on and on about this, but greater and more experienced minds have already offered some brilliant writings on this issue…

Lisa Haneberg at Management Craft has long made some compelling cases against the use of reviews:
Scrap Performance Appraisals – Parts  1  2  3  4  5
And another post for good measure…

More recently, Don Blohowiak at Leadership Now has a chilling post on how some companies game the whole 360 evaluation process.

Both Lisa’s and Don’s posts offer more links and opportunities to tumble down the blogosphere rabbit hole.

Currently, I’m working to overhaul how my organization thinks about evaluations. From dialogues I’ve had with the CEO and the staff,  I think one central question lies with the actual purpose of a performance evaluation. Like so much in the workplace that mirrors our elementary school classroom beginnings, we need a report card. We want to see if we got that much sought after ‘A’ in math or teamwork. We need the strokes from our teacher/supervisor. We want to tack it to the fridge at home. We need someone else telling us we should be proud of the work that we’re doing.

Okay, so what happens when we take responsibility for our own development? Instead of complying with what the organization unilaterally says we should be valuing about our work, let’s try building the performance agreement together. Let’s develop a process that builds on the best of the organization and the employee. Let’s make this a frequent event (at least once every three months) that generates excitement rather than devolves into groans of apathy and frustration.

And to a certain Fortune 500 executive, if you think your employees are just there for the money and they don’t want to develop their skills and make something of their life, perhaps this is a good time to shut up and start listening.

Making A Difference In Associations

by on November 17, 2005 in Business, Career

Are making a difference and happiness linked? Curt Rosengren points to recent research supporting the connection.

Lately, I’ve been having watercooler chats with my staff, trying to get a better grasp of what we can do together to create the kind of workplace that inspires and excites folks. Working in non-profits, you come to understand that you make less money doing this type of work than if you did similar work in the for-profit sector (though, there are notable exceptions). You can’t rely on the paycheck to bring you complete satisfaction. So, why is it that us association professionals choose this field?

I think I can say that it is the feeling that you’re contributing to something greater than yourself. For me and the rest of my colleagues here, we’re working to make a difference in the world by supporting the field of alternative dispute resolution (which happens to include mediators). In a society where its become commonplace to take all of your problems to court and try to achieve some kind of victory in a zero-sum game, it’s incredibly gratifying to know that there’s a group of individuals out there who work to resolve conflicts in ways that benefit all parties.

Yet regardless of the type of association you work within (and trust me, there is practically an association for anything), and you make the work your profession, there’s a certain amount of love you bring to it. For instance, take the main points that Curt pulls from the USA Today article:

  • You need to know your work is making a difference, and for whom…
  • Personal contact with beneficiaries seems to make people happier and boost performance…
  • There’s a high degree of motivation to help others…

The results we receive when our work and our souls are aligned offer far more than the numbers printed on a paycheck.

Is The #1 Job Of A Leader Appreciation?

by on November 12, 2005 in Work

Anita Sharpe at the Worthwhile blog offered a simple question that’s sure to elicit some diverse and dynamic discussion: What’s the #1 job of a leader? According to Boeing, it’s Appreciation.

Here’s the comment I left:

Hmmm…interesting. I’ll both agree and disagree with that.

I’ll agree with the importance of showing appreciation to those
around you. And add that “showing” isn’t enough. A leader must
elaborate on what they appreciate while at the same time making it
about the other person. Instead of saying, “You did a great job on that
project,” say, “Here’s what I liked about what you did” The latter is
specific and allows for the other person to make their own meaning from
the appreciative feedback.

Now, for a disagreement…I think the #1 job of a leader is to connect
the thoughts and actions of others to a larger goal. You can show
appreciation all day, but does it move others in a new direction? Or
does it merely reflect where they are right now? The great leaders of
people take reality, stretch it to create a dynamic future, then make
it seem both challenging and possible to attain. Appreciation will be
simply one of the tools to get there.

Fight Or Flight: More Thoughts

by on November 11, 2005 in Career

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called Fight or Flight about A.G. Lafley’s experience with trying to figure out when to leave a company. In a recent post called How To Know When To Change Jobs, Steven Kempton offers a complementary point of focus:

Quite often a change does help but it can be temporary. They change
jobs and feel happy for a little while and then use the same underlying
excuse to start looking again. However I do think there is one way to
cut out this nonsense. BE CLEAR ON YOUR PURPOSE

He follows with six questions to help us determine if it’s the right time to fly toward greener pastures. They’re particularly good because they take into account that truly soulful work has meaning. And the current challenges we might experience could be formative to our character rather than degenerative.

If you’re thinking that it’s time to leave your job, step back and get tough on yourself. Ask some hard questions. The answers might not always be pretty, but they could actually lead to a more transformative future.

All The Cool Mediators Are Doing It

by on November 9, 2005 in Business

The reason I went on my trip to New England last week was to spend a day with a great chapter of my association and attend their annual conference. What I expected to do was talk with its leaders and members and share what we can do to further improve our organizational relationship. What I didn’t expect was to walk away with some pretty profound experiences.

In the past few months, I’ve come to learn about mediation as a practice and a profession. I’ve also gained a great deal of respect for those who mediate disputes (prior to landing at my current gig, I tried to mediate a staff conflict and discovered how difficult it is to do well). In a culture that seems to idolize the act of litigation, mediation is just a better way.

During the conference, I was able to attend a few sessions. One of the coolest was a workshop focused on helping practitioners use blogging as a marketing tool. It was led by three prominent bloggers in the field (which you really need to visit and read):

An added bonus was that Tammy Lenski, author of Strategic Conversations, was there, too. To be honest, it was the first time that I’ve managed to find myself in a room with more than two bloggers in it (including myself) so this workshop experience was particularly neat.

Folks like them and other legal bloggers like Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity give the world of law a truly good name.