Category : Talent Management

BY NATE DVORAK AND RYAN PENDELL

Everybody loves working for Gary.

He’s been a manager at the same manufacturing company for 20 years. He knows every detail about his employees’ lives — from their favorite teams to their kids’ names.

He delivers honest, unflinching feedback that makes people carefully examine their performance. And he makes people laugh — often in the same conversation.

Gary has coached and mentored every person on his team for decades. Without a doubt, many of his coworkers have stayed at the company because they love having Gary as their leader.

This year Gary decided to retire, and the site leadership thinks they have the perfect person to fill his role: Shanna. She is a conscientious, methodical and an extremely reliable supervisor. Shanna’s team has been the plant’s top performers since she arrived five years ago, and she has developed many cost-saving and safety-improving initiatives. Site leaders are eager to promote Shanna to expand her leadership skills and keep her engaged.

There’s just one problem: Shanna is nothing like Gary. They have completely different leadership styles, personalities and — although nobody says it out loud — Shanna is 30 years younger than Gary. What’s going to happen when millennial Shanna gets thrown in with a team of baby boomer “lifers” with more experience and longer tenures? Honestly, even Gary was secretly skeptical.

Getting Honest About New Generations in Management

Gary’s and Shanna’s situation is increasingly common in workplaces today as the baby boomer generation retires and Gen Xers and millennials take on more supervisory and leadership roles. Traditional organizations that worked desperately to attract millennials are now having to navigate an intergenerational workplace.

Millennials make up 38% of the workforce, and that percentage is only increasing. But as millennials enter management roles, only 39% strongly agree that they know the strengths of the people they work with regularly, which is lower than all other generations.

A major component of managing changes in leadership is easing individuals’ anxieties and worries. Strengths-based education and dialogue are valuable tools for doing this:

• CliftonStrengths focuses on future potential. When people think about their strengths, they focus less on how things could go wrong and more on how they can make things go right.
• CliftonStrengths is universal. All people — regardless of generation — have talents that contribute to their team’s success. A strengths-based approach shifts the conversation from “us vs. them” differences, stereotypes and biases.
• CliftonStrengths is personal. In times of change, people want to know that somebody is paying attention to them personally. Having strengths-based conversations lets each person know that they are seen and respected as an individual and a contributor.
• Strengths-based conversations focus on the positive. Having conversations about CliftonStrengths help individuals think more about why differences are good rather than bad.

Not Bad, Just Different Strengths

When Gary’s team filed into the conference room, the skepticism was obvious. Here were Gary, Shanna and Joan from site leadership who were going to tell everybody to “get along and give Shanna a chance.”

Joan began by talking about Gary’s top CliftonStrengths themes: Woo, Significance,Restorative, Relator and Maximizer. She asked the team to talk about how Gary used his strengths in his management role. Everyone shared what made Gary so beloved and irreplaceable. It was clear that this recognition meant a lot to Gary.

Next, Joan presented Gary’s bottom CliftonStrengths themes: Achiever, Adaptability,Arranger, Command and Competition. She asked everyone to talk about Gary’s bottom themes. With a lot of good-natured laughs, most of the team agreed that these areas of lesser talent were “no big deal” because Gary was good at so much else.

Finally, Joan brought up Shanna’s top CliftonStrengths themes: Consistency, Relator,Discipline, Achiever and Restorative. Joan asked Shanna in what areas she used her strengths as a manager. To everyone’s surprise, Shanna had two of the same top strengths as Gary — they just showed up a little differently.

One team member mentioned that he had the same strengths as Shanna. Another said that she had some of Gary’s other strengths and could help out if Shanna needed it. Soon people were sharing their strengths and letting Shanna know how they worked best.

By the end of the meeting, the team was buzzing with anticipation. The question on everyone’s mind had shifted from, “What does Shanna lack?” to “What is Shanna amazing at, and how can we best work with her?”

The facts of the situation had not changed: Shanna wasn’t Gary. She would never be Gary. But Shanna had unique talents too. The team didn’t need another Gary to survive. In fact, Shanna might be just the person the team needed to solve some of its most intractable problems.

Joan noticed by the end of the meeting that Gary was beaming.

“I’m just so glad to see that the team I built is going to do just fine without me,” said Gary afterward. “Shanna is going to be great.”

Gallup can help you bring the power of CliftonStrengths to your organization:

• Learn how CliftonStrengths solutions for managers can help you maximize your team’s potential.
• See how one organization uses CliftonStrengths to boost employee engagement and slash turnover.
• Watch this free, on-demand briefing to learn how to build a strengths-based culture.
• Download our exclusive Strengths Meta-Analysis research to understand the powerful connections between employee strengths development and business performance.

Nate Dvorak is a Researcher, Predictive Analytics, at Gallup.

Ryan Pendell is a writer at Gallup.

 

By: Allison Rossett

I PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE IN TRAINING magazine 20 years ago. But wait. Stop. Before you pass it over as old news, consider the title and topic. Consider the global move towards talent management. While my experience today reflects siblings who are not at peace, training and organizational development do sometimes work together, though not always with grace and enthusiasm. There is more to be done to assure alignment and results.

