Managing Underperformance & Appraising Your Staff

Here are some useful tips to help you appraise your staff and manage any under performance! Follow these simple tips and find out just how easy it is to effectively manage your staff! Praise and positive reinforcement go a long way when it comes to motivating an under performing staff. Read more

Article of the Month

Want to get your staff behind your vision? Having problems implementing change?
Why you need “heart” not “head”; “emotion”, not “logic”.

Are you like many organisations I seem to be meeting recently, who are struggling to get their staff behind changes you’re trying to implement?

Do you have a vision of where you want the organisation to go, but find you’re meeting with resistance, apathy and plummeting performance?

Let me ask you a question: Do you have the hearts of those you manage?

“What sort of crazy question is that?” you may be asking. “The workplace isn’t about hearts! This is not about emotion – this is about getting a job done and meeting targets. This is about changing the way we do things so we can survive and thrive! Don’t staff understand that? Don’t they understand if we don’t adapt, we die – and they may have no job to complain about at all?  Leave the heart stuff to people’s love lives!”

Well, I’d like to suggest that winning the hearts of those you manage may be the single most powerful thing you can do in the next few weeks or months, to transform apathy to enthusiasm, resistance to co-operation and plummeting performance into excellence.

I’d also like to suggest that if you don’t, you will continue to feel like you’re pushing water uphill!

This month’s article almost wrote itself after what seems to have been a number of weeks recently where I’ve been working with clients who are struggling with apathy, dissent and/or downright resistance from staff in their teams or wider groups.

It’s frustrating!

What’s frustrating?

Well – it’s frustrating that I sometimes see quite significant amounts of energy and passion being channelled into negativity – energy and passion which could be helping provide innovative solutions to challenges and strengthening, instead of weakening working relationships.

It’s frustrating that employees are engaged in recriminations, resistance, blame or “us versus them” behaviours, rather than engaged in stimulating, purposeful tasks which allow them to play to their strengths.

What exactly IS employee engagement?

I looked up the dictionary definition of “engagement” recently and this is what it said:

• To involve (a person or his attention) intensely
• To attract (the affection of) a person
• To draw (somebody) into conversation
• To take part
• To promise (to do something)

Notice words such as “attract”, “affection” and “intensely”. Quite emotive  words: words which imply the need to communicate at a level which goes deeper than making a logical argument for something.

And this is where I’d like to suggest that, as leaders and managers, when we face challenges which require the support and buy-in from our staff we need to become more aware of how we can communicate at this emotional level with them, in order to galvanise them from within, rather than impose “stuff” on them from outside. 

So – we need to recognise employee engagement begins and ends

at an emotional level

The truth is, human beings are, first and foremost, emotional beings. We may like to think we are logical (and indeed we are, and we do use our logical brain to help us think through decisions) but even for the most rational or logical of us, our initial and final responses within the decision making process come from our intuitive sense of “what FEELS right” for us at that moment.

What does that mean for those of us who lead or manage others?

It means that those leaders and managers who think about how they can appeal to peoples’ hearts  will be more successful in gaining buy in for new initiatives as well as developing staff who think, feel and behave much more positively, even in challenging situations.

“But how does this work in practice though?” I hear you say. “How do we appeal to peoples’ hearts?”

Simon Sinek, author of “Start with Why”. talks about what he calls the “Golden Circle” which truly successful organisations utilise to help capture the hearts of not only their clients or customers, but all their employees, suppliers or other key stakeholders. It looks like this:

He argues that when leaders try to “sell” something to others they mostly use logical language – so, in the case of a vision for example they’ll talk about what they need to do and how they’re going to do it and stop there. (Not only that, but sometimes that logical language is also jargon ridden or formal.)

The trouble is people aren’t galvanised into action by formality or logic.

People are galvanised into following you or buying into your vision because of emotion: because they feel something – and because, as Simon Sinek suggests, “they believe what you believe”.

If they take action to resist the vision you have for the organisation going forward, it’s because they don’t believe what you believe; you haven’t convinced them or they don’t trust you.  

Did you know the word “emotion” comes from the Latin “emovere” meaning “to disturb”, “to move”?

Human beings, no matter what their origin, are moved to take action when they believe it is the right thing to do.

And appealing to people’s hearts requires leaders focus less on the “what” and the “how” and more on the “why”.

So what does this mean for you, as a manager or leader, trying to implement changes which you believe are for the benefit of the organisation?

It means in your communication with those you need to persuade you need to focus less on the “what” and the “how” of the changes, and more on the “why”. It means, instead of using formal  or jargon ridden language, or clichés, you use stories; you make it “personal”  and aspirational.

Is it possible to get people to follow your vision? Martin Luther King, Ghandhi and other great leaders like them showed just how much it was possible to tap into the hearts of others. They didn’t focus on the “what” or “how” – they focused on the “why” – on their dream of something better; and of the opportunities the realisation of their dream would give to others.

So ditch the formality the next time you want to get your staff to buy into your vision.

Think of how you can tap into their hearts – and you’ll find an energy, passion and enthusiasm to get behind you like you never thought possible.

(And if you’d like to see Simon Sinek explain his “Golden Circle” a little more, visit my blog where you’ll find a video of one of his talks : http://increasingmanagerialsuccess.com/why-understanding-emotions-can-help-us-be-better-managers/  

 

Managing Underperfomance Or Bad Attitudes – How To Avoid The First Five Traps Managers Can Fall Into

Shona Garner reveals the reasons why the first action you should take when you are facing an underperformance issue is to examine your own approach to performance management. Learn the 5 mistakes every manager should avoid if they want to turn round a disengaged individual or team.

