Great Improvement Tool: Performance Reviews
July 22, 2008
Great Improvement Tool: Performance Reviews
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change©
One of the most dreaded tasks of every manager is the annual performance review. It’s a time when they have to burn the midnight oil to scan through personnel files, reports and hand-scribbled notes to compile some semblance of an employee’s past six or 12 months work. Managers hate preparing them and employees dread hearing them.
Performance reviews in the past have not been used effectively. They can be great times to evaluate the positives, the negatives, and fine-tune for the future. Properly executed, performance reviews can be one of the best improvement and motivating tools a manager has.
Preparation is the key to successful performance evaluations. Rather than choose a multitude of negative comments and only one or two positive, praise-worthy remarks, find ways for the employee to do a brief self-assessment before starting the review. They often will mention accomplishments that were important to them but minimized in a manager’s report.
Here some tips to make performance reviews more effective:
1. Set Expectations Performance reviews are excellent times to create a list expectations – from the manager’s perspective as well as the employee – for the coming year. Set short-term, 30-day goals to achieve these expectations over a six or 12 month period. These expectations and goals must be written and reviewed periodically to maintain focus.
2. Positive Language Keep the conversation positive. Employees dread performance reviews because it’s usually a time when their shortcomings are placed in the spotlight. Negative feedback is more acceptable when packaged as a discussion on lessons learned from the mistake or as a goal-setting exercise to avoid the same pitfall again.
3. Retitle the Review Rather than continue calling them performance reviews, how about using Performance Improvement sessions? Let the employee decide areas they want to improve over the coming months – skills they want to learn and tasks they want to do. That creates “ownership” of the improvement plan.
Timely Tips for Your Daily Planning
June 4, 2008
Timely Tips for Your Daily Planning
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
In my office is a paperweight made of marble with these words engraved on one side: The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get. Playing “catch-up” each day is largely due to not planning. Those words are a constant reminder to plan, plan, plan.
Here’s five principles to help you maximize your daily planning:
1. Do your planning the night before. Set aside time at the end of each day to plan your next day. The major benefit is there is a plan of action completed and you leave your job with a sense of certainty and control about the next day and with a sense of anticipation you would not ordinarily have.
2. Put your plan into writing. When you apply pen to paper, there is an indelible imprint on your brain. There is extraordinary power in the writing your plan. When we try to keep track of everything in our heads, things tend to slip through the cracks.
3. “Have to’s” and “Want to’s”. Good planning involves more than just
properly administering the “Have To’s”. We should better handle our “Have To’s”, but we also need to do a good job taking care of our “Want To’s”. Plan out not only the things you “have to” do, but, more importantly, the things you “want to” do.
4. Over plan your day. “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.” The more you plan to do, the more you can get done because you take advantage of Parkinson’s Law which says, in part, that a project tends to expand with the time allocated for it. If you have one thing to do for the day, it will take all day. If you have three things to do for the day, you’ll get all three done. If you have twelve things to get done for the day, you might not get all twelve done, but probably will get nine completed. Having a lot to do creates a healthy sense
of pressure on us and we almost automatically become better time managers.
5. Prioritize your list. Your list will almost always include “urgent” as well as “important but not urgent” items. Some items are more urgent, others less so. Without some direction, we tend to gravitate towards the “not urgent” items because they are typically easier to do, take less time, and may even be more fun than many of our “urgent” items. A simple numerical listing will work: Put a “1” next the most important item, then place a “2” next to the second most important item, continuing the process until all the items on your list are
prioritized in order of their importance.
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Gene Swindell is an internationally-acclaimed speaker/trainer/business consultant specializing in leadership, team building, communication and customer service. Contact him at gene@geneswindell.com or call 770-926-1395.
Get More From Your Training Investment
May 29, 2008
GET MORE FROM YOUR TRAINING INVESTMENT
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
As a training instructor in business topics, I have been asked by clients and potential clients how to get more results from their training investments. With 20-plus years experience, I’ve compiled some suggestions that can help you:
• Clearly define the purpose of the training and how it is supposed to impact your organization. Make sure you know what the training is supposed to improve and how it is supposed to improve it.
• Make sure that the training is a part of a strategic plan to improve performance, not just a “one time fix.”
• Involve some of the participants in the planning of the training. People take training more serious when they have a sense of ownership in the training.
• Correct organizational problems before you send people to training. Correcting organizational problems will usually correct at least 50% of the performance problems without any training.
