“In Fed We Trust” by David Wessel.
Mr. Wessel unravels the role of the Fed in coping with our current economic crisis.
November 13, 2009
November 9, 2009
Taking the Fear Out of 360’s
John White of JD White + Associates, Inc. on removing fear from the 360 process.
November 3, 2009
Tips for Increasing Response Rate
1. Customize the instrument: People are more willing to participate in that which they have a hand in creating. The survey becomes their own, and enjoys more respect than a generic instrument that is thrust upon them. Also worth noting is that respondents will imbue the results with greater credibility if they helped design the questions.
2. Protect Anonymity: Have your vendor explain specifically how respondent anonymity will be protected, including how narrative comments will be sanitized. State that the contract requires your vendor to eliminate not only names, but also to rephrase potentially transparent references to individuals.
3. Include a section for narrative comments: Very useful information typically resides within narrative commentary, yet many vendors prefer not to provide open ended questions because sanatizing them is so time consuming. Insist that narrative questions be included! It demonstrates interest in employee opinions beyond what the quantitative section reveals.
4. Share results with all staff. Even if staff only receive an abbreviated version of the results, access to the full results should be available to all. (There are exceptions to this. If a departmental data cut is included, constructive purpose is accomplished by exposing how the various departments scored. Tell staff in advance that the departmental cut may be withheld)
5. Promise that remedial steps will be taken: Senior management shouldn’t promise to “fix” everything right away, but response rates go up when those surveyed believe that their input will make a difference. Although it’s not possible to promise what will be tackled, or how it will be tackled, it is possible to describe the types of remedial steps (workshops, task forces, individual coaching, etc.) that could be taken, and to promise that staff input will be considered in prioritizing next steps.
6. Include staff in remedial efforts: Improving poor scores isn’t solely the job of mangement; all staff should be engaged in stewarding the design and execution of improvements.
7. Publicize, Publicize, Publicize. Prior to launch and while the instrument is “in the field”, the exec team needs to “talk it up” at every opportunity, expressing interest in the coming results and demonstrating a spirit of openness to change.
8. Your survey provider should prepare talking points regarding the above to help ensure these important messages are included in pre-launch communications.
October 30, 2009
Implementing a 360 degree feedback process in your organization will either be a destructive and devastating experience, or a developmental epiphany for those involved, depending entirely on how the process is structured and executed. Before undertaking a 360-degree feedback initiative, be sure you plan carefully and are prepared to commit to the following best practices:
1. Avoid these unnecessary distractions by choosing a qualified consultant to host your 360. Ensure your consultant can provide on-line instrumentation, has a strong background in facilitating senior executive work sessions, and a successful track record of executive coaching.
2. Your consultant should collaborate with your senior executives to establish and define the dimensions of excellence for leadership and management in your firm. Based on this input, the consultant designs a well-structured questionnaire that is customized exclusively to your organizational culture. Because those who’ll be evaluated by the mechanism have input into its construction, greater receptivity to the process is secured, greater validity is imputed to the results, and commitment to improve is easier to sustain.
3. The CEO should conduct all-staff meetings to explain why the process is being inaugurated and how anonymity will be protected. The CEO should also inspire staff esteem for the courage and emotional maturity requisite of those who will be going through the process, asking that staff provide constructive but honest feedback.
4. The first time one is 360′d, the results should be confidential, known only to the consultant and the individual. Then, the consultant and the individual will meet monthly to develop and review action plans to remediate undesirable scores. Accountability for improvement is achieved when the second 360 is administered, and those results ARE shared with the supervisor. Because the perceptions of others take time to change, the second 360 should not be done until 18 to 24 months after the first.
What CAN be shared with the supervisor regarding the first set of results is a Composite Report, which combines the scores of all those 360′d without revealing the identity of individuals. Composite reports can reveal shared characteristics of teams or departments, which can form the basis for the targeted improvements of groups. Additionally, those 360′d can compare their individual results to the composite results to see how their scores affect the group.
5. After delivering an individual’s 360 results, the consulting coach should immediately secure a date for a second meeting. Assignments between meetings with the coach are typical, with the first assignment being the prioritization of undesirable scores. Future coaching sessions focus on facilitating the development of and monitoring the progress of meaningful action plans targeted at improving prioritized scores.
6. Three respondents in each rating population is the minimum number required to protect anonymity. Those to be 360′d (perhaps in collaboration with relevant internal colleagues) should identify at least five people in each respondent population, (five superiors, five peers, and five subordinates) from which the consultant then randomly selects three. For purposes of a 360, these need not be direct reporting relationships; instead, a superior respondent can be anyone hierarchically superior to the individual to be 360′d, who works closely enough with that individual to be able to respond to the questions. Similarly, a subordinate need not be a direct report of the individual to be 360′d; the person just has to have worked together closely enough for the subordinate to be able to respond to the questions. Narrative comments must be aggressively sanitized to eliminate any chance of attribution.
7. The best way to ensure the 2nd 360 is completed on schedule is to include it in the initial contract, with a substantial penalty clause for abandonment. This may sound harsh, but avoidance of the following negative consequences provides more than adequate justification for such a step: (1) Without supervisory review of the second 360, accountability for improvement by those who participated in the process cannot be meaningfully imposed, so the entire initiative won’t be taken seriously; (2) Absent the 2nd 360, those who worked diligently to improve their scores won’t have visibility into the results of their efforts, so they’ll be left with uncertainty and lack of closure; (3) Respondents who labored to provide thoughtful input will believe their opinions never really mattered in the first place.
Learn more abut 360 degree assessments at http://www.daltonalliances.com/360surveys.asp.
October 27, 2009
Top Two Reasons to Use Assessment Mechanisms
“WHY SHOULD YOU USE ASSESSMENT MECHANISMS?”
1. TO GAIN A CLEAR DIAGNOSIS
Customized assessments will produce both qualitative and quantitative metrics, providing a clear diagnosis of “current state” on topics of importance to your organization. Depending upon your place in the organization, the “current state” of some topics may not be visible to you. Assessments enable managers to be more successful by revealing that which may not otherwise be visible.
2. TO GAIN A CLEAR REMEDIAL PLAN ON PRIORITY ISSUES
Equipped with a clear definition of “current state” on prioritized topics, it’s a fairly quick and easy process to define “desired state” for each. If we know where we’re starting from and where we want to get to, all that remains is building the bridges that span the gap between “current” and “desired” states. Examples of such bridges include initiatives in training, education, coaching, development, etc. Accountability for the implementation of these initiatives and other relevant action plans is virtually assured, since subsequent assessments will document progress.
October 16, 2009
10 Tips for Earning Special Recognition on Boss’s Day ~or~ The Truth About Why Healthcare Costs are Rising by Francie Dalton, CMC
1. Whenever any idea comes to mind, assign it to someone immediately. Don’t be concerned about whether it should be done. You can always abandon it later.
2. Never file any internal documents. After all, someone else will keep track of everything for you. And if they can’t find whatever you want, you can blame them for not being organized.
3. Always assign the same task to multiple people. This will help you leverage the risk of missed deadlines.
4. Don’t inform staff of your calendar. This will allow you to claim that you were “out on appointments” when in fact you were being a couch potato.
5. Change your mind often. Particularly on major projects. This demonstrates flexibility.
6. Don’t hesitate to make decisions relevant to others’ functional areas – and don’t worry about remembering to let appropriate staff know about such decisions. Remember: they’re smart and will figure it out.
7. Don’t have agendas for meetings. After all, staff should just enjoy being together, and an agenda would probably constrain innovative thinking.
8. Whenever staff are handling a particularly difficult situation, call them every 5 minutes or so to offer assistance and to provide feedback on the actions they’re taking. They’ll be grateful for your input.
9. As you meet competent people during networking events, instantly retain them as subcontractors for…something. Your direct reports are sure to appreciate the extra help.
10. Always wait till the very last minute to communicate details about major initiatives. This will give you the opportunity to think through everything before making assignments.
~
Francie Dalton is president and founder of Dalton Alliances, Inc, a Washington D.C. based consultancy specializing in the communication, management, and behavioral sciences. Her new book, “Versatility”, is available at www.daltonalliances.com or by calling 1-800-442-3603.
October 13, 2009
Chat with Sam Horn of Author of POP
Checking in with Sam Horn author of POP to see what she’s been up to lately.
October 7, 2009
Mark Haas discusses the Institute of Management Consultants
Mark Haas talks about the importance of the Institute of Management Consultants.
October 5, 2009
Marketing Your Intuition at Work
In business, some of the toughest decisions are made based on intuition. Admitting this, however, can be uncomfortable, even unwise. Want to earn respect for your intuition?
Want to legitimize it in the minds of others? That’s easy. Just stop calling it “intuition”. Here’s a more scientific context within which to ground your advice and suggestions, a context that might help you “sell” the utility of your intuition to relevant internal colleagues.
What mental pictures come to mind when you read the words “nurse”, “auto mechanic”, “Pastor”, “adolescent”?
C’mon – admit it. Scores of images flew through your brain. And those images didn’t stop at appearance. Didn’t you also associate certain behaviors with the words? As you imagine them in their respective work places, don’t you also develop images of their performance?
These images, based on knowing nothing more than one’s function, are called “schemas”. Our schemas of others create expectations regarding the behavior, the performance, and even the appearance of individuals.
Schemas aren’t absolutes; but they do help predict job fitness; they provide guidelines for interaction; and they help us articulate performance measures. There are, most assuredly, exceptions: engineers who are poised socially; financial experts who can think abstractly; public relations and marketing experts who can be structured and compliant. But don’t you find they’re the exceptions?
Let’s take a look at two examples and consider the probable, if unintended, consequences of ignoring schemas.
Let’s assume that to one solitary VP is assigned the responsibility for outcomes produced by the efforts of several VP’s. If, based on your intuition, you suggest that such a decision is destined to generate hostility, conflict and chaos, you’re likely to be criticized for imputing to them an inability to function as a team. If instead, you ground your suggestion within the context of schemas, you’re likely to achieve agreement more easily. Here’s how to do it. Provide a brief description of the “senior executive schema”. They’re usually competitive; they have the guts to risk high-profile failure and they strive for the recognition that comes from high-profile success; the CEO is likely their sole source of meaningful professional affirmation so they vie for his/her favor and attention, which means they’re often territorial. Based on such a description, suggesting that the assigned outcomes be made discrete to each VP no longer seems insulting; instead it seems reasonable and wise.
Or how about this one. Let’s assume the engineering department has invented a new product to be introduced at the next sales meeting. The boss wants relevant speechmaking assigned to the inventor. S/he may indeed be a brilliant expert, but speechmaking is virtually antithetical to schema. Ignoring this is likely to result in the dryest, most monotone and verbose speech ever given on this planet. If the objective is to foster attention, retention, and enthusiasm, the schema most likely to achieve those objectives must be considered. In advancing this viewpoint, having nothing other than intuition on which to base your suggestion seems personal. Grounding your suggestion within the context of schemas makes it more legitimate.
Attempting to educate others about schemas may alienate those who have historically demeaned your intuition. Instead, just look for opportunities to deploy the skill. Remember, you can only increase the frequency of successful personnel decisions if you increase the frequency with which you are consulted. Ground your contributions to discussions about personnel within the context of schemas. It will become indisputably clear to your colleagues that there is real value in consulting you when making personnel decisions.
