21 Questions That Will Make Teamwork Work!

To assist and evaluate team building efforts, here are 21 key questions you need to answer to make teamwork work.

You can work through the questions, either alone or with your team, and answer “yes” or “no”, jot down some notes about why you answered that way and what you can do to improve in that area. 

1. Are you involving your team members in hiring decisions?
   You live with a bad hiring decision for, on average, 18 months. And yet, what management considers a good hiring decision, and what team members consider a good hiring decision, may be dramatically different. Let team members meet potential new hires before an offer is made. Factor their feedback into the decision.
2. Do you know who your team “slayers” are and have you taken steps to deal with the problem?
   Have you identified team “slayers” – those individuals whose behaviour detracts from team performance – and have you spent time with them diagnosing the reason and what to do about it?
3. Do team members understand the team’s vision, mission, goals, values and expectations?
   These are the blueprint for the team’s success, so team members must have a crystal clear understanding of these important components.
4. Are team members committed to the team’s success?
   This is a situation where simply asking isn’t enough. Look for an outward manifestation of commitment. More likely, it will be easier to spot a lack of commitment. Excessive questioning of why people are being asked to do what they do is one sign. Complaining, lack of performance, low morale – all of those would suggest that the commitment to vision, mission, values, goals and expectations may be lacking.
5. Have team members been trained in teamwork skills?
   Is your teambuilding curriculum in place? Training should be ongoing, and whenever possible, team members should attend sessions as a group.
6. Have team leaders been trained for their role?
   There are natural born leaders, but there aren’t enough of them for most organisations. Leadership skills must be developed. In addition to basic team skills, make sure team leaders get special skills training in areas like group facilitation and mediation.
7. Have you started relationship building with future team members?
   Some day you’re going to lose team members. They’re going to quit, move away, or go to another team within the organisation. When you receive notice that they’re leaving, you’ll need to have potential replacements identified and, if possible, already thinking about joining the team. Relationship building with potential team members needs to be done well in advance.
8. Are you holding regular team meetings that participants find worthwhile?
   Regularly ask team members to assess the effectiveness of team meetings. If they feel that team meetings are wasting their time, you’re either meeting too frequently or preparing inadequately. If they feel that they need more information to feel informed, you may not be meeting enough.
9. Do team meetings include both information and motivation?
   You’ve got to have both. Use the analogy of the cherry flavoured cough syrup. When you buy cherry flavoured cough syrup your primary motivation is for the medicinal value – you want to suppress the cough. Because if you really just wanted cherry flavour, you’d buy a pop drink. So why do they put cherry flavour in cough syrup? To help the medicine go down more easily.
   You should make meetings interesting, entertaining and motivational to help the information presented go down more easily. Team members need both “how-to” and “want-to”.
10. Is interpersonal communication effective?
    Team communication should provide information that members can use: news rather than gossip, and feedback rather than criticism. Do team members share useful information with each other in an open, honest environment?
11. Do team members feel well informed about news of the larger organisation?
    It’s important that teams don’t operate in a vacuum, but that they understand how they fit into the big picture and how they impact the organisation’s performance. Top managers and others outside the team should be utilised as resources.
12. What efforts has your team or entire organisation taken to create interdepartmental teamwork?
    There is something harder than getting people on the same team to work together, and that is getting people on different teams to work together. Have you made some active attempts to teambuild with other departments within your organisation?
13. Is your team facing some of the same problems today that they were 60 days ago, and if so, why?
    Ignoring significant problems won’t help. After two months, problems that are unsolved are either insignificant or overdue for attention. Deal with problems before they become a source of perpetual frustration for team members.
14. What feedback has your team given to management and how has management responded?
    A team leader once told me that one of his greatest frustrations was that his boss was a “yes man” but that he didn’t represent the needs of their team to management. Does your team or team leader communicate ideas and needs to management? If so, has management responded appropriately and convinced your team that their opinions are valued?
15. Has the team leader taken time to understand the values, likes, dislikes and needs of every team member?
    Because different people are motivated differently, if the team leader hasn’t done their homework in understanding what motivates different team members, they aren’t as far along in team building as they could be.
16. Does the team deal openly and effectively with conflict?
    Have team members learned to use all available approaches to conflict resolution and has the team agreed on a system that allows you to deal with the problems that inevitably arise? The team vision should be the primary agenda being pursued, even in difficult times.
17. Are all team members open to feedback?
    Or is feedback only accepted from the team leader? When a team member has an idea that will help another team member improve their performance, do they offer it?
18. Can you point to specific innovations that your team has made in the past quarter?
    Are you innovating or simply doing things the way you’ve always been doing them and maintaining the status quo? Make sure to reward any attempts at innovation, even if the outcome isn’t successful. Challenge team members to try new things.
19. Are you operating with a team calendar year?
    Teams must be accountable for producing results in time. Have you identified top team goals for the current calendar year and do team members know what those goals are? Use action planning at every team session to translate ideas into results.
20. Do team members feel there is linkage between individual success and team success?
    Do you reward people and recognise them, not just for what they accomplish, but for their contribution in helping the team accomplish its goals? This linkage is critical and must be present if team work is going to work.
21. What celebrations, formal and informal, have you undertaken to demonstrate appreciation and create camaraderie?
    Evaluate results periodically. Regularly and creatively celebrate the team’s efforts and victories. If you’re lucky, you’ll receive accolades from others, but you can’t really control that. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to celebrate your own success.