• Clearly communicate with everyone about the training before it occurs. Do this in large group settings and in small groups or one on one. In the large group answer these questions: What are we doing; Why are we doing it; How are we going to do it; Who is going to be involved; How is this going to impact what we do each day. In the small group or one-on-one settings, review these questions to ensure that people understand what is being done and how it will impact them.
• Define expectations before the training. People need to know what is expected of them during and after the training.
• Follow-up after the training. Follow-up the training with small groups or individual sessions to discuss what people learned, what they are going to apply and how they plan to apply it. Leave with a game plan that you can review with each person or team over the next few months.
• Attend the training session. Don’t just send people to training sessions. Attend the class yourself and be a participant.
• Shift your evaluation of training from “did you like it or what did you learn” to “what are you going to do differently and how is this training helping us get better results.” Some companies place these completed forms in class attendees’ personal files to use in performance reviews, awarding bonuses, and promotions.
Training is a valuable part of your organization’s success. Make sure that you get the most from your training dollars. If you would like to know more about I can assist in offering training that gets results, call 770-926-1395 or visit www. geneswindell.com.
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Gene Swindell is an internationally known speaker/trainer/business consultant in the areas of leadership, change management, team building, customer service and communication. He is president of Creative Concepts International, Inc., in Atlanta, GA.
Are You Really Listening?
May 22, 2008
Are You Really Listening?
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Changeä
Most people spend about 80 percent of their day in a passive listening mode. Background noises, extraneous sounds, and idle conversations are tuned out as we go about doing our daily routines. When you walk into a room where background music is being played, you hear it but you don’t listen to it. Then, someone asks, “What’s the title of that song?” At that point you switch to active listening. You focus and concentrate on the song – and probably spend the next hour trying to recall the title.
Poor listening has resulted in lost business opportunities, project screw-ups, missed assignments, wasted time, and strained or even broken relationships. In every aspect of business today, listening to customers, clients and associates is essential to determine their needs and expectations. But most people are stuck in the habit of passive listening.
What’s the major difference between passive and active listening? It’s moving beyond your perception of what people want. That becomes a major task, especially when your perceptions become mixed with old thinking, old habits and old methods of functioning in your job.
There are four key elements to active listening:
1. Nonverbal Attends – Facial expression and eye contact reveal one’s listening intent. A pleasant facial expression and direct eye contact convey interest, concern and care to the person speaking. Squaring your body with the speaker, rather than turning away, also indicates openness to receive information. A head nod is a listening signal.
2. Verbal Attends – These are simple acknowledgements to the speaker that you are listening. Simple sounds (“ah huh,” “hmmm,” “I see”) indicate the message is being received. Verbal acknowledgements are especially important in telephone conversations when the speaker cannot see your head nod.
3. Door-opener Questions – Questions that focus on “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” and “how” solicit dialog and indicate your interest in the speaker’s comments. When questions are asked, we naturally listen for the answers. Door-opener questions produce information, show interest in the other person’s concerns, and make you a better listener. Avoid “why” questions until absolutely necessary. They can appear threatening or confrontational
4. Paraphrasing – Research shows the concentrated attention span of humans is only about 30 to 45 seconds. Our brains are processing words so much faster than they are being spoken that we start forming our responses long before a speaker finishes. Paraphrasing or restating the speaker’s message from point to point helps to keep you focused and shows that you are listening.
Remember, money talks — you listen!
8 Traits of True Leadership
May 18, 2008
8 Traits of true leadership
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change©
At first glance, the difference between a step and a stumble seems obvious. But in business, planning long and hard to climb into a leadership role often is indistinguishable from inadvertently falling into one. The fact is, whether you take a deliberate step toward an objective or immediately trip on a shoelace, you may end up in the same spot. Put another way, many people who have a laser focus on getting to the top make it there no faster than those who have a leadership opportunity thrust upon them.
Yet knowing the difference between thoughtful business leadership and the kind that happens seemingly by accident is critical — not only in your ability to grow and develop as a leader, but to establish a pattern of success that’s deliberate, not miraculous.