Sandy Quesada, who appears early in the original article, thinks the relationship has grown more positive. Back then she was at Amoco. Now she is Vice President, Organization Effectiveness, Leadership and Development (OELD) at Amtrak. Sandy put it this way:

Today, there is full understanding that all of the human capital specialty areas (talent acquisition, compensation, organizational development/effectiveness, benefits, training, and so on) must be integrated and aligned. Amtrak’s OELD department has incorporated key organization development and effectiveness specialty areas to ensure employee quality (pre‐hire and post training assessments, risk management), business needs/requirements (workforce planning/analysis), talent management (performance management, succession planning development, professional, technical, and leadership training), and successful implementation (change and project management methods). Businesses are now understanding that the attraction, development, and retention of high‐performing talent results in high business success.

For all their similarity of interests, training and OD are like feuding siblings who don’t speak. It’s time they started. On an airplane somewhere between Denver and San Diego, an executive mused about why his training people and his organization development people couldn’t seem to work together. He thought he was encouraging collaboration, but what he saw instead was foot‐dragging.

“Is it something about our organization?” he wondered. “Is it something I’m doing? Is it the individuals involved? Or is this typical?” His questions forced me to admit that I think a gulf indeed exists between training and organization development (OD), at least more typically than not.

I first noticed the chasm more than a decade ago. During a consulting project at a manufacturing company, the training staff complained at length about a manager they considered unreasonable. Without exception, they attributed her faults to her background in OD.

Not long after, I suggested to a group of colleagues that we all attend an American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) luncheon presentation on the topic of organization development. Several of my training associates chose to pass, observing that OD wasn’t particularly relevant to training.

Yet another example presented itself about five years ago. I was teaching a class on needs assessment for some training professionals in a computer company. One of the messages was that the data one gathers in assessing a performance problem will often point to solutions other than training—solutions like team‐building, culture change, strategy alignment, or feedback systems. One gentleman objected, arguing pretty much as follows: “I have a problem with this because we don’t know about all those approaches. We aren’t the people who handle any of that. We don’t work with them. They aren’t even located anywhere near us.” There were nods all around. In a room with about 30 managers, nobody disagreed.

Such has been my experience of the relationship between the training world and the OD world. So the phone call from Sandy Quesada not long ago came as a surprise. Quesada was then a training manager at Amoco Corp. in Houston. She remembered that I’d been tracking the peculiarities between training and organization development and wanted to know if I’d play a role in getting Amoco’s training and OD units to work together more closely. (Didn’t I think that their shared commitment to analysis might be a good place to start?) Within the month, someone at another company, this time in financial services, called to chat about a similar initiative.

Suddenly people are interested in collaboration between training and organization development. Why now? Maybe it’s the quality movement with its belief in cross‐functionality. Maybe there’s growing recognition that what counts is results and that business results depend upon alignment between what people are taught and what organizations actually practice and applaud. Maybe it’s a newfound inclination to use systematic assessments to define solutions to performance problems. Maybe it’s renewed customer focus. Maybe “performance technology” is finally shifting from idea to reality. Or maybe it’s the collective impact of years of wasted opportunities. Whatever the causes, there is growing enthusiasm for aligning OD and training.

How might we go about that?

WHAT THEY DO

Just what is organization development? Plenty of definitions can be found among practitioners and in the literature. (Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal’s Reframing Organizationsand Michael Harrison’s Diagnosing Organizations are two favorite sources.) But the only way to achieve much agreement on a single definition is to sketch very broadly and, consequently, not very usefully: OD involves attention to diagnosis, strategy, roles, systems, processes, and measurements that enable organizations and people to achieve their goals.

A more useful question is: What do OD professionals do? Here we can draw a more robust picture. Some create high‐commitment work teams, an effort that often involves rethinking leadership and power relationships. Others participate in projects that transform organizational structures, beliefs, values, cultures, and systems. OD people use a wide array of interventions, including leadership development, team‐building, organizational design, culture change, strategic planning, facilitation of meetings and groups, conflict resolution, enhanced participation programs, and performance management.

What, then, is training? Webster’s defines it this way: “ … to make a person or animal efficient in some activity by instruction and repeated practice ….” Somehow that fails to capture the richness of the field I know and love.

So what do trainers do? Most analyze needs. Some build training courses. Others deliver courses. Some coordinate people and facilities. Many create instructor‐led programs; some create self‐study programs in print and technology‐based formats. Trainers conduct evaluations, create job aids and electronic performance support systems, build multimedia products, serve as performance consultants, select and coordinate training vendors, coach employees in the workplace, establish on‐the‐job development programs, and more.

SIBLINGS …

Trouble is, every time I assign an activity to training or to organization development, I can think of an example that contradicts the classification—a training manager whose life is devoted to team‐building or an OD person who is a skilled course developer or instructor. In many ways, training and OD professionals are siblings:

Both traffic in change. Training and OD practitioners agree that they have responsibility for growing their people and organizations, for playing significant roles in transformation. Amoco has now established an entity called the Organizational Capability Group (OCG), charged with coordinating efforts to bring about corporate change. Training and organization development are but two of many specialized units formally linked to enhance initiatives aimed at performance improvement. Says Katie Smith, practice area leader for instructional systems development (ISD) at Amoco: “When it first happened, I didn’t have a clue about how it could work. Since OCG, many of our OD consultants are now in long‐term productive relationships with a single client, and they are right there and positioned to leverage training and the other OCG service units.”

