Can a Fish Climb a Tree?
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
–Albert Einstein
My wife, Sheryl, sent this quote to me yesterday. I think it perfectly captures why performance reviews, by themselves, aren’t enough. Or even close to enough.
Performance reviews without a look at what people are good at, especially with Jack Welch’s world’s worst “10 percent of people won’t make it” system, is a little like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree. I’m a big believer in “do what you love and success will follow.” You can argue with my logic, but go ahead and take on Einstein.
Suffer from Motivational Deficiency Disorder?
If your employees are suffering from Motivational Deficiency Disorder, there’s always Strivor. (Click to see video if it doesn’t show above.) One little pill can stand in for excruciating hours of “engagement” training. One little pill can make bad managers into Harvard Business School case studies for managerial greatness. One little pill can make profits big, and one pill can make problems small.
Maybe not. Strivor isn’t real. It’s a spoof of drug ads made to motivate consumers to take a little pill for every ailment. And just like a little pill won’t solve motivation at work, neither will a slogan or a training class. Getting at motivation requires deep thinking and consistent actions by managers. There’s no magic pill.
[Found at Teamwork is for Suckers by the "Punk Rock HR Pro."]
Freeze!
Could you get people to do this? Want to do a real “ice breaker” during your next training class. Freeze!
Social Service Idea for HR: One Laptop Per Child
I just clicked my order for the Give One, Get One promotion for One Laptop Per Child. Here’s how it works:
One learning child. One connected child. One laptop at a time.
The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution.
I’ve been following Nicholas Negroponte’s idea for a while now. And now it’s come into being.
We’re going to give away the one we get to a child in Philadelphia. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to get people in your organization to participate? If you’re in HR, you can send out a quick note to let everyone know about the promotion. One laptop goes to a developing nation, and one goes to the employee. Imagine the possibilities if those laptops were given away, too. Laptops and learning are a heckuva lot better than guns and ammo. Four hundred dollars seems like a small price to pay to change two lives.
Munchausen at Work: HBR
You know when you get one of those ah-ha moments because a person brings a problem into specific relief? Today’s one of those days. This article about Munchausen at Work is a brilliant diagnosis of a real workplace issue. Siobhan Ford at Harvard Business Review wrote this to me (emphasis is mine):
Georgia Tech professor Nate Bennett studied team performance in over 30 companies and was struck by cases of employees creating fictitious organizational problems in order to solve them and receive praise for it. He calls the phenomenon “Munchausen at work”—a workplace version of the psychological disorder Munchausen by proxy—and explains how managers can diagnose it.
You can read the article for free at HBR during the month of November 2007 by clicking here. (You really should subscribe to HBR — it’s loaded with great information every month.)
I’ve seen plenty of Munchausen at Work in my career. I think Professor Bennett is being conservative when he says it’s infrequent. After all, isn’t that what half of all meetings are about — some problem created so that someone can swoop down and fix it? It’d be interesting to call people on their Munchausen at Work-iness. It could be the new “Can I give you some feedback?”, only this time it would be, “Is this a real problem or is this Munchausen at Work?” That would stop the disrupters in their tracks.
HR Idea for the Day: Call Professor Bennett. Get him to come to your shop and present his Munchausen at Work findings. Print up some buttons and t-shirts that say “Wipe Out Munchausen at Work in Our Lifetime.” Get some wristbands made that say “No MAW.”
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