Here, then, are eight attributes that separate genuine leadership from leadership that’s more a matter of chance:
1. Real leadership means leading yourself. Passing out orders is as easy as passing out business cards. But a prudent leader also knows how to lead himself or herself — not merely to provide a genuine example to others, but to become a working element of the overall machinery of your business. “It’s important that leaders have the ability to focus and motivate themselves as they motivate others,” says Larraine Segil, an author and consultant who teaches executive education at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
2. Don’t be a monarch. Thoughtful leadership likely means you already have a talented work force in place. That’s terrific. But be careful not set up a throne room in the process. Accidental leaders often inadvertently establish a system of guidance that’s unnecessarily restrictive. Guide employees, but don’t implement more parameters than are absolutely necessary. “It’s important to influence the people with whom you work,” says Segil. “Don’t see your business as a hierarchy.”
3. Be open to new ways of doing things. One potential land mine of a prosperous operation is to repeat anything that proves successful. It’s hard to argue against that, but an inadvertent leader will put far too much stock in sticking with what always works. By contrast, thoughtful leadership acknowledges success but also recognizes there are always ways to do things better.
4. Remember that white males are fast becoming a minority. Statistics show that white males now make up only a small fraction of the workplace population. Couple that with growing partnerships across borders, and it becomes obvious that blending a variety of cultures and backgrounds in a work environment is an essential leadership skill. A thoughtless leader will try to cope with this as best as he can. One with more vision will work to take advantage of differences. “Competition — the constant push for faster, better, cheaper — mandates that we learn to effectively deal with differences in the workplace,” says career consultant Susan Eckert of Advance Career and Professional Development in Brightwaters, N.Y. A company that weaves an appreciation of diversity into its cultural fabric will make itself “unbeatable,” Eckert says.
5. Establish a genuine sense of commitment. I must admit this is a personal sore point with me. I’ve seen too many company slogans and catch phrases whose import is no deeper than the paper they’re written on. Want to be “committed to superior service”? More power to you, but a genuine leader will see that as words and little else. Instead, put some meat on those bones — establish how to quantify excellence, design a cogent plan to achieve it and set a reasonable but real timetable for its completion.
6. Finish the job. Many business leaders yak about their complete game, but how many actually finish what they say they’re going to start? A thoughtless leader who never genuinely finishes anything loses the confidence of clients and customers. That lack of follow-through isn’t going to be lost on his or her employees, either. Instead, set goals and establish pragmatic, accountable measures to actually finish what you start. “The ability to complete things is critical,” Segil says. “Nothing’s useful unless you actually complete it.”
7. Show genuine appreciation. Thoughtless leaders must have forearms like Popeye’s, what with all the back-slapping they do. That’s fine, but good performance requires a more substantive response. Leaders with an eye to the future hand out praise but augment it with real rewards: promotions, raises, bonuses and other tangible tokens of appreciation. That motivates your people, not only to apply themselves with enthusiasm but to stick around your company longer than they might otherwise.
8. Know that leadership skills come from learning, too. Far too may business executives believe leadership skills stem from some sort of wondrous epiphany or other such flash of insight. Sure, great ideas can come to any of us, but being a bona fide leader also means study. Read books on effective leadership, attend seminars and pick the brains of colleagues to see what works for them. It can be a long education, but one with rewards that multiply with the more knowledge you have under your belt.
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Developing Your Self-Confidence
May 13, 2008
Developing Your Self-Confidence
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
Perhaps some people back away from developing a strong trait of self-confidence because they have experienced so many pretenders … people who attempt to wear the air of self confidence. They’ve seen those people who brag about their accomplishments, their skills, their position, their status.
They are turned off by the pretenders who are always exaggerating about their great deeds and usually become very assertive and boisterous when things don’t go their way. After a few experiences with pretenders and their oversized egos, some people say, “If that’s self-confidence, I want no part of it.” The typical pretender is one who uses those fake characteristics to cover up a tremendous lack of self-confidence.
Effective leaders let others talk about their abilities and accomplishments while concentrating on goals and offering praise, admiration and appreciation to others. There are two people inside each of us. There’s the giant who seeks recognition and greatness. And there’s the midget who somehow gets in the way.
Self-doubt and fear of failure are the two great barriers thrown at us by that midget inside. The giant within wants to rise up but is beaten down by the negatives that chip away, if we allow them, until we become shy, timid and afraid.
The late Antarctic explorer Norman Vaughn was the epitome of one who lived life to the fullest. He believed in himself through wisdom and knowledge, a positive attitude, overflowing enthusiasm, integrity and action. On my office bulletin board, I have posted one of his quotations:
“The only death you die is the death you die every day by not living.
Dream big and dare to fail.”
