Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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Why Innovation Should Be Painful
| You know innovation is important, but do you know it is important enough to clash with your successful practices? According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, your organization will have to unlock access to its works and toss in a wrench - one of those real heavy ones – and let it clang around day after day.
Here’s the key: Organizational practices that sustain performance in your organization will grind against those
practices that sustain new ideas. The innovation-inspiring practices require you to do things that seem counter-intuitive and perhaps even weird, such as hiring people who
That sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? Yet author Robert Sutton says this kind of hiring, and the management practices that are then required, are necessary for continued success in your organization.
Your first step should be to assess what you are doing now. Are you hiring people like this? When people like this appear in your organization, what happens? Do they last long? Are their ideas used - or abused?
In my next post, there will be some pointers for maintaining a balance between your existing practices and practices that support these heretics. |
Posted on: December 08, 2007 01:10 PM
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Yet Another Reason You Cannot Get Good Workers
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Just when you thought I had listed all the reasons why it’s next to impossible to identify and hire high-performers, there’s a new one. This one could be my favorite because it may keep the best workers from getting to your project only because executives mishandle the process.
As reported by the Aberdeen group recently (“The Global War for Talent: Getting What You Want Won’t Be Easy”), human resources executives and non-HR executives disagree as to
As an added bonus for you, the project manager, the report also describes companies as struggling with executive-level metrics to measure the effectiveness of their talent management.
Conclusion for Talent Management: Executives in your organization may not know what’s going on, may disagree with each other as to what is important, and must align themselves on priorities for anything to change.
Your dream worker could be standing outside your door, and not be able to pass through this gate. (Are you old enough to remember the Peter Principle? If not, it may answer a lot of questions for you.)
Action Item: If you don’t know if this situation is affecting you, then find out. If it is affecting you, then maybe you have to find a way to work around the system to get the workers you need.
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Posted on: December 05, 2007 11:02 PM
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Vicious Performance Circle
| How many of our organizations have formal and sophisticated methods for employees to log precisely their self-development needs and objectives for the coming review period? All the large ones and the majority of medium-sized ones, I would wager. But where is the parallel sophisticated way that supervisors collect relevant data to see how those same individuals are doing?
For every individual in the workforce that yearns to meet development goals and improve performance, there is a supervisor that is not collecting adequate information on the individual’s progress. The supervisor is busy with other tasks, even expecting the worker to employ some “do it yourself” strategy in certain cases. When time comes for the performance review, the supervisor remembers only major problems and recent performance, not the day-to-day productivity and improvement of the individual, which is what matters.
The supervisor feels deep down that there is a problem and dreads the performance review. The worker is de-motivated by the pitiful feedback received in the performance review and the company can look forward to another period of inadequate performance from the individual.
This happens over and over year after year for each employee who is unfortunate enough to not escape. An obvious gap. Is there any wonder that surveys show workforce dissatisfaction everywhere? |
Posted on: November 30, 2007 04:30 PM
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Denial – The Scabs Over Your Own Eyes
| Experts in denial - other than those in your organization – tell us that denial is to be expected because of two reasons: the individual’s inability to see magnitude of problem and the social avoidance of confrontation.
Have you said anything like the following to yourself?
If so, you – you! - are a carrier of denial! An enabler. You are avoiding necessary interactions.
Each one of these situations is a valid performance issue that should be dealt with positively and constructively. Suck it up and intervene! Provide feedback! OK, it’s much easier if you have been clear and objective about what is expected in the first place. Then you can discuss performance difficulties as a comparison to the standards, rather than your opinion. If you “let things go” then everyone else will feel better about letting things go. You will allow denial into the project and allow it to infect everyone.
First, work on your own denial. When you practice your way out of it, you will better be able to help others do the same. |
Posted on: November 27, 2007 08:25 PM
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This Cannot Be Denied in the Workplace
| Don’t be surprised if you see denial in the workplace – any kind of denial. Those who study denial - yes, there are many experts in this area – find that denial is supported by social mores and an ability of the mind to keep certain actions below the mental radar.
In one experiment, researches told students that they would be paid for getting correct answers on a general knowledge test. Here is the fun part: Some students were surprised to find a sheet with the correct answers in their packets. Did they report this? Not exactly. Instead, the group who received the cheat sheets changed about 20% of their answers. Here’s the interesting part: The cheaters “were unaware of the magnitude of their dishonesty.” It was just not on the conscience’s radar.
Even if workers had 100% rationality in all cases, there is the social confrontation-avoidance factor that leads to denial. In a group of members who trust each other, members will allow other members several “selfish violations” before they reject or confront the offender.
And consider meetings you have attended where no one mentions the “elephant in the room.” Isn’t this a form of group denial? Sure it is.
Individuals also will find it difficult to question the motivation of someone who they have trusted for a prolonged period - a spouse, for example. A similar situation from the workplace is a team lead in denial about a high-performer who has had multiple problems recently.
You have to deal with your workers’ denial and your own. You have to break from both the factors that support denial. I’ll have some help in my next post. |
Posted on: November 23, 2007 05:00 PM
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