Guest Author

Mark Sanborn CSP CPAE is an acclaimed speaker, bestselling author and president of Sanborn & Associates Inc., an idea studio for leadership development. For more information, visit www.MarkSanborn.com, http://www.FredFactor.com and http://www.YouDontNeedaTitle.com

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Managing Organisational Performance

There cannot be a CEO or a Divisional Manager anywhere who doesn’t believe that the performance of their organisation could not be enhanced, if only their employees displayed a greater sense of teamwork and motivation.

Yet having accepted that it is they who need to take the initiative to bring this about, any initial enthusiasm quickly wanes, as they grapple with other issues and the management of the business itself. Developing greater teamwork is perceived as a ‘nice to have’ issue not a ‘must have’.

Most managers regard teamwork and its development as a separate issue to business management. They do this because when they think of teamwork, the things that come most immediately to mind are the interpersonal factors that characterise teams and team members – high levels of motivation, respect for and trust in one another, constructive conflict, innovation etc. And so the logic goes, that to develop such characteristics requires a separate program to be run in parallel with the ‘normal’ program of running the business. Consultants are hired, programs are devised, large sums of money are spent – but with what result?

At best, such team building programs lead to the establishment of pseudo teams – workgroups that display the appearance of teams but not the substance. And in the final analysis, it’s the substance – improved organisational performance – that is the only worthwhile result.

The fundamental flaw in the management logic is that teams and teamwork can be created and once established, uplift in organisational performance will result. This is not the case.

The three things that lead to the development of teamwork and the establishment of real teams have nothing directly to do with the team characteristics referred to above – but everything to do with the achievement of the organisational objectives.

For workgroups to develop into teams, they need a:

• Common purpose
• Common goal
• Common approach

Let’s take each of these factors in turn.

The workgroup’s common purpose should be expressed not only in the context of the workgroup but also in the context of the organisation as a whole.

The above common purpose is an activity and as such cannot be measured. Therefore, the common purpose has to be expressed in terms of a common goal. The common goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, a result and time related (SMART).

Note that achievement of the common goal involves every member of the workgroup, is related to the common purpose of the workgroup and of the company as a whole, and is a goal to which workgroup members may relate and over which they have control.

The workgroup’s common approach covers such issues as who does what, meeting schedules and agreeing on subsidiary objectives or milestones.

Since the purpose, goal and approach is one shared by all members of the workgroup, mutual accountability is a rational consequence and mutual accountability leads naturally to the development of trust, motivation and commitment – those characteristics that turn workgroups into real teams of substance.

Adopting this strategy over the more traditional approach that treats the development of teams and teamwork as a discrete program has enormous advantages.

• Management’s focus remains on the management of the business. Managers are not being asked to do anything extra – they are being asked to work smarter by realising the potential of their staff.
• By developing a common purpose and a common goal for each workgroup in the manner suggested above, organisational alignment will be much improved.
• Insisting that each workgroup have a common purpose, goal and approach will lead to a very significant rise in workgroup effectiveness.
• United by the above three factors, there is a much greater likelihood that workgroup members will develop teamwork, and display the characteristics of real teams.
• Resources are not diverted to a separate program of ‘team development‘.

There is just one missing component to the above and that’s the need to measure. You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

There is a fair degree of cynicism surrounding the traditional ‘team/teamwork development program’, which is justified. Such programs are expensive, time-consuming to administer, based on false logic and ineffective in the long term. Yet no one would disagree that a small group of people working together can accomplish more than a similar number working as individuals.

So the message is simple. Successful organisations and successful workgroups have an enduring focus on performance and, in the process of setting and achieving performance goals, teamwork develops as a consequence. But like so many management concepts, it’s the implementation that’s complex.

Guest Author

Graham Haines is principal consultant of Plans To Reality. Graham has a Joint Honours Degree in Law and Economics from Durham University and a Grad. Dip. Ed from Melbourne University. He is both a Certified Management Consultant and a Certified Practicing Marketer. In addition to his consulting activities, Graham has taught marketing and management at a tertiary level and written over 150 articles for specialist press and his own web site. He can be contacted via Email: ghaines@planstoreality.com.au or Visit: http://www.planstoreality.com.au

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Winning Hearts And Minds Through Workforce Engagement

Instead of focusing more of their efforts on keeping the talent they have, businesses often spend too much time and money finding talent from the outside. Given that it is always cheaper to keep your existing workforce than it is to replace it, what can be done to improve retention?