To build your self-confidence:
1. Know your real limitations. People have overcome tremendous physical and mental disadvantages to achieve incredible goals. Sometimes there are limitations of time, money, family, and immovable obligations that prevent us from reaching our ultimate success. While we explore creative and innovative ways to get what we want, we must still live in the world of reality. But, at the same time, we must always look at possibilities to extend or eliminate those limitations.
2. Concentrate on your strengths. Use the rifle vs. shotgun approach. Top leaders know what they can do best. They master the art of focusing their energy on what is most worthy. Rather than being a “jack of all things,” they choose to become “master of their strengths.” As they zero in and improve their strengths, their self-confidence grows.
3. Believe in yourself. Most of us have more self-confidence than we realize. Your belief system began even before you took your first step or said your first word. You knew you could do it. You just had to try and learn. And, through the years, your beliefs have grown. As you have believed, you have achieved. Believing has been defined as “accepting as true.” Our response to that must be to act as if something is true. Make a habit of acting as if the best things about you are true.
4. Prepare for the best. If you want to be the best that you can be, you must prepare. Just hoping you will reach the top won’t cut it. Success requires sacrifice and preparation.
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Handling Pressure
May 11, 2008
Handling Pressure
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
Are you being pressured to achieve more, produce more, and give more in your work and personal relationships? In today’s society, that’s called “normal.” Everyone seems stretched to the max - trying to cram too much into too little time or space. Result: More people are suffering stress-related illnesses.
Almost everything that can be recommended to relieve pressures in our lives comes down to one of three responses:
1. Receive pressure - handle it and work with it.
2. Reject pressure - eliminate or avoid it.
3. Reduce pressure - shrink it and revise its negative impact.
First, you must identify the pressures in your life. What are the stress factors? Where are they coming from? Which of the three “Rs” is most appropriate for you.
In some instances, your desire to reject pressure is not realistic or even possible. The pressure might be part of your job and must be confronted. You then must decide to either change it or find strategies to live with it.
A young man shared his experience with me recently. With little sales training, he was thrust into prospecting and contacting customers. His frustration grew when unrealistic sales goals were set but no support offered by his manager. The pressure brought on by his low productivity became unbearable and the struggling sales rep decided to quit. He chose to reject that pressure and move to another sales job where proper training and support would allow him to handle a normal amount of pressure. He’s now consistently among the top salespeople in the company.
Don’t readily receive pressure. Often, certain things appear to be established and cannot be changed. If you can create effective coping techniques for withstanding unavoidable pressure, that’s good. But why battle with stress when it could be within your power to change or eliminate it? The six fatal words of many organizations are, “We’ve always done it that way.” Look for better, stress-free ways of doing things.
Your best stress buster might be to reduce the pressure. Sometimes it is impossible to change things entirely but they can be revised in a constructive manner. For example, you may not have the authority to eliminate monthly reports and there may be no reason for doing so. But you can change the major problem that always seems to accompany it:
A. If you’re a manager, subordinates are late in getting necessary information to you and last-minute work is piled on your shoulders.
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B. As an employee, you don’t compile figures through the month rather than burn the midnight oil at the end of each month to beat the deadline causing loss of sleep and more stress.
Each of the three Rs has a specific place in your life, and each involves a distinct set of tactics. If your choice is to receive a pressure, part of your response may involve internal adjustments, such as releasing or tossing off disabling emotions. If your choice is to reject a pressure, effective self-management may be needed such as the ability to set priorities, and then make unwavering decisions. If you choose to reduce a pressure, the skills of negotiation and delegation may be necessary to make changes.
Gene Swindell is an internationally acclaimed speaker, trainer and author with more than 20-plus years of experience. He delivers customized Consultive Selling programs in addition to award-winning leadership, teambuilding and customer service seminars to a wide range of industries around the world. Request complete information from www.geneswindell.com or call 770-926-1395.
Using Your Leadership Powers
May 10, 2008
Using Your Leadership Powers
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
Every leader has three powers:
1. Position power - The authority that comes with the leadership job.
2. Skills power - The knowledge and expertise of the leader.
3. Personal power - The attitude, the beliefs and values, and commitment demonstrated by the leader.
Numbers one and two can become barriers to trust, respect and good relationships if allowed to dominate the leader’s actions. Number three, personal power, could well be the key to successful leadership. The reality now is people don’t want to be managed, they want to be led by a leader who manages himself and leads others.
