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These Organizational Behaviors Wreck Your Project
| Think over the last year. Which of the following were experienced by workers in your organization (or project, if you have worked a long project)?
How often would these have been experienced? Many times? Multiple workforce studies have concluded that – guess what – these are bad. Really bad, as it turns out. The best workers – those who you want to horde into your project - want honesty and integrity. Otherwise, they will be looking for a better deal elsewhere.
This list of naughty behaviors has also been shown to cause higher employee turnover costs, lowered morale, less effective teamwork, higher stress levels and more. In other words, just the environment in which you cannot be successful with your project.
This month, we’ve been talking about business process improvement, and these behaviors will make any such transition downright impossible. Luckily, a Right Management study also identified tactics for organizations to build better trust. We’ll look at those in my next post. |
Posted on: October 30, 2007 10:50 PM
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Do You Have the Right Instincts?
| OK now, show that you have the correct instincts to choose the behavior below which is the least likely to motivate “prima donnas,” the toughest of workers to manage.
Really, choose an item from the list, which is based on details from the article listed in the previous post.
The tactic which is least likely to motivate high-performers is c. Instead, let them make decisions while you act as a calming, low-key leader. Think about your recent history. Have you been a calming influence for your best workers? |
Posted on: October 26, 2007 03:09 PM
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Managing This Way Keeps the Best Workers from Driving You Nuts
| Sometimes the highest-performing workers are the worst to manage. It makes you wonder why you worked so hard to get them in your workforce. They prefer their own way to anyone else’s and can intimidate or frustrate others. When you call them on any problems, they act like the attention-starved wife in a soap opera. “You never give me any attention. Then just complain!”
These days we are trying to get as many high-performers as possible and there is a lot of competition for these workers. You need to be able to manage them.
It would help if you had some practical tactics to work with these “divas” or “prima donnas” as they have been called. This extensive feature article, written for small businesses for some reason, has a lot of great tips based on interviews with managers who are good at managing these “toughest” employees. The tips include:
There are a lot of specifics from leaders of four separate teams, any of which has characteristics like yours. I’ll have a question for you in tomorrow’s post regarding motivation, based on details in this article. |
Posted on: October 24, 2007 10:24 PM
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Want to Improve Workforce Performance? How About a Little ‘You’ Time?
| The last thing a workforce needs is a manager who is very busy. Just because you are pedal to the metal high-octane multi-meeting issue-chomping project maven, doesn’t mean you’ll have that essential element – the top performing workforce.
Larry McAlister, the author of a recent brief article (registration required) makes some excellent points:
McAlister quoted CEO Brian Fayak as saying that “Improved execution and performance is more about time management than anything else...finding the right balance for yourself as a leader, and for your team.” More from Fayak: “Prioritize your work, simplify, work from detailed metrics, provide clarity, focus on execution, and think.” When was the last time you took time to think? There’s a lot here on gantthead to make your life easier. Read it and then reflect on how to apply it to your advantage. It's a little 'you' time. |
Posted on: October 17, 2007 09:54 PM
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Use Teams to Help Marginal Employees Quickly
| Continuing from the last post on helping marginal performers. If you are like many project managers, this type of intervention is the last thing you want to get involved in. If you feel unprepared for this, maybe you shouldn’t obsess over certain individual weaknesses. The article mentions identifying and building on strengths and stimulating marginal workers to do their best using teams.
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Posted on: October 15, 2007 11:21 PM
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