Yes, it's that time of year again! Performance Review Time!!! Yippee!......
What - you're not excited about this? We'll you're in pretty good company. It’s generally accepted as an immutable law of the universe that most managers HATE this process and consider it among the least enjoyable tasks they carry out - one step above firing people and two steps above getting sacked. In fact, most of your employees hate it every bit as much as you do. But it doesn’t have to be this way – and it SHOULDN’T!
I found a really great website which provides tools and podcasts to help managers do a better job of managing people - http://www.manager-tools.com/ .
The two gents who run this show are really quite good at what they do, in that they don’t just pontificate on what you should be doing – they give you specific steps on how to do it.
I won't go into all the details about the site, but suffice to say that I’m the Guerilla HR warfare guy and I think it’s great - If you have gotten anything out of my blog, you will surely get a LOT of Manager Tools.
Before you even think about doing performance reveiws on your team this year, I strongly recommend that you visit http://www.manager-tools.com/ and hear what these guys have to say. You wont be disappointed.
Next time – taking the pain out of performance management.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
When good people do bad things
Greetings gang - I'm back after an unexpected break. I got caught up in all the fun that HR people have to deal with when someone shakes the idiot tree really hard.
That brings us to our topic du jour - how to handle the situation when good people do bad things.
Face the cold hard truth; sometimes even the best person you know will something bad that may hurt you, your relationship or even you business. It's tough to make the distinction between a good person and the bad behavior they have just carried out.
The trick to these situations is to separate the person from the behavior and focus appropriately on both! Tell the person how you feel about them and use that to be the basis for why the behavior is so unacceptable. Let's play out a little example - your best employee, John, has just failed to deliver on an important assignment - here's an example of what you might say:
"John, you are one of the best employees here. That is why I'm so surprised and disappointed that you did not complete your assignment. People recognize what a good worker you are and and many look up to you - this is a bad example for them and reflects poorly on you. We both know that you are capable of doing much better. Now please go complete the assignment....."
You may want to restate the task, conditions and standard to ensure that John understands it. Then turn John loose and watch him go. It's never a sure thing, but odds are that John will go forth and sin no more.
That brings us to our topic du jour - how to handle the situation when good people do bad things.
Face the cold hard truth; sometimes even the best person you know will something bad that may hurt you, your relationship or even you business. It's tough to make the distinction between a good person and the bad behavior they have just carried out.
The trick to these situations is to separate the person from the behavior and focus appropriately on both! Tell the person how you feel about them and use that to be the basis for why the behavior is so unacceptable. Let's play out a little example - your best employee, John, has just failed to deliver on an important assignment - here's an example of what you might say:
"John, you are one of the best employees here. That is why I'm so surprised and disappointed that you did not complete your assignment. People recognize what a good worker you are and and many look up to you - this is a bad example for them and reflects poorly on you. We both know that you are capable of doing much better. Now please go complete the assignment....."
You may want to restate the task, conditions and standard to ensure that John understands it. Then turn John loose and watch him go. It's never a sure thing, but odds are that John will go forth and sin no more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