Effective leaders in the 21st century also recognize that customers want what they want, where and when they need it. Customer service has gone through a drastic change in recent years. Where we were trying to keep customers satisfied through mass marketing, direct mail, and discount sales in the 90’s, the service industry now focuses on electronic data gathering and data mining. Information on individual customers is collected, categorized, and analyzed to determine the exact services that appeal to that specific person or group of people.
If leaders learn customers want business magazines in restrooms, then the latest publications will be there. When a customer wants invoices due at the end of the month instead of the 15th, the change is made without question. Leaders in this new century will have to remain ahead of the curve to maintain the competitive edge.
Balanced thinking is becoming a critical characteristic of effective leaders. The age-old challenge of meeting quotas and goals will always be a top priority in any business. However, meeting the numbers must be balanced with creating new methods and systems to keep customers loyal and dedicated. The left-brain of today’s leaders must be connected to the right brain so the statistical hemisphere can be simultaneously joined with the creative right hemisphere. When numbers appear, forward-thinking leaders immediately look for new innovative ways to meet them. New ideas will be the key to success.
Gene Swindell works with companies that want to create a competitive advantage by strengthening the framework of their organization. Call 770-926-1395 or on-line www.geneswindell.com
Ask More Questions
May 9, 2008
Ask More Questions
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
Rather than answers, leaders must have more questions.
“Am I providing the leadership you need?”
“What can I do to improve your skills?”
“How can I help you get promoted?”
“Where can you be most effective?”
Leadership is serving. The law of reciprocity continues to be prominent … if you give, you get… and the art of probing is an overlooked communication skill.
The fundamental principle of leadership is understanding the people you lead. If you want to be successful as a leader, discover what people want and help them achieve it. Your success comes when you are helping other people achieve what is important to them.
In my leadership seminars, one of the most asked questions is “How do I motivate my people?” Two things every leader must realize: (1) People do things for their reasons, not yours, and (2) they do things in their time frame, not yours. So, we must learn to ask, “What motivates you?” “What do you really want?” “How can I help you get it?”
These principles will be dominate characteristics in effective leaders throughout this century. Leaders will have to remain flexible, to change instantly, and initiate action at blinding speed. Work statisticians report that approximately ten percent of people in the world are responsible for initiating 90 percent of productive action that occurs every day. That means about 90 percent of those people are content to follow where others lead … not as robots, but as stakeholders, as teammates, as partners in every aspect of business.
Gene Swindell works with companies that want to create a competitive advantage by strengthening the framework of their organization. Call 770-926-1395 or on-line www.geneswindell.com
Leadership of the Future
May 8, 2008
Leadership of the Future
By Gene Swindell
The Voice of Change™
Leadership is not a science or theory. Effective leadership is mobilizing others who want to struggle for shared aspiration. That’s a fancy way of saying leadership is motivating, inspiring, organizing and planning. In this 21st century, there are five key areas that weigh heavily on the success of a leader. Leaders today must:
1. Challenge the process and look for new and better ways to do things.
2. Inspire a shared vision. Where do you want to lead your followers?
3. Enable others to act. Empowerment is still the key to getting things done.
4. Model the way. True leaders still are the role models of any organization.
5. Encourage the heart. Leaders want more than just bodies in their group.
To stay ahead of the ever-advancing learning curve, top leaders must develop more curiosity and focus less on directing. The old saying, God gave you two ears and one mouth for a purpose, is very applicable. Do twice as much listening as you do talking. Managers/supervisors in the past have claimed the position of authority. They speak, people act.
Today, they still need to manage projects, budgets and tasks but become more collaborative as leaders. They need to listen. They need to widen their vision and seek multiple inputs. They need to develop a stronger curiosity with “what if ..” thinking. What if we tried doing this task differently? What if we could be more cooperative? What if I would step back and examine some alternatives?
Some leaders still discount reality. They stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich and hope all their problems will go away. Of course, they don’t. The old transactional manager/supervisor still relies on structural power, a hierarchal top-down mindset. The command and control traits are still dominant. They exchange limited and infrequent rewards for services rendered and punishment for the slightest inadequate performance.
Strong leaders today recognize that to be effective, they must interact with their group. They must be inclusive and delegate tasks that once were reserved solely for the boss. Where managers/supervisors once ignored the “e” word, fearing loss of power and authority, they now must embrace empowerment as leaders. Most of all, modern leaders use their powers appropriately.
Gene Swindell works with companies that want to create a competitive advantage by strengthening the framework of their organization. Call 770-926-1395 or on-line www.geneswindell.com