You have someone in the team who’s underperforming. You notice; other team members are noticing, and it’s already causing underlying tensions and friction. Left untackled, this problem can take up masses of your time and energy, leaving you frustrated and struggling to juggle all the other important aspects of your role.

Before you wade in and tackle the individual, just take a moment to see if you fall into any of the following traps which can either help create a poor attitude, or exacerbate an existing one. Read more

Simple techniques to help managers keep their staff loyalty

A recent report by the CIPD says research is showing that more than 33% of all workers plan to leave their current jobs once the recession is over and the job market picks up. They suggest on average the costs of replacing and training a new recruit are: £6,125 or around $9000,

This rises to £9000 or around $13,250 for senior managers.

Whew! Don’t know about you, but as a practising manager myself, as well as a trainer and coach for other managers, losing even one good member of staff represents not just forking out a considerable sum of money to advertise, recruit and train any new staff, but a considerable amount of time and hassle for me, whilst I try to keep my eyes on the ball in terms of sales and customer satisfaction.

OK, so the recession may have represented an opportunity for you to re-shape the look of your team. Maybe you’ve had the unpleasant job of making some staff redundant, or having to discuss moving them to a different role, which they may, or may not be excited about.

One thing’s for sure: the staff who are left will feel a bit “jittery”.  How they feel may well be dependent on how you’ve managed any cuts, and on your relationship with your staff, but it’s highly likely loyalty is probably the last word on their minds, and their level of engagement may have plummeted, with the inevitable dip in performance too.

So how do you, as a manager, keep your team “on-side”, minimise “jitters”, and save yourself the hassle and high costs of losing talented people? Is it possible to have your top performers recognise they are still in the best place and not be tempted by competitor offers?

Whilst you can’t get it right all the time – I believe you can get it right more of the time. Here are three key actions you can take right now, which will have a massive impact on staff morale, motivation and engagement, and which will reduce the likelihood they will leave you first chance they get.

1. Get your staff talking!
   What do I mean by this? One of the most destructive things for staff motivation and engagement is negative gossip and attitudes. And you can be sure, if you’ve been cutting back lately, if you’ve been changing team structures, if you’ve been making some people redundant, then you’ll have some incredibly fertile ground for negative gossip, negative attitudes and negative behaviours.

   The trouble is, in most cases, it’s done behind your back – in the canteen; over the water-cooler, or in the pub after work.

   Negative talk breeds negative thinking. It’s contagious. It spreads. Even staff who you really value, who are solid performers and who you’d hate to lose, start to feel the negativity and lose some of their “sparkle” for the job.

   You need to channel this energy into something more positive – but how?

   You need to give people an opportunity to talk about their concerns and their opinions about what it’s like to work with you out in the open – but in a way which is non-threatening, and constructive.

   One simple, quick and non-threatening way to do this is through a team survey – but I don’t mean the complicated surveys some organisations embark upon, where it takes months to set up, weeks to get people to fill in, and more months to get the results!

   I mean a “quick and dirty” survey – something you can implement and have results back for within weeks, if not days. Something which just gives you a starting point for a team meeting where you can get people talking. (see below for help choosing a survey)

2. Set up a team meeting to discuss the results of your survey!
   Make it a priority to pull your team together within 2-4 weeks of the survey results coming in. Set aside at least 90 minutes. If you can, see if you can engage a couple of your team to co-facilitate the meeting with you.Have two flip charts at the ready where you’ve captured the top-line results of:
   What we’re doing well                                                      What we’re concerned about

   Then say you know they completed the survey anonymously, but that you genuinely want to understand more about what people feel about their work, so you’d like someone to start the ball rolling. Ask someone to say if they gave a high score and why. Then ask for people to speak out if they gave any low scores and why.

   I guarantee someone will speak up! And once they do, others will follow. Allow time. Reassure your staff this is not about judging; nor about recording any of this formally. This is about understanding that times have been hard recently, and wanting to genuinely look at how we can make things better.
   Keep your language to “we”, not “I”. And be prepared to hear stuff which might be critical of you. (How can you give constructive feedback to others if you won’t take any yourself?)

   Have your co-facilitators capture some of the main points on blank flip charts.

   Tip: Sometimes, once people do start to open up, this could be in danger of becoming a long-winded moaning session! Be clear at the outset you want all the moans out – but you’re allowing a set amount of time – say 20 minutes. Don’t allow people to go on about a specific thing – just encourage them to put the “moan” into one sentence – so you can capture it on the flip chart! This helps keep focus and brevity!

3. 3. Agree an action plan!
   Now for the most important part. Explain the objective is to make things better for people at work.
   Ask them to vote for the issues they feel need addressing first, from the “concerns” flip sheet. Take no more than two “concerns”. Explain if you’re going to make any real progress, it’s no good biting off more than you can chew, and you’ll come back to the other stuff later.

   Then, if you’ve a biggish team, of say 6 or more, split them into groups of between 3 and 5. Give each group a “concern” – and ask them to come up with at least 5 actions which might help reduce this “concern”. Allow at least 30 minutes for this – let them go for a coffee; break out into other areas and have some nice buns/fruit or other “goodies” available to “feed” their imaginations!

   When time’s up, bring them back together, share the ideas and agree at least one or two actions you will take forward.

   Encourage both a team action and individual actions. Have each team member write down one thing they will do differently to help improve that “concern” – and have them share that action with a colleague who will hold  them accountable!

   Finally, thank them for their honesty and their participation – and agree how you will measure improvements, and when you will meet again.  

I promise you, this simple strategy will take up little time but can totally re-energise team morale and employee satisfaction – and will help you build strong working relationships and better staff loyalty.

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For more information to help you with the people side of management,
including how to improve employee motivation and get the best out of your team, take a look at these great resources:

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