Month: December 2020

People managers in large corporations must assign performance ratings to individuals in their group. Further, you must conform to an expected distribution of “Superior,” “Meets Expectations,” and “Does Not Meet Expectations” ratings.  You may or may not have some latitude about pay increases related to performance.

Lessons learned the hard way:

Pre-decide that your responsibility is to distinguish performance levels in this reporting period.  Pre-decide you will do this professionally and without grumbling. You want a “tough but fair” reputation.

Ignore the “soft” language you hear about the ratings distribution; take it as a rule not a “if it’s convenient for you” guideline.   These distributions fit some budget decision somewhere, and even when they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Start everyone in your group at “Meets Expectations” level.  Next, identify anyone who did not perform at the agreed-upon level.  You expected more deliverables, more consistent behavior, and you must be able to articulate exactly what the gap is. Then select the people who performed over and above their goals, if anyone – meaning, you would have been perfectly content with fewer deliverables or lower performance.  Keep that a high bar.  Finally, force yourself to rank the remaining people inside the “meets expectation” category. 

Make notes about your decisions to prepare for any large-group calibration discussions, and meeting with each direct report when you convey the final rating.

Calibration meetings favor the prepared.  In really difficult situations it may feel like a steel cage death match. You are likely a manager among managers, part of the larger management organization.  Resist every temptation to blame HR, upper management, and whoever “them” is this time.  You represent the business leadership to your direct reports. 

Be prepared to tell people in the “Meets Expectations” category about their relative position in that category.  This is particularly important for the people in the bottom quartile. It could sound something like this: “You met expectations this year, but frankly, you should know most of your peers performed better.  Let’s work together on setting some stretch goals for next year, and what I need to do to help you achieve those.”

Expect that word will get out quickly about who got what rating and pay raise.  (I’m old school, and we never talked about these things freely, but it is often different today.)  Operate with this mindset: Respect the privacy of individual performance conversations and avoid fueling the gossip engine.

Also, if you are mentoring a successor or someone with high potential, give them insights about how you thought through this process.  You can share insights without violating confidentiality.   This is crucial information for difficult decisions in their future.  This kind of mentoring is how we strengthen the culture of the organization.

We frequently use the phrase “outside the box.” Perhaps we should clarify what’s inside the box, so we know how to step outside it.  My list:

• Everything that has made us successful in the past
• Our self-determined borders about what is possible, and what’s not
• Our right to point fingers and blame “them”
• Our right to justifiable complaints without having to take responsibility for anything less than perfect
• Our preferred levels of stress
• Our views of what’s important
• Our views of what’s interesting
• Our status quo expertise (or at least what we think we’re expert at doing)
• Our favorite narratives about ourselves, and others. This includes our revisionist histories.
• Our fears about change, loss, displacement, insignificance

This is subtly different than our comfort zone. Our comfort zone is a sub-space inside “the box”; the box contains things we’re not comfortable with, but are willing to accept.

The problem with living in the box is the illusion that it’s safe. 

There’s a growing industry of de-cluttering and neatness. The primary strategy is take everything out of a closet or room, and then only put back the items which are most useful or bring you joy. 

I suggest we take a modified form of that strategy:

1. Take the inventory of the box.
2. Identify everything which is meaningful and useful – even some of the painfully gained stuff.
3. Imagine that all the rest goes into the trashcan, fit only for burning.
4. Don’t put it back in the same box. Instead, use them to build a foundation and a walking path to the future. 

Every water molecule in a river behaves according to the same basic rule: Obey gravity, taking the path of least resistance, towards the sea.

All the water in a river is moving, but not moving identically:

• The fastest flow is in the “middle” or the center of the primary channel.
• The slowest forward flow is along the edges, because of the drag of the bottom and shoreline.
• Hydrology measurements demonstrate that at any point in time about 20% of the water is moving upstream. (Think about eddies and water bouncing backwards against rocks, logs, etc.)

Consider the parallels to organization dynamics. Even where there is an aligned purpose (“We’re all going to the sea!”) there are variations in flow that have nothing to do with the character of the water. The flow rate is a function of friction from the environment.

Some individuals are wired for moving fast. Even the “fast” members of your team will occasionally be pulled into an eddy, or bounce again rocks and trees.  Be mindful of the external situation before you make summary judgments about individual performance.

What’s true for individuals is also true for sub-parts of organizations: You can move faster where these is less friction. There are fewer legacy processes and systems. There much less “what got us here won’t get us there” to overcome. There is more intrinsic trust and experienced teams who have more confidence.

It’s not surprising that startup businesses can be nimble and move fast. There’s relatively little internal friction for them to overcome.

Aside from the smooth speed of the central channel of a river, much of what makes a river fascinating and distinctive is the interaction with the rocks, trees, and shoreline. You have dramatic whitewater, falls, swirling water, calmer pools where moss and insects and fish abound.  We know “still waters run deep” yet almost always prefer dramatic rush and spray.

Organizations are mostly valuable for interactions with suppliers, customers, partners, and employees. There are absolutely places where your leadership is needed to streamline and accelerate processes by removing friction elements. Don’t miss some of the “friction” to perfect speed is your real business model at work. 

Key points:

·      Work on unifying narratives so that everyone in your organization “moves” in a consistent direction.

·      Appreciate that internal history and external factors create friction, so that not all parts of your organization are moving at the same speed.

·      Decide carefully what friction elements need to be streamlined, and which are valuable parts of your business model.

(This article was originally published on asmithblog.com)

The people who hold romantic ideas about domestic sheep – fluffy soft white pacifist creatures, vegetarians, communal, speaking in soft tones of “baaaa…” –have never actually been around sheep. Maybe they saw lambs at a petting zoo for a few minutes.

Real-world shepherds have realistic ideas about sheep.  

Sheep are dirty. Their wool acts like a magnet for dirt, twigs, leaves, and poop. They can’t and don’t clean themselves. 

Sheep are dumb. They rarely can extricate themselves from awkward situations. They will play follow-the-leader to their demise. They wander off and can’t find their way back. They need to be moved from field to field because they usually can’t find their way to a new food source without help. 

Sheep are defenseless. A crow can land on their heads and peck at their eyes. They will bite you if they get mad, but otherwise their teeth and hooves don’t frighten predators. If a predator doesn’t move, the sheep forget it’s there. Sheep can’t swim, so they stay away from moving water.  

The Bible describes people as the sheep of God’s pasture. It sounds nice but it is not meant as a compliment.  

I’m certain that your organization is not filled with people as dirty, dumb, or defenseless as actual sheep. 

Yet shepherding is a good model for leadership:  

·      The shepherd must be with the sheep. He must be alert to their needs, and put their needs above his own.  

·      The shepherd is the first forager, mindful of what the sheep need to eat and drink, and guiding them to safe sources.

·      Shepherds are more aware of the weather, the time of day, and lay of the land than the sheep.

·      The shepherd defends the sheep from predators and enemies – and the sheep from other folds which might be unhealthy competition or spread diseases. 

·      Yelling is not effective with sheep, but they are remarkably responsive to firmly worded guidance. 

·      Shepherds work primarily with the leaders in the flock, and leverage their influence.

·      Shepherds “eat last and sleep the least.”  

·      Shepherds will carry weak sheep to help them on their journey. They’ll make sure no sheep are left behind or wander off. 

·      Shepherds don’t expect affection or praise from the herd.  

·      Shepherds are mindful of the bigger picture of why we raise sheep.  

What can you do today to improve your shepherding? 

(This article was originally published on asmithblog.com)