WEBINAR: How smart managers are employee agents

Yep, it's time for me to pitch the next installment in the Fistful of Talent free webinar series, this one titled Get My Agent On The Phone- How Smart Managers Position Themselves as Agents Via Performance Goals, which is set for next Tuesday, May 21st from 1:00PM  - 2:00PM EDT, and is sponsored by longtime friends of FOT and of mine, Halogen Software. 

You can register for the free webinar here.

But why should you?

Because chances are at your organization either performance management, goal setting and tracking, or the capability of your front-line managers to really manage employee performance and inspire and encourage development need some help.

Because your company is probably like 98% of companies out there that are not getting enough - enough improvement, enough accountability, enough understanding of who the best performers really are - out of your performance management process.

Because despite the hype and buzz about 'scrapping performance reviews' you know that will never happen anytime soon where you work, and that you as a talent pro have to find ways to make the system work for you, and not try and invent something entirely new.

And last, because you secretly know if your organization doesn't continue to improve and innovate and stay one step ahead, there are 4 dudes who just dropped out of Stanford that have already figured out a way to do what your firm does, only cheaper, faster, and using only an iPhone app. 

So what will you learn from  Get My Agent On The Phone- How Smart Managers Position Themselves as Agents Via Performance Goals?

Simple.

Making sure the goals you set represent the Five Most Important Things (5MIT) for the employee in question. What are the most important things your employee has to focus on this year? If you can only talk to them about five things, what would those things be and why? Smart managers skip discussing the busy work and get to what's going to change the game - for the company and the employee. We'll give you the 411 on how to do that.

Offering up ways each of the Five Most Important Things might be measured in the months that follow. You want measurements - we get it. The key in offering up how you’re going to measure the 5MIT in question is not to limit yourself. The more you box yourself in, the less innovation you get. We'll show you how to set the expectation your direct reports are going to be measured without actually taking performance off the table. PS - They'll love you for this if you deliver it in the right way.

Having Thoughts on what “Good” and “Great” performance looks like in each area. That’s right – we’re going through a goal setting process not because HR told us we had to, but because it can set us up to be a great performance coach for the rest of the year. Nothing sets you up as a coach more than owning the difference between “good” and “great”. We'll tell you how to reserve the “great” tag for employees who really innovate, drive change or add true value in the job they’re in.

Including a section that details “What’s In It for Me?” for each area of focus. Being an agent is about talking about how chasing great performance in the area in question could be great for the employee’s career. We'll show you how to frame this as the agent/coach. It's the most important thing you can do.

Putting it all in an easy to follow, informal format. If you go beyond one page, you’re making goal setting too complex. List everything we’ve described to this point in one page, and make the headers conversational in nature, and you win. We've got some format to share with you.

Look you and your managers want to be viewed as career agents for your employees rather than a run of the mill corporate bureaucrat. The robots are coming for those jobs. Trust me on that.

Join FOT for "Get My Agent on the Phone"  on Tuesday, May 21st from 1:00PM  - 2:00PM EDT and we'll show how the secret sauce to goal setting and follow-up conversations can dramatically change the positioning of what you do in performance management.

As always, the free FOT webinar comes guaranteed - 60% of the time it works every time.

Soft, Selfish, or Stupid

Last week in Boston the fifth annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was held, and while sadly I was not in attendance, the excellent ESPN True Hoop blog provided an outstanding series of posts that offered summaries and commentary from the conference.Does he need more practice?

One of the True Hoop posts reviewed a panel discussion titled 'Birth to Stardom, Developing the Modern Athlete in 10,000 Hours?'. This panel was moderated by 'Outliers' author Malcolm Galdwell, famous for his '10,000 hours' theory, (the time one needs to put it to achieve mastery at any given skill), and included (among others), Steve's HR Technology favorite basketball analyst, the great Jeff Van Gundy.

The discussion centered around the modern athlete and the debate surrounding the age-old question of nature vs. nurture. Do sports stars have innate, natural ability that assures success, or are they developed due to the combination of training, early identification, and almost obsessive focus on performance? In other words, does the '10,000 hours' theory apply at the highest levels of athletics?

While in athletics, the inherent physical characteristics that place most of the top performers at an advantage can't realistically be debated (if you are only 5' 3", putting in the 10,000 hours still likely won't land you in the NBA), what is open to discussion is the relative importance in athletic achievement of 'nurture', and the necessity of supremely physically talented athletes to diligently practice, refine, and improve their skills over time. As we know, many of the games greatest stars were not necessarily the hardest workers (see Iverson, Allen in 'Talkin' About Practice').

And certainly the access to and the involvement of mentoring and coaching play a role in athletic development as well; even the most dedicated pracitioner will need guidance along the path, and coaches have to be prepared to adapt their approaches to better fit the talents and goals of the athletes.

In the end, there seemed to be agreement (perhaps obvioulsly), that for most athletes, a combination of 'nature', (raw, physical traits and ability), combined with 'nurture' (work habits, dedication, ability to accept coaching), were necessary conditions for athletes to achieve their greatest potential.  Sure, it could be argued whether the '10,000 hours' level is really relevant in athetics (often the length of time needed to put it 10,000 hours would result in a loss due to aging and injuries of some of the raw physical abilities needed to succeed), but the basic equation of Raw Talent + Hard Work = Success seems to hold.

But beyond the obvious conclusion, the great Jeff Van Gundy offered up this nugget of wisdom, observing that all players that arrive in the NBA have at least a baseline of physical ability, i.e. there are no slow, short, unathletic players, but the real differentiators were more intangible.  According to JVG professional athletes need to balance the physical with the attitudinal.

JVG's money line: “Soft, selfish or stupid. You can be one of these things, but you can’t be two.” 

Super point, and one that likely applies beyond sports as well. While we all have this idea in our minds when we are managing, leading, or recruiting for our organizations of what the 'perfect' or 'high potential' employee looks like, the reality is those 'perfect' employees and candidates are almost impossible to define and to find. But often we don't admit this, and we just keep grinding, keep sourcing to uncover that one person out there that isn't 'soft, selfish, or stupid', when in reality we could live with having two of the three characteristics, and manage around the one that is missing.

The greatest players certainly, win on all three variables, but the other 95% that make up our teams, (and almost all of us) will fall short of at least one of them. Maybe instead of holding on to a mostly unrealistic chase for a once-in-a-generation star, we build up a solid team of role players that can feed off each other, and perhaps make up for one another's shortcomings, (as well as yours).

Do You Have $10?

No, this is not a request for a loan, or even a pitch to donate for earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

Although if you do want to loan me the $10, I suggest you send it to the Red Cross instead.

Rather, I just wanted to highlight a story I came across last week, about a regular guy that set his dreams in motion with just $10.

Mike Neal liked to barbecue (and I admit the barbecue angle was what led me to find this story), and he dreamed of someday having his own barbecue restaurant.  So instead of waiting, hoping, or simply ignoring that dream, Neal simply went for it. 

From the story:

"I had $10, and I went out and got one pack of ribs," said Neal. He set up a grill outside a furniture store and began cooking ribs slathered in his family's special sauce."I'd sell for $5 a sandwich, and people came and started buying them, and I'd go back and get more food, and before I knew it something was happening," he said.

Eventually, continued hard work and dedication led to Neal opening his own restaurant, Michael Neal's Southern Grill,  and developing and marketing his signature barbecue sauce in stores like Walmart.

Sure Neal had a talent for barbecue, and sure good barbecue is about the most wonderful food in the world, but the story is not really about that. The message to me is that you can start small, even $10 small, and still see your dreams realized.  Neal did not see having only $10 as a constraint, he saw it as an opportunity. A start.

So let me ask again, do you have $10?

Postscript - This restaurant is in the 513, winner of the Best HR City. What is it with that town?

I would give you the link to the restaurant's web site or Facebook page, but I don't think they have either, but it sounds like Neal is doing fine without them.

Wikis for your Class (or team)

I am almost midway through a new HR Technology class and the 'Wiki as intranet' project is just starting to get going, I thought it would be a good time to review some of my key findings and observations on the wiki-based class project and some overall observations about Wiki use in the classroom.Flickr - cogdogblog

Honestly, these observations on wiki adoption also apply to any internal organizations as well, I have rolled out wikis for my faculty group and another internal workgroup and have seen many of these same types of issue.

Overview

I am on my third different wiki platform, (SocialText, PbWiki, Confluence), and while they all have their unique strength and weaknesses, the observations below are valid for all three, and I suspect any other platform you could use.  There are two main areas to consider for your class, adoption and administration.

Adoption

1. If Wikis are new to your program, chances are 90% of the students will have never 'used' a Wiki, beyond reading entries on Wikipedia. You will have to devote class time to 'teaching' wiki.

2. You should make wiki use 'required'.  Mandate use of wiki for specific projects, activities, discussions, etc.

3. Even though Wikis are touted as simple, no-training-required tools, doing more that adding simple text will initially require demonstration and review for most non-technical students.

4. Wikis that make as simple as possible the steps for embedding video, slide shows, Flickr images, chat, and polls (love Zoho Polls for this), will be most effective in the classroom.  Too much 'code' to accomplish these tasks will hurt your adoption plans.

5. For the best chances of adoption of the Wiki as the primary class communication platform, put everything on the Wiki. Syllabus, course overview, assignments, presentations, and any 'sign-ups' should all be Wiki pages. Encourage the class to post questions and comments everywhere.

Administration

1. Get yourself trained!  As the instructor or wiki evangelist, you need to be sure you understand, can demonstrate, and clearly articulate the use, benefits, and nuts and bolts of the tool. Students in particular will get quickly frustrated when they encounter technical issues that you can't quickly help them resolve.

2. Old habits are still hard to break, you may need to 'cross-post' for a time in both the Wiki and the old course management system. Certain items like the gradebook still have to reside in the CMS. Try not to make the students have to bounce back and forth between the two platforms too often.

3. While all students are used to group projects, probably none of them will quickly warm up to the concept of 'real-time' editing and  commenting on other's content that is the foundation of wiki. You may need to 'push' to get them more actively collaborating in that fashion.

4. Keep the wiki alive even after the class ends. There's lots of good information there. Figure out a way to keep it accessible for students in the future.

I am absolutely convinced that Wikis are a much more effective tool for almost all class activities, with the added bonus of giving the students exposure and experience to a technology they will see in the workplace.  I have had several students comment at the end of class that the wiki experience was the most beneficial aspect of the class, and that they had plans to implement wiki technologies in their organizations.

If you have used wikis in your class, post a comment and let me know your thoughts.