Both are driven by clients’ needs for improved performance. Whether the request is for a course on Lotus Notes or a curriculum to update the skills of auditors or assistance with strategic planning, training and OD professionals perceive themselves as responding to and serving their customers’ articulated requirements.

Both acknowledge responsibility for customer education and business partnership. While being responsive to the needs that customers express, most trainers and OD people agree to some responsibility for developing the customer’s understanding of performance improvement and, therefore, the accuracy of customers’ perceptions of their own needs. In other words, professionals in both fields believe that the customer is not always right. More, they believe that ethical practice often forbids giving customers exactly what they ask for. Instead, the professional is supposed to probe and study the nature of the performance problem and sometimes to disagree with the customer’s proposed solution. (“Yes, I know you want a team‐building course, but the problem here seems to be fuzzy goals, not poor teamwork.”) As Jeff Lickson of The Consortium, a Houston consulting firm, puts it, both trainers and OD specialists are supposed to “Just say whoa” to hasty requests.

Both are committed to assessment and measurement. OD and training professionals espouse allegiance to searching analyses, continuous measurement, and basing their recommendations on solid data. Most trainers and OD people would hesitate to admit that they based an intervention on a hunch, or on a personal preference (for multimedia or visioning or whatever), or because the boss likes it. Practitioners in both groups take pride in diagnosis. There are, of course, cases that demonstrate that this is sometimes more a goal than a description of actual practice.

Both are committed to systematic approaches. Embedded in the literature and customs of both groups is a demand that practitioners go about their business systematically instead of “winging it.” They are supposed to use defined processes and orderly approaches. They should have clearly articulated goals. Their activity should be data‐driven.

In addition, another mantra is enjoying rekindled allegiance—systems thinking. The systems paradigm commits the practitioner to analyzing causes, using these root causes to define strategies, and establishing cross‐functional and wholistic approaches to improve performance. In the training world, systems thinking has roots in classic books and teachings by people like Robert Mager and Joe Harless. Today, readers in both the training and OD camps are embracing works such as Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization and Geary Rummler’s Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart.

… BUT NOT TWINS

Though there are many similarities between them, OD and training professionals tend to be keenly aware of their differences. The distinctions that follow are generalizations, valuable for the discussion they encourage, not for their application to any one setting or person:

Focus of Attention. Historically, trainers have prided themselves on what they can do for individuals, while OD specialists have looked more toward the entire organization. More recently, members of both groups have been talking about the need to expand their views to encompass the work, the worker, and the workplace. Though alliterative and appealing, this enlargement of perspective is far from a done deal and is complicated by the emerging importance of teams. Who serves teams? While the obvious answer is that we all do, teams present opportunities for both collaboration and conflict between trainers and ODers.

Nature of the Customer. There is a perception that the customers associated with organization development tend to reside at higher levels in the organization. In a mixed group of training and OD professionals, one OD specialist pointed to what she saw as a difference between them: “We work with the executives, and I don’t think you do.” While the number of exceptions to this statement is probably growing, the trainers in the room didn’t disagree. This perception doesn’t encourage trust, according to Cora Pendergast, a San Diego consultant with master’s degrees in both educational technology and organization development. She notes that trainers are sometimes reticent with OD people, who tend to earn more money than trainers and whose role is to assess the organization and share information with an executive.

Perception of Role and Power. Another perception is that OD professionals are more typically found in strategic roles while trainers labor in tactical arenas. When pressed on this, both sides do some breast‐beating, with trainers acknowledging the need to be more strategic and OD people admiring the trainers’ tangible tactical successes and the customer appreciation that comes from them.

An incident during a class on how to conduct a needs assessment illustrated how the differences in perspectives can play out. The group was working on a case in which an executive sought help with what was initially described as “messed‐up performance appraisals.” We talked for 15 minutes or so about diagnostic strategies to ferret out the nature of the problems with the appraisals, and how to determine a good solution. We were, I thought, appropriately skeptical about training as the sole solution to this appraisal problem. But then an OD specialist in the class challenged our complacency: “I think we’re jumping into fixing the appraisals too quickly. Before we look at randomly pulled appraisals and model appraisals, and before we interview supervisors and so on, shouldn’t we be talking to management about whether the organization ought to reconsider its approaches to hierarchy, appraisal and performance review? You’re assuming the leadership knows what it’s doing with its performance management strategy.” And we were. Few trainers are naturally inclined to challenge the basic assumptions underlying organizational practices, to push hard at the wisdom of a request, or to provide leadership in discussions of strategy and alignment. OD people are more likely to describe that as their role.

Where we Live. At Amoco and elsewhere, most organization development consultants are entrenched in long‐term relationships with clients, while training professionals tend to be peripatetic, engaging in more and shorter interventions for several corporate units. One effect of this is that trