The management bible phần 6 pdf

• Instead of measuring this: number of weeks late, Measure this: number of weeks on time.. out in theopen for everyone to see, but keep individual performance measuressales performance b

• The goal for your line cooks is to avoid food wastage You might courage them by posting a large, personally signed thank-you card

en-to your cooks on the employee bulletin board

• The goal of your property clerks is to increase the average number

of inventory transactions from 50 per day to 75 per day You mightconsider publicly posting a summary of employees’ daily transac-tion counts at the end of each week while praising these employees

in your weekly department staff meeting

• The goal for your automobile service representatives is to improvethe percentage of “excellent” responses on customer feedback cards

by 20 percent You might consider keeping track of the monthlycounts for each service representative and then buy lunch for therep with the highest total for the month

Performance measuring is built on a firm foundation of positivefeedback When employees receive positive feedback from theirmanagers for progress made toward achieving a goal, they will be en-couraged to work that much harder to achieve it Giving negativefeedback, on the other hand, may backfire When you give negativefeedback by pointing out errors, mistakes, and so on, you are makingthe mistake of discouraging the behaviors that you don’t want whenyou should really be encouraging the behavior you want Considerthese examples:

• Instead of measuring this: number of defective printers,

Measure this: number of correctly assembled printers.

• Instead of measuring this: number of weeks late,

Measure this: number of weeks on time.

• Instead of measuring this: quantity of broken widgets,

Measure this: quantity of intact widgets.

Here’s a common question that most managers grapple with:Should the feedback that you provide to employees regarding their per-formance be public or private?

Truth be told, the results will be better when you put group formance measures (total revenues, average days sick, etc.) out in theopen for everyone to see, but keep individual performance measures(sales performance by employee, tardiness rankings by employee, etc.)private You want your team to work together to improve its perfor-mance By tracking and publicizing group measures—and then re-warding improvement—you can get the performance you seek.

per-Do not embarrass your employees or subject them to ridicule by

other employees by putting their individual performance out for one to see If there are problems with individual performance, counseland coach employees privately, and provide additional training andsupport, as necessary

every-OBTAINING IMMEDIATE PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK

It’s up to you and your employees to decide what you measure and thevalues that you measure against When designing a system for measur-ing and monitoring your employees’ performance, consider modeling it

after MARS: milestones, actions, relationships, and schedules, as

de-tailed in the following sections

Setting Your Checkpoints: The Milestones

Goals need a starting point, a finishing point, and points in between

that ref lect progress from start to finish Milestones are the key events

and markers that tell you and your employees how far along you are onthe road to reaching the goals that you’ve established

Consider the goal of finalizing a new product labeling design intwo months The second milestone along the way to your ultimate goalmight be having a draft sketch available for review no later than Feb-ruary 1 If the draft sketch is not submitted until after February 1,you’ll know that the project is running behind schedule If the sketch is

submitted before February 1, you’ll know that the project is on theroad to early completion.

Reaching Your Checkpoints: The Actions

Actions are the individual activities that your employees perform to

get from one milestone to the next To get to the second milestone inthe product label design project, your employees will need to completeseveral actions These actions might include:

• Track down and review customer focus group reports

• Meet with product manager to get her input

• Meet with product marketing manager to get his input

• Conduct brainstorming meeting with graphics staff

• Create at least five draft sketches of new labels

• Schedule meeting to present designs to management

As you can see, each one of these actions moves everyone a little bitcloser to the second milestone—completion of a draft sketch by Febru-ary 1 It’s important to put milestones and actions in writing and totrack them methodically

Sequencing Your Activity: The Relationships

Relationships—how milestones and actions interact with one

an-other—shape the proper sequencing of activities that lead you to thesuccessful, effective accomplishment of your goals Performing certainactions before others can sometimes make achieving milestones easier,faster, and less costly In the above list of actions, for example, it doesnot make sense to create the minimum of five draft sketches beforeobtaining feedback from the product and marketing managers Doing

so could result in substantial rework when you find out that the productmanager is dead set against using the kinds of ideas that are at theheart of the draft sketches that your department has produced

Establishing Your Time Frame: The Schedules

Finally, putting your plan into action requires the development of a

schedule showing anticipated completion dates of the individual

ac-tions in your plan The dates you select will result from some tion of your previous experience doing similar tasks, combined withanything new that may impact the project Many managers find it use-ful to pad schedules with a little extra time here and there to allow forunanticipated problems or delays For example, in our product labelsketch project, you might expect that you’ll be able to obtain feedbackfrom the product manager within a few days, but schedule one week inthe event the product manager is too busy doing other things to giveyour project her immediate attention

combina-The goals that you’ll measure and monitor result from the tion of each characteristic—milestones, actions, relationships, andschedules If goals can’t be measured and monitored, how will youknow if you and your staff have achieved them?

applica-PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

Theory is nice, but practice is better Each of the following real-lifecases demonstrates how measuring and monitoring happens in the realworld What lessons can you apply in your own organization?

Case 1: World-Class Performance

Before Bob started his own company, Nelson Motivation, Inc., he wasput in charge of his previous employer’s product customization depart-ment When Bob came on board, the department was in shambles—project management was haphazard at best, with no clear system oforganization, and customers had to wait weeks or even months to re-ceive their customized products, which often came to them withcountless errors Bob was given the task of straightening the mess out

ASK BOB AND PETER: How do you handle difficultemployees?

Handling difficult employees can be a real challenge for any ager, regardless of how experienced he or she is Managers proba-bly spend 80 percent of their staff management time dealing withthe problems of only 20 percent of their workers—the ones who arethe most difficult and troubled Unfortunately, there is really littleyou can do about an employee’s personality It has taken years—decades, really—for an employee to develop his or her unique atti-tudes and quirks The simple answer is that you’re not going tochange all of that history overnight Our advice is to focus less onthe subjective issue of your employees’ personalities and more onthe objective issue of their performance Sure, we all want to workwith pleasant people, but ultimately it is their performance thatcounts If a difficult employee brought $1 billion of revenue into yourcompany every year, we suspect you wouldn’t be very upset abouthis or her behavior anymore So, rather than trying to create newpersonalities for your difficult or high-need employees, focus yourefforts on monitoring and tracking their performance instead If it’snot up to snuff, act quickly to counsel them and work out a plan forbringing performance up to acceptable levels If they still can’t hack

man-it, you have an objective basis for making a transfer or termination

?

The first thing Bob did after reviewing the department’s tions and collecting data from internal and external customers was todevelop a checklist of tasks to bring the organization up to a world-class level of performance At the center of Bob’s plan was a completeoverhaul of the department’s system for measuring and monitoringemployee performance

opera-Step 1: Set goals with employees After Bob drafted a checklist of

what he wanted to accomplish, he talked with the employees in

his new department and interviewed the department’s customers—both inside and outside the organization Bob quickly filled sevenpages with negative comments about the department, workprocesses, finished products, and more On his first day in the office,Bob got to witness a typical problem first hand when a companysalesperson called in some urgently needed changes to one of theprojects—completed the day before—only to find out that thesoftware version of that particular product was lost Bob figuredout exactly what was interfering with his employees’ ability to do

a good job and then he discussed department needs and changeswith them Everyone agreed on a set of mutually acceptable goalsand a game plan and—together—Bob and his employees set thestage for the next step in achieving world-class performance

Step 2: Change the performance-monitoring system When Bob

took a look at his new department’s performance reporting tems, he realized that the measures were all negative: late projects,number of mistakes, backlogged orders, and so on There wasplenty of tracking of negative performance measures, but no track-ing of positive performance measures Bob installed a new systemthat focused on only one performance measure—a positive one—the number of on-time projects This changed everything WhenBob took over, the department could count only a few on-timeprojects Within two years after putting this new performancemeasurement system into place, his department accomplished2,700 on-time projects—a night-and-day difference

sys-Step 3: Revise the plan As department performance improved,

Bob implemented other improvements as well: 24-hour projectquotes, project indexing, software storage, streamlining of royaltyand invoicing systems, and more Soon, the company’s top man-agement team noticed what was going on in Bob’s department andliked what they saw The department was routinely completing 80percent of its projects within two weeks after receipt, and the

T H E R E A L W O R L D

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is one of the classictruisms of management We can add to this the fact that if you canmeasure it, but don’t, you are likely not to get the results youhoped for A key part to being a professional manager is to makethings happen according to a plan If a plan is created, but thenfiled away never to be looked at until the end of the year, it isworthless Your plans need to be living documents with actionsteps and deadlines As the saying goes, “A goal is a dream with adeadline.” And every deadline should have milestones that lead

up to the final success

customization function went from being a liability that the pany’s salespeople refused to use to becoming a leading competi-tive advantage for the company

com-Case 2: Helping Your Employees Give 100 Percent

Because of ongoing performance problems, management at CascadesDiamond, Inc in Thorndike, Massachusetts, decided to survey its em-ployees The results showed that 79 percent of employees felt theyweren’t being rewarded for a job well done, 65 percent felt that man-agement treated them disrespectfully, and 56 percent were pessimisticabout their work With the evidence clearly in front of them, manage-ment took the following steps to fix the company’s problems:

Step 1: Create a program based on the behaviors you want

Cas-cades Diamond’s management team chartered a new club in thecompany, the 100 Club, to encourage and reinforce these particu-lar behaviors:

measur-Step 2: Assign points to the desired behaviors Employees received

25 points for a year of perfect attendance but, for each full or tial day of absence, points were deducted from their totals Em-ployees who went an entire year without formal disciplinaryactions received 20 points, and employees who worked for a yearwithout injuries resulting in lost time received 15 points Employ-ees could also receive points for making cost-saving suggestions,safety suggestions, or participating in community service projectssuch as Red Cross blood drives or the United Way Managementmade sure that the number of points was proportionate to the be-havior’s importance to the organization and that the numeric goalsweren’t impossible to reach or demotivating

par-Step 3: Measure and reward employee performance Measuring

and rewarding desired employee behavior were at the heart of cades Diamond’s program It was the job of supervisors and man-agers to closely track the performance of employees and assignpoints for each of the factors When employees reached the cov-eted 100-point level, they were inducted into the 100 Club, and thejacket was theirs

Cas-Of course, results speak louder than words In the program’s firstyear, Cascades Diamond saved $5.2 million, increased productivity bynearly 15 percent, and reduced quality-related mistakes by 40 percent.Not only that, but 79 percent of employees said that their work quality

concerned them more now than before the program started, 73 cent reported that the company showed concern for them as people,and 86 percent of employees said that the company and managementconsidered them to be either “important” or “very important.” Quite achange in employee attitudes, to say the least.

per-TOOLS FOR WORLD-CLASS MONITORING

The measurement system you select will be simpler or more complexbased on how simple or complex the performance to be measured Ifthe goal is simply to increase the number of customer grades of “excel-lent” for your customer service staff from 500 per month to 600 permonth, then a simple count will tell you whether your employees haveachieved the goal However, if the goal is to design and fabricate a coldfusion reactor in one year, your job of designing a system for measuringperformance will be much more difficult

Graphical representations—Gantts, PERTs, and the like—of allthe goals, milestones, actions, and schedules involved in a project areoften much easier to understand than text-based lists of these items,especially for complex or prolonged projects In the sections that fol-low, we’ll explore some of the most common and useful

Bar Charts

Bar charts, sometimes known as Gantt charts, allow managers to

quickly see exactly where the project is at any given date and compareactual progress with planned progress

Bar charts contain three basic elements:

1. Timeline: This is the scale by which you measure progress The

timeline can be illustrated with any units that work best for yourprojects, including days, weeks, months, or more The timeline ap-

pears along the horizontal axis (the x-axis) in most bar charts.

2. Actions: These are the individual activities that must be performed

to get from one milestone to the next In a bar chart, actions arelisted—usually in chronological order—vertically along the left

side of the chart (the y-axis).

3. Bars: Bars on your chart indicate the estimated length of time that

a particular action should take to accomplish Short bars representshort periods of time; long bars represent long periods of time.The bars provide a quick visual reference of complete and incom-plete actions

The advantages of the Gantt chart are its simplicity, ease of ration and use, and low cost While Gantt charts are generally unsuit-able for large, complex projects, they are great for projects that arerelatively simple

prepa-Flowcharts

As we mentioned above, bar charts are great for simple projects, butnot so great for complex projects Why? Because they don’t illustratethe sequential f low of actions in a project that are predominant in com-

plex projects This is where f lowcharts come to the rescue Like bar

charts, f lowcharts also have three basic elements:

1. Actions: Arrows indicate actions, leading from one event to the

next on the f lowchart until the project is completed The arrows’primary purpose in a f lowchart is to illustrate the sequential rela-tionship of actions to one another, and their length is not necessar-ily proportional to the amount of time between actions

2. Events: Events, represented in f lowcharts by numbered circles, are

used to indicate completion of a particular action

3. Time: Time estimates are inserted alongside each action (arrow) in

the f lowchart By following a particular path and adding up the

number of time units, you can determine the total time for thecompletion of an action.

Flowcharts show exactly how actions relate to one another, and the

critical path—the actions that determine how soon that a project can

be completed—can be ascertained by following the longest path in

terms of time This method of analysis is commonly known as the ical Path Method (CPM).

Crit-Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) is a variation of

CPM that uses statistical techniques to average a range of possibletimes to arrive at estimates for each action when the time to completeindividual actions cannot be estimated with a high degree of certainty

PUTTING NUMBERS INTO PRACTICE

Of course, once you have all your goals, measures, and other mance measurement tools up and running, you’ve got to use them topositively impact the performance of your employees Here’s how toaccomplish that particular task:

perfor-• Compare results to expectations Let’s say that your employee has a

goal to complete a report by November 1 The first question is: Wasthe report completed on time? As it turns out, the report was com-pleted on October 15,—two weeks before the deadline This par-ticular goal was accomplished with time to spare

• Record the results Note of the results in writing—in your

em-ployee’s file or in a computer-based project tracking system whereyou keep track of all your employees’ goals and responsibilities

• Praise, coach, or counsel your employees Give your employee a

reward for accomplishing the goal—a simple verbal or written

thank-you is probably sufficient If the goal was not met, ever, find out why not and what your employee will do to ensurethat the goal is achieved the next time.

how-P O how-P Q U I Z !Monitoring employee performance is an important tool for buildinghigh-performing organizations Ref lect for a few moments on what youhave learned in this chapter; then ask yourself the following questions:

1. In what ways do you currently monitor employee performance?

2. Are your measures clear and objective?

3. How do you communicate performance measures and expectations

How managers can create an environment where

employees will perform

The link between performance appraisals and

accountability

You need a process

Common traps in the evaluation process

Be a partner with your employees, not an executioner

ARE PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS OBSOLETE?

One of the goals, if not the most important goal, of the performance

ap-praisal and review process is to motivate employees Yes, we know that’snot what comes to mind when most people think of their performanceappraisal process, which goes to show how far afield we’ve gotten onthis topic At its best, the performance review process encourages em-ployees to put forth their best effort and take initiative at work toachieve both organizational and personal goals At its worst, the exactopposite happens and employees are made to feel unimportant, abused,and unappreciated for the job they’ve done Tensions mount, feelingsare bruised, and goodwill is lost

Performance appraisals and reviews are a necessary and importantpart of work and, for better or worse, are a reality in most organiza-tions However, as many companies are learning, traditional perfor-mance appraisals fail miserably in positively inf luencing employeebehavior In reality, the performance appraisal process has few truesupporters Indeed, many managers feel that appraisals are ineffec-tive—a fact that their employees would likely readily agree with

In a traditional performance review, the manager typically meetswith an employee once a year and in less than an hour (and with lessthan an hour’s preparation), attempts to get through the necessaryreview forms from personnel to trigger the employee’s annual raise.More typically, however, the review often focuses on a negative as-pect of the employee’s recent job performance—not the previous 12months’ work—and is far from an accurate ref lection of the em-ployee’s job performance

As a result, an overall dissatisfaction with this system by both theemployer and the employee is ref lected repeatedly in surveys and stud-ies Employees report feeling intimidated, defensive, short-changed,and manipulated in this process They feel that appraisals are too