Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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With Every Opportunity Comes a Crisis
| I have written articles and blog posts connected with workforce implications of Web 2.0, essentially explaining how to use social networking to your advantage as a project manager. I think I left out some of the pitfalls, perhaps in a subconscious strategy to enjoy reading about all the problems later. Whatever the reason, use of social networking has some history now and we can learn from others’ mistakes.
And I’m not even talking about the stupid students who put on their web sites that they just got out of rehab, then look for a job. I’m sure each one thinks he can bring excellent judgment to his future workplace.
I’m talking about how now we see egg on employers’ faces. This article explains that more and more businesses are searching sites like MySpace and FaceBook to get background on candidates. Suppose you did the same, and you see someone who says she has just got out of rehab. You’d make a nice note like “gap in history” and move her resume to the bottom of the pile, right? And what if you saw someone who took joy in explaining how he professed his religious beliefs to everyone he spoke to? You make a note on that resume, maybe “very spiritual”.
Now we know that this can run you into trouble with the law. Candidates who are concerned that they are not getting hired can go to an attorney, who can look at their web site or blog, or elsewhere on the Internet. If the attorney finds evidence of personal information that may have been used for hiring discrimination, then she hits the jackpot. Your records are subpoenaed and she has your own notes to hang you with!
Unlikely? Then you missed the news story earlier this year about the Yale student who alleges hiring discrimination based on “photos and unfavorable information” posted about her on the web. HR attorneys everywhere must have heard a loud ka-ching!
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Posted on: November 19, 2007 09:40 PM
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Can’t Believe This is Free
| Here’s a surprisingly powerful technique to improve yours or your teams’ performance. And it’s free! Basically, an individual uses a group in a simple manner to help change the individual’s behavior. The part that makes this surprising is the personal and business benefits that are described in this article in Fast Company.
The author, after having a colleague diagnose two behavioral problems that were getting in the way of his success, assembled a “Behavioral Change Group” made up of selected colleagues. Over a period of months, they helped him rid himself of these behaviors, one of which was impatience. He then finds that he is working much more successfully in his job and his employee satisfaction ratings increased dramatically. You can go to his website, again for free, and download a system to use to make this work.
The points I want to make here are that
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Posted on: November 14, 2007 10:09 PM
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Taking Advantage of Coachable Moments
| You may not know this, but you miss out on coaching moments every day. These moments together are way more powerful than your formal annual or semi-annual performance reviews. Way more. PricewaterhouseCoopers gets this and has created a little TV series for its employees, showing that providing immediate (or at least timely) feedback in an effective manner gets the results you want fast. They are even into their second season, covering issues as varied as ‘the guy who smells’ to dealing with mishandled business relationships. PwC already incorporates coaching heavily in their management style, but, realizing the importance of coaching, wanted to maintain the intensity of this culture.
You don’t have to get this program for your project, though. Just make it a habit to provide coaching yourself. And make sure all supervisors, team leads, managers (whatever you call them) provide coaching as well. With an easily-gained skill in giving effective feedback, your project supervisors can
Those that have been studying performance for a while understand that there are few techniques that can stimulate improvement in many areas and accelerate the rate of improvement. Coaching is one of those techniques. Find out more about it if you have to and then get out there and start coaching. Then coach your coaches. |
Posted on: November 09, 2007 03:42 PM
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Positive Environment - It’s Easier Than You Think
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Does it seem difficult to in your organization to create a real employee-supportive culture? Is it about as difficult as a retailer where competition is brutal, turnover is high and cost-cutting is fierce? Well check out Trader Joe’s, a supermarket where they have happy workers and thus happy customers. They use a combination of techniques that work for them:
Still, they are careful with their money and have grown to a multi-billion dollar national chain. Unlike their competitors, they get good people and keep them.
If they can do it your organization can do it. You can create an environment in your organization - even your project – that appeals to high-performers and keeps them around. Just find that combination of things you can do and execute, rather than be paralyzed by the many obstacles in your way. Trader Joe’s managers could have gone to the dark side and been like Wal-Mart, but they went their own direction and have prospered. Follow their lead.
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Posted on: November 05, 2007 09:53 PM
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These Organizational Behaviors Keep Trust – And High-Potential Workers
| OK, so after reading my last post you found that, every once in a while, your organization shoots itself in the foot. Or maybe you found that your organization is making itself dance with an automatic machine gun.
The same organizational behaviors that cause workforce problems help your best workers out the door into the waiting arms of the competition (your competition for the high-performers.) So what is the opposite of those behaviors? What behaviors motivate and retain workers and lock in the high-performers? The Right Management study lists these:
This list appears to be a tall order to me. Not impossible, just a big culture change. So many organizations today have leaders and managers who are ‘old school’, and do the opposite from the above list to maintain some selfish edge over others. And believe me, once one leader does it, it is virtually impossible for direct reports to act differently. And so the cascade of offal flows down the organization and into your project.
If this is your situation, the best you can do in the short term is to demonstrate the behaviors in your project. You will be a beacon light and high performers will more likely stick with you. |
Posted on: November 02, 2007 02:46 PM
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