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Archive for August, 2009
Seriously, If You Have Ever Used a Canned Performance Appraisal You Should Be Fired
Aug 31
SHRM’s leadership shines bright again with this offering of the week at the SHRM Bookstore: Ready-To-Use Performance Appraisals.
I can’t make this stuff up, folks.
If you’re a manager, there’s nothing more important than managing. That means giving guidance. It means telling people what you know. It means hiring people who are smarter and more talented than you. (The A Team hires the A Team, and the B Team hires the C team. Remember?)
One thing being a manger isn’t? Being a color-by-numbers, manager-in-name-only job. If you’re too “busy” to give an honest performance review, get out of the business of being a “manager.” If you have ever used a canned performance appraisal, you should be fired. If you’re an HR trainer and think it’s okay to teach “managers” to use pre-populated, canned performance phrases…well, you should exit stage right, too.
Great managers know what I’m talking about. If your performance management system is broken, fix it. But don’t think for a microsecond that it’s okay to do performance reviews by rote. It’s not.
Crisis in Business is Rarer than Unicorns
Aug 26You know what’s a crisis? Drought. Famine. Disease. Nuclear annihilation.
You what’s not a crisis? Meetings. Rumors. Performance reviews. Fake deadlines.
When you get as old as me you’ve seen a few things come and a few things go. I’ve worked for a lot of years in leadership positions and as a business owner. I am wracking my brain to think about a single crisis since I started working. I can’t really think of one, even though there have been a few tense moments here and there.
Here’s something I know: There are very few times there’s a genuine crisis in business. Sure, some things need to be done sooner than others. There are priorities. People need to work together. (Poisoning people or the environment — that’s a crisis.) Even when a business is in peril, running around like Chicken Little never makes the situation better.
What you call things matters. If getting a PowerPoint presentation done is a crisis, then what’s it like to prepare a brief for the CEO? Is that Armageddon?
Call things what they are. And realize that those events that look like a crisis at the time rarely ever are.
Bikini Atoll Explosion
(My dad was at this one when he was in the Navy. It wasn’t good for his health. That became a crisis.)
Everything You Think about Pay for Performance Could Be Wrong
Aug 25There’s a mismatch between what science knows and business does. — Dan Pink
I read this article about motivation on SwissMiss:
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think.
The movie that’s embedded below can bring you up short if you think pay for performance is the way to go. It’s startling, actually. In it, Dan Pink talks about study after study that shows extrinsic rewards narrow creativity and impede problem solving. If you’re in the business of creating incentives for employees, it merits a look. (Yes, I know, I know…you all read Alfie Kohn’s Punished By Rewards and were totally turned off by that. Give this one a chance. Kick the tires. Let it sink in a while before you say all of it is wrong.)
I Got Laid Off, and I'm Finally Doing Something That Matters
Aug 24My friend Donna, who runs Sheer Brick Studio, led me to The Lemonade Movie. The trailer here tells the story of a few of the 70,000+ advertising professionals who have been laid off in this economy and what they’re doing with their lives. My favorite line is the one in the title of this article: I got laid off, and I’m finally doing something that matters. It’s wonderful when people find their bliss.
Are you doing what you were meant to do? If so, why not?
Wanna See Something Cool? The Field Guide to HR Species on the Verge of Extinction in Design
Aug 23
Shawn, our art director, took our article 10 Human Resources Species on the Verge of Extinction and turned it into a graphic design. To check out what he did, and how much difference design makes in communication, click here.
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