Retention depends on a number of factors and – of course – a reasonable level of voluntary turnover is actually desirable. In fact, there may be a need to dispassionately assess whether the people you currently have are the right ones to take your strategy forward. If that is not the case, then you clearly need to be worrying about things other than retention. But if it is, then a well thought through program to address workforce engagement (assuming it is also integrated with the rest of your talent management initiatives) is likely to pay for itself many times over.

Let’s not forget, however, that there can often be knee-jerk reactions to retention problems which do not work. They can be desperate and too late in the day, and often involve throwing money at people when dollars are not the underlying driver of dissatisfaction. In fact, such a reaction may be very costly and still not result in true engagement.

What do we mean when we talk about engagement?

Engagement comes when your workforce feels committed to your organisation. Such engagement has to be more than just loyalty to the organisation as demonstrated by showing up each day. It has to be a willingness to go above and beyond, and a feeling both that the organisation is something special and that employee’s individual contributions are valued.

Getting that kind of engagement depends, of course, on the complex interplay of many factors that are ideally measured and analysed through an employee survey specifically designed to measure engagement. But, if you can isolate those factors, you can then better determine what the pressure points are that matter to your people.

Those pressure points can be issues such as:

• Career development opportunities.
• Trust in leadership.
• Rewards and recognition.
• Organisation and staffing levels.
• Work/life balance.

Identifying these pressure points will drive the direction of HR programs and processes you need to have in place to influence those issues.

As you compare the list of engagement issues to your HR policies and practices you should aim to answer the following questions:

• What are we doing right that we need to continue to do well?
• What are we not doing that is conspicuous by its absence to people?
• What are we doing that has little effect on commitment ie. why are we spending time and money on this?

Simply coming up with a long list of action items to address these issues is not going to guarantee that your workforce will be any more engaged. For example, if – as part of a pay-for-performance initiative – a better annual pay review process is implemented, but the corresponding performance evaluation process does not measure the right things, engagement is likely to stay in the danger zone.

What is needed is a comprehensive and integrated talent management plan. One that for example:

• Defines the skills and behaviours required by the organisation,
• Identifies where those skills currently reside and where the gaps are,
• Creates a continuous learning environment to fill those skills gaps through stretch assignments and other development opportunities,
• Recruits from outside those critical skills that cannot be provided internally,
• Supports a meritocratic culture that rewards people for developing and exhibiting the required skills and behaviors, and
• Encourages communication and dialogue between leadership and the workforce.

However, the single most important success factor is that leadership is firmly on-board – both with the need for workforce engagement and the talent management plan that will deliver it.

In summary, the key conclusions about employee engagement are as follows:

• It is easier and less expensive to re-recruit your existing workforce than it is to replace it.
• By measuring employee engagement and understanding what drives it, you will uncover what HR programs should be implemented or re-worked.
• Optimum engagement is most likely to be achieved when all your HR activities are integrated via a comprehensive talent management plan.

In the final analysis, the true benefit of workforce engagement is not reduced recruiting costs. It is the increased productivity and morale brought about by a workforce that has faith in the organisation’s future and its role in it.

Guest Author

Bill MacKenzie, Capital H Group. Capital H Group is a consulting firm that takes a value-based approach to helping companies manage, and invest in, their human capital. Partnering with our clients, we focus on creating value through their people. For further information, visit web site: http://www.capitalHgroup.com

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Do Your Staff Suffer From ADE?

 By now you would have heard of the predominately childhood condition ADD or “Attention Deficit Disorder”. This should cause some concern for managers as they struggle to deal with the needs of staff with short attention spans. I believe there is another condition, however, that is of even more interest if you manage people – ADE. It stands for the Actively DisEngaged employee, a new phenomenon we are seeing in workplaces all around the world.

What it is

To understand ADE, you need to identify two other related terms as well. The Gallup Organisation has come up with an easy to understand guide to the 3 levels of engagement we see in employees currently populating the workplace:

1. Engaged – people who work with passion and feel connected to their organisation
2. Not Engaged – people putting in time but not energy or passion into their work
3. Actively DisEngaged – people acting out their dissatisfaction for others to see

Why it matters

Lack of engagement is a real issue – with real costs attached. A survey of 50,000 employees by the Corporate Leadership Council found that only 11% said they were fully engaged at work, 76% knew they could demonstrate more commitment and 13% described themselves as actively disengaged.

Let’s put those statistics to work and see what they might actually mean for your organisation. Imagine that each of those 13% of actively disengaged employees earns $40,000 per annum and each one is producing 20% less work than your engaged employees (a fairly conservative estimate). If you do the calculations, that means each disengaged employee is costing your organisation a minimum of $8,000 per annum and that’s without considering the many on-going costs.

How to tell if you have any ADE employees

Here are 5 easy to observe characteristics that will help you identify them.

1. Come to work when they are sick and stay home when they are well
2. Only work hard when their manager is around or just before performance review time
3. Enjoy recounting every bad experience they have been through with the company
4. Sabotage change programs and new initiatives either overtly or covertly
5. Negatively influence the attitude of other people around them

Why do we allow it to continue?

So if the ADE employee is costing us so much money and, let’s face it, is fairly easy to recognise, why is it that we allow their behaviour to continue? Surely it would be in the interests of every manager to find a way to re-engage those people as soon as possible.

Well, the reality is, there are a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s hard work to fix! Secondly, we often really need that person’s skills so we overlook their less desirable traits. Finally, add to this the fear of legal implications in terminating someone’s employment and you have a lot of barriers facing managers.

But it’s a bit like the old training adage “what if we train them and they leave; what if you don’t and they stay”. In this case it’s “what if we take action and it’s painful; what if you don’t and it’s still painful and other people follow their example”.

How to fix it

If left unchecked, the symptoms of ADE can spread throughout your organisation like a contagious disease, so it is vital that you take action and quickly. This is equally as important if you have inherited the problem employees.

As difficult as it might be, the best thing you can do is confront the ADE employee and give them an offer: you will help them find a way to get engaged or you will help them find their next employment opportunity. The choice is theirs.

Now I know there are discrimination laws and lots of other legislation that will make it difficult for you to just make this happen overnight but you must take action. If you don’t, other employees will start to question your leadership skills and you may lose one of them instead!

Guest Credits

Karen Schmidt from Let’s Grow! is an award winning professional speaker, workshop leader and author who creates fresh workplace attitudes that help people and organisations grow! To book Karen for your next conference or professional development event contact her on 0411 745 430 or visit http://www.letsgrow.com.au.

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Putting A Stop To Workplace Conflict

When was the last time that you or someone in your team had a disagreement, misunderstanding or conflict? How much are these workplace conflicts costing you in wasted time, energy, effort, lost productivity and lost revenue? Are you tired of spending so much time and energy addressing conflicts rather than growing your business?

Most workplace conflicts arise from misunderstandings and disagreements due to differences in personality and communication style. Some conflicts arise from lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities or from preferential treatment of one employee over the rest. Conflict can even arise because one employee overreacts to another employee’s comments or behaviour, as well as between a business owner and customers, suppliers and alliance and business partners. Regardless of how the conflict arises, addressing it quickly is critical to your business success.

Think about the impact workplace conflict can have on the morale of your team, their attitude when dealing with customers, and the impact on your revenue and business results. Unresolved conflict between two or more staff members, can result in the rest of your team taking sides, which has the potential of dividing your team and reducing team effectiveness.

The most dangerous part of that dynamic is that a lot of the disharmony will occur “under the radar”. Over time, this can subtly sabotage the team’s performance and your business results. This is why it is critical to work through issues, however small, as soon as they arise. If you ignore them and hope that they will go away, chances are they will come back even bigger or in some other form.

Here are seven steps to assist you to put a stop to workplace conflict, to assist your team to refocus on doing their jobs, as well as assist you to refocus your energy on growing your business:

1. Resolve any past emotions (eg. anger, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt, etc.), self doubts and limiting beliefs. For as long as these are unresolved, other people will be able to ‘push your buttons’. You will find yourself easily overreacting to other people, which will affect your communication and relationships with others, and your performance.
2. Understand what motivates your team suppliers, customers and partners, their preferred ways of communicating, their values and drivers. Then learn to communicate your message effectively, taking their preferences into account. This way your message will be heard loud and clear every time, and you will minimise disagreements and misunderstandings.
3. Be clear about your vision, goals, expectations, roles and responsibilities and those of the people around you. Agree and communicate these with everyone in your team, including your employees, customers, business partners and alliance partners. This will avoid much stress, disagreement, confusion, duplication of effort, errors, rework and under-performance.
4. Have clear agreements around roles, responsibilities and communication so that everyone in the team understands what is expected of them, and the type of behaviour that is appropriate.
5. If anyone in the team disrespects these agreements, ensure that they are aware that their behaviour is inappropriate and put a stop to that behaviour immediately. If the behaviour is not stopped it will recur and will become harder to address, as any lack of intervention will send the message that the behaviour is ‘acceptable’.
6. Work through issues, however small, as soon as they arise. If you ignore them and hope that they will go away, chances are they will come back even bigger or in some other form.
7. If you find yourself having challenges with addressing the above or if the conflict persists or recurs, call a professional to assist you with creating lasting harmonious workplace relationships.

Just imagine how much more focused and productive you and your team will be once you put a stop to workplace conflict. And how big a boost this will have to your business results and success!

Author Credits

Dr. Vesna Grubacevic is the Founding Director and Performance Transformation ExpertTM with Qt. She is the creator of breakthrough behavioural change techniques, holds a PhD, a BEc and has over 27 years’ business experience, including working directly with CEOs, senior executives and their teams to assist them to create exceptional results. For more techniques on fast tracking your business success and for your FREE gifts, visit http://www.qttransformation.com/ today, call Dr. Grubacevic on (03) 9653-9288 or email her at vesna@qttransformation.com

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How To Lead And Manage A Mixed Generation Workplace

By understanding your employees – their various influencing factors, their preferences and passions – and adopting a strategy of consultative and discursive management, you will gain the respect of your employees, start developing a more creative and dynamic team environment and improve your staff retention.

Occasionally in history massive demographic change combines with relentless technological change and within a generation, society altogether changes. Today, we are living in such an era.

Gone are the days of long service leave, gold watches and subservience to the boss. Members of all generations are seeking more from an employer than is generally offered by most. Retaining valuable employees and increasing their tenure requires new understandings, attitude adjustment and new management skills.

Not only is the job tenure for Generation Y much shorter than has traditionally been expected, there is a noticeable trend that suggests Generation X and Baby Boomers are opting for shorter tenure too. People no longer leave their jobs because there is a compelling reason to leave but because there is no compelling reason to stay. Find a reason to have them stay and you will increase the retention of all your employees.

“Poor management” at 34% is sited as the most common reason for moving on from an employer and when this is coupled with the third highest reason “I didn’t feel appreciated at work”, at 32% then the importance of management becomes a stark reality.

What is wrong with Management?

A recent qualitative research study undertaken in a cross section of workplaces, found that younger employees are asking to be treated in the same way as their more experienced colleagues. They are begging for more responsibility and they are rebelling against managers who want to dole out work, provide detailed instructions on how to complete the tasks and then expect the employee to blindly follow the instructions to completion.

This management style is seen as controlling and suffocating of the employee’s ability to use their creativity to complete and possibly find a better method of completing the task.

Many mangers feel the need to limit the volume of work given to younger workers who see this as being frustrating and condescending. “Don’t they trust us?” is a question often asked. This management style is seen to lack trust and also to lack any thought of a future career path for the employee. They are not being tested to see if they can achieve more or better results and in their minds they are being suffocated.

This is the opposite of what these employees need.

What can Managers do better?

1. Trust that the employee has the interests of the business in mind –  This may manifest itself in a more selfish desire to improve the career prospects of the individual but the result is still better quality work.
2. Let go of the view that “this is how it was in my day and it’s how it’s going to be today” – This outdated view is no longer relevant or constructive and takes no account of the generational influences that have shaped the current generations.
3. “Overload” their employees – By giving the employee more work than you believe they are capable of completing, you provide them with a challenge to organise themselves and find a way of completing the tasks.
4. When assigning tasks, provide an outline of what needs to be achieved (an objective) – Confirm they understand the outcomes you are seeking and let them know you are available should they need any assistance. Then give them the space to complete the assigned tasks.
5. Younger generations value mentoring – There is an older generation of workers who have a wealth of history to pass on to them. By providing the opportunity for Boomers to mentor Generation Y, you create not only an opportunity to have the history passed on, but also an opportunity to have Generation Y improve the computer skills of the Boomers. This two way mentoring relationship is a triple win, as the organisation wins by improving the level of co-operation in cross generational relationships and therefore the morale of the team.

Gain an understanding of the influences of the younger generation and use this knowledge to develop a management style for the team.

Generation Y

This generation finds many traditional activities much less interesting than the myriad devices they carry in their pockets and backpacks. These young people are used to having anyone who asks for their attention – their favourite musicians, their movie makers, their TV stars, their game designers – work really hard to earn it. When what is being offered isn’t engaging, they truly resent their time being wasted.

These influences have led to Generation Y’s unwritten employment contract: “keep me challenged and interested or I will go somewhere else that will”. Add to this, that they expect to be valued on their merit, not longevity, and a picture of what frustrates them and how we might manage them begins to emerge. Challenge them, be available to guide them and expect more than you would have been expected to deliver at the same time in your career.

Lead and manage individuals and you will create a team that is dynamic and highly productive. We speak of generations but all are composites of many individuals each with their own values, attitudes, skills and abilities. By gaining an understanding of the individuals’ preferences and passions, the workplace can be re-engineered to fit the individuals. This provides managers with a higher functioning team and reduced demand for hands-on management time.

Guest Author 

Shirley Singleton is a highly regarded business advisor who works with managers and leaders to create dynamic teams and successful managers for today’s fast paced workplaces. Shirley is undertaking a qualitative research project into what work means to Generation Y. Her findings make interesting reading and a preliminary report is available on her website at http://www.shirleysingleton.com/index.php?section=news_items&id=111 If you would like to contact Shirley and have her advise on the shape of your workplace please call her on 0414 745 455.

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Why High Performing Teams Don’t Perform

Ever wondered why ‘High Performing Team‘ training often does not produce ‘High Performing Teams’?

The training says, “An all star team beats a team of all stars any day”. This fundamental flaw causes the failure of high performance team training. It puts high performing people against high performing teams, as if you have to make a choice.

In this case, you can have your cake and eat it too. You do not have to choose between high performing teams and high performing people. You need to choose both for either to work effectively.

Reasons why teams don’t perform

Four key reasons why teams do not perform are:

1. The team is more important than the individuals –  If the team is more important than the individual, staff engagement will fall, as people do not feel that their individual contribution to the team is valued. In this scenario, training is directed at the team. This can lead to under-skilling of the members of the team that will seriously affect the ability of the team to perform.
2. The individual is not playing as part of a team – In the other extreme, if the individuals are more important than the team, the focus will be on individual achievement. The challenge with this is that people focus on their achievement at the cost of other people. This can lead to the “team” pulling in different directions at the same time and hence the team burns up a large amount of energy pulling against each other.
3. The team lacks focus – A lack of focus will also hinder a team’s performance. Imagine a soccer team trying to score if it did not know where the goals were! Workplace teams often have exactly that situation. Goals are not clear or are constantly moving. In some cases, goals even conflict with each other. This will also occur where the team does not have a clear understanding of its purpose, strategy and goals.
4. The team lacks an effective leader – A team will flounder without a leader clearly guiding the team in a single direction. This person does not have to tell the team what to do, but does need the skills to facilitate decision making in the team so that the team continues to travel in a single forward direction. They must be able to clearly sell a common theme for the team, using a common language, to be effective.

Recognising when teams don’t perform

Do you know whether your team is performing? This may sound like a strange question to ask. Teams often do not have clear direction, nor clear measures of how they are performing. Even if they do have measures, they usually measure outcomes, rather than reviewing the team itself and its efficiency.

If the team is more important than the individual is, you are likely to find low engagement and missed individual KPIs. High turnover, high unplanned absenteeism and low morale will generally result from low engagement. If you do not currently track these, they are good indicators to show how the team is performing.

If the individual is more important than the team, you will generally see individual KPIs met. This will, however, be done with a large degree of frustration. There are unlikely to be shared goals and your people will talk with a different perspective on the same topics. The team will miss their KPIs on a regular basis if they are not also the individual’s KPIs.

If the team lacks focus, it will also tend to miss the team KPIs (that is if there are any team KPIs). The lack of team KPIs will contribute to poor team performance. The manager’s KPIs usually then become the team’s KPIs by default. The manager does not communicate these clearly and so the team becomes frustrated trying to hit what appears to be a moving target.

Rectifying teams that don’t perform

The first step to rectifying team performance is to recognise that the team is not performing. This can be done by reviewing team and individual KPIs and using a balanced team scorecard. Being able to measure the team performance is vital to an effective improvement process.

Once you can measure the performance level, you can use a balanced team scorecard to help you identify key areas to concentrate on to improve the team. Put in place the activities and training to rectify the gaps and then re-measure.

When measuring team performance you need to measure the activities and training that you put in place as a way of getting some quick wins for the team. If all the KPIs and measures are focussed on longer term measures (lag indicators) it will take too long for the team to see that they are working together to improve.

High performing teams do not have to be a myth. High performing teams can be high performing. It takes effort focussed on the functioning of the team, the individuals in the team and the team goals & objectives. As you measure these, monitor, feedback and correct in a continual cycle you can see your team become a high performing team.

Guest Author

Brad Cork, The People Expert, Improving People. Brad can help you get the most out of your people. Contact Brad on 0425 335 659 or brad@improvingpeople.com.au to find out how! To download a complimentary one page report on each of the six great keys to getting the most out of your people please visit http://www.improvingpeople.com.au.

Republished from IIDM – your online business resource – www.iidmglobal.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of IIDM’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.iidmglobal.com/subscribe/

Are Performance Reviews Dead?

Performance reviews are essential to increase employee engagement and staff performance, but they do need to be structured in a way that fosters engagement. How can an organisation achieve that?

Performance reviews can be a high stress situation for employees as sometimes pay, promotions and benefits can rely on the outcome. In high-stress situations we are rarely at our best and we may close down our conversational capabilities and be hesitant about speaking up if we don’t agree with feedback from a manager.

Annual performance reviews under these conditions are not sufficient to ensure true personal growth of an employee. Clear communication is needed from both parties in order for a review to be a catalyst for change in an employee’s behaviour.

The two most common mistakes made when conducting a performance review are:

1. Managerial attitude – The mistake managers often make is to see performance reviews purely as a process or a ‘tick the box’ exercise. To make performance reviews effective and valued, managers need to invest time in developing a relationship with the employee that is built on trust. To do this, managers need to be able to conduct effective workplace conversations by listening with interest and engaging in regular dialogue with staff. Managers need to wholeheartedly believe in both the relationship with the employee and the performance review outcomes in order for them to be effective.
2. Regularity – Annual performance reviews as a stand-alone method are not enough. Managers should provide feedback as often as is required, highlighting areas for improvement as development opportunities. It can be a quick two minute conversation to let an employee know they are doing a good job, or a scheduled meeting to discuss how an employee could do a task more efficiently the next time around. A once a year conversation is not enough to engage employees and make them feel valued.

Now that you know what’s wrong with performance reviews, what are some habits and tools to use to increase effectiveness?

Enhance conversation skills

There are a number of tips to keep in mind to increase conversation skills, such as:

• Set clear expectations
• Ensure there is agreement on those expectations
• Seek clarification as necessary
• Don’t avoid conflict, as it may then become a bigger problem later on
• Think before you speak
• Always remember to listen

Conversations are at the base of everything we do, but not every organisation sets expectations around effective conversations between managers and employees.

Relationship, relationship, relationship

The quality of the relationship is the strongest factor in the effectiveness of a performance review. A good relationship provides the foundation for giving feedback which empowers and motivates employees and accelerates the learning process.

Individualise reviews

No two employees are the same, and while you may have hired them for the same, or similar, roles, each person will have a different skill set which adds value to the organisation. This should be recognised and taken into account when assessing someone’s suitability to a role. Individual skill sets should be embraced by managers and discussed regularly. The performance review process is an opportunity to work through all factors to a point where both employee and manager are happy that all the variables have been taken into consideration.

Foster a learning environment

A workplace conducive to fostering learning outcomes is one where ideas from everyone – from the junior to the CEO – are respected and employees have access to resources and training to allow them to increase their capabilities. Leaders with strong coaching skills can aid the encouragement of a learning environment in the workplace, leading to greater engagement and staff motivation.

Performance reviews can increase positive business outcomes and support growth within an organisation if they are prepared strategically, keeping the above tips in mind.

Guest Author

Julie Parkinson, Director, The Institute of Executive Coaching. The Institute of Executive Coaching works with organisations to provide innovative leadership and coaching support to improve the performance of individuals, teams and organisations. Since 1999 the Institute has trained more than 2,500 coaches and become known as one of the region’s most respected executive coaching, coach training and leadership development organisations. All of the Institute’s services are designed on the key principles of the Institute’s mission to empower people to fulfil their potential and develop the leaders of tomorrow. http://www.iecoaching.com/

Republished from IIDM – your online business resource – www.iidmglobal.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of IIDM’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.iidmglobal.com/subscribe/

Make Yours The Greenest Pasture – Retaining Your Top Talent

Employee turnover can cost companies up to 40% of their annual profit. The financial impact of losing a significant number of high performing and high potential employees can be exponentially higher.

Furthermore, these top notch employees are the ones who are being contacted daily by executive recruiters. Are they ready to bolt? Consider these recent survey findings from Salary.com:

Over 66% of employees surveyed said they plan to look for a new job in the next three months; nearly double the 36% that employers believe are looking.
More importantly, employers are at risk of losing their most productive talent – people who have been in their positions for 3-10 years. Nearly 66% of tenured employees plan to find new jobs over the next 3 months.

This could have tremendous hard and soft cost implications for employers. HR professionals estimate that the hard costs to replace an employee ranges between 33% and 50% of their base salary, in addition to soft costs such as the loss of productivity and institutional knowledge, as well as new hire recruiting and training expenses.

How do you stem the flow of your top talent from leaving the organisation? While one can never reduce the flow completely, there are five clear steps that can be taken to ensure that people aren’t attracted to what appear to be greener pastures elsewhere, and you are prepared to address the eventuality that everyone will not stay forever. These five steps are:

• Know who your top talent is and where they are located – Too many organisations only begin to recognise how valuable their talent was when those employees have decided to leave the organisation. Work is not getting done as quickly, effectively, or creatively. How can this be prevented? An effective performance management system should identify and differentiate top, acceptable, and marginal performers. This requires that:
  • Clear, challenging performance standards demonstrate how each employee adds value and contributes to the overall business objectives.
  • Clear, challenging performance standards demonstrate how each employee adds value and contributes to the overall business objectives.
  • A meaningful performance rating scale differentiates talent. Often, a 3-point scale to assess the extent to which goals/results were met coupled with a 3-point scale to assess the extent to which competencies were applied will suffice.
  • Managers calibrate their ratings to ensure they are using the rating scales consistently.
  • Communication and education are provided to enable managers to have performance-based conversations.
• Communicate with your top talent – do they know they are valued? – Special attention should be given to those identified as top performers by the performance management system. In order to continue to reap the value that these employees provide, managers should take time to have sincere dialogue with them throughout the year, ensuring that managers do the following:
  • Recognise their efforts and accomplishments
  • Explain how their contributions add value to the business, and to other leaders
  • Ask what additional help and resources they may need
  • Pay attention to any indicators that may suggest that their interest is waning, and address it promptly
• What is the Employee Value Proposition for high performers/potentials? – Several organisations conduct periodic employee engagement surveys. This data is often analysed in terms of various demographic criteria (e.g., geographic location, functional area, etc.). In order to keep the data anonymous, it is rarely analysed in terms of high performers/potentials. However, we need to measure the attitudinal pulse of this group. It is important not to fall into a “one size fits all” trap; instead, get a good handle on the needs and desires of this employee population as well as regularly monitor their levels of engagement. Some suggestions on identifying the Employee Value Proposition for this community include:
  • Convene focus groups with this targeted group of employees and determine their key drivers (what does the organisation offer to them that they value) as well as what organisational barriers get in the way of them feeling completely engaged.
  • Consider establishing task forces to explore these barriers in greater detail and determine how they can be minimised or eliminated. Involvement of high potentials in these task forces can be a great way to help them have additional organisational impact and be a part of the solution.
  • Use the outputs from this process to develop and communicate a unique “employee brand” that can be used in recruiting other top performers to your organisation.
• Ensure they are receiving rewards that are meaningful to them –  None of us would likely turn away more money. However, a total rewards program considers not just monetary rewards, but also non-monetary rewards that are valuable to many. Consider the following list as you explore how to build engagement with all top performers, and ensure you are effectively communicating the rewards that people have at their disposal. Employees often do not realise the true market value of the benefits they receive – distributing a customised Employee Benefit Sheet providing the market value of salary, benefits (e.g, employer retirement contributions, employer contributions to health care, sick time, vacation time, etc.) to show the “total rewards package” is very meaningful and can make someone think twice before they jump ship.
  • Monetary rewards:
  • Base pay
  • Benefits (retirement, healthcare, paid time off, etc.)
  • Annual incentives/variable compensation and cash recognition
  • Long-term incentives (pension, stock options, increased paid time off, etc.)
  • Non-monetary rewards:
  • Growth and career development
  • Non-monetary recognition and visibility
  • Training
  • Work environment (e.g., telecommuting options, flextime, collaboration with others, etc.)
• Develop a Workforce Plan – Realistically, we cannot hold on to our best performers forever. Some attrition is expected, especially as employees near retirement age. It is important to analyse your demographic data for your most critical roles in order to identify and prepare talent for future roles, as well as ensure that a great deal of your institutional knowledge does not leave the organisation as people retire. Consider the following as you develop a workforce plan and determine your future recruitment and development needs:
  • Current numbers of employees
  • Projected growth rate for the organisation
  • Expected turnover rate
  • New entrant turnover rate
  • Retirement rate (based on age distribution of workforce)

If you are able to hold on to your better performers longer, and ensure that a plan is in place to replace them when they do leave, the bottom-line savings are dramatic.

Consider an organisation that loses 20 high performers/high potentials per year, with an average salary of $50,000 per hire. Assuming the organisation stays the same size over five years (no growth), and the recruitment and lost productivity cost of replacing this talent is at least 50% of their salary, this turnover costs the organisation $2.5 million over that five year period.

Reducing this turnover by 20% per year (four top performers decide to stay each year) produces a very conservative savings of at least $500,000, and undoubtedly more when one considers the impact that high performers leaving an organisation has on the morale of those who are left behind. If your projected growth rate is greater than 0% or your high performers earn more than $50,000 per year, the savings are even more dramatic.

Author Credits

Scott Cohen, Capital H Group. Capital H Group is a consulting firm that takes a value-based approach to helping companies manage, and invest in, their human capital. Partnering with our clients, we focus on creating value through their people. For further information, visit web site: http://www.capitalHgroup.com

Republished from IIDM – your online business resource – www.iidmglobal.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of IIDM’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.iidmglobal.com/subscribe/

Major Re-Launch Coming Soon…

As a valued reader of the CEO People Management Blog, we’d like to share with you some exciting news – the CEO Online website will soon be re-launched with a new focus and name, to…

The International Institute of Directors & Managers (IIDM)

Why The Change?

CEO Online has been in operation since 2000, and celebrates its 13th birthday this year. During this time, CEO Online has develped an extensive resource library, utilising its worldwide networks to bring business leaders around the globe the best in timely, relevant professional development resources.

CEO Online has made these resources available … but not provided a program that they fit within.

We asked if you wanted more formal learning opportunities in our last Member Survey, and the response was an overwhelming – “YES!”

Therefore, moving forward, IIDM will provide both formal and informal executive education options through a variety of mediums, in a number of formats.

IIDM CPD will bring together resources on the website in topic specific units, and will also list online or onsite courses that can take your professional development journey to even greater heights.

Why Not Just Add This As An Option? Why Change The Name?

IIDM has actually been around for a number of years already sharing space on CEO Online.

With the introduction of Certified CEO – a global certification for CEOs offered by The CEO Institute (of which CEO Online is an associate company) – it was IIDM’s time to shine, as the certification criteria requires a commitment to CPD through membership of IIDM. So the decision was made to give IIDM its own space, whilst keeping the business resources of CEO Online as a library within IIDM.

We believe that this is the way of the future – and we believe that you will too.

What To Expect – Overview Of Changes

Here’s what’s in store for the IIDM website of the future:

• Our web address will change to – www.iidmglobal.com. (Existing links will be redirected)
• Removal of the Top Thinking section – but not the content:
• Top CEO Issues will move to e-Learning
• Top Business Tips will move to Case Studies
• Global Research will be posted on our Social Networks
• Re-naming the Certified CEO section to the IIDM CPD section, where members can:
•  Participate in a continuous professional development (CPD) program
•  Utilise resources on IIDM or discover online or onsite courses offered by Certified CEO Educational Partners
• Track their CPD progress through Self-Assessment Reporting
• Reducing the number of Expert Talk & Case Studies categories from 18 to 8 to allow for easier navigation
• The Expert Talk and Case Studies sections will only be available to members with login details

We’re excited to be bringing you even more ways to develop professionally in the future…

Welcome to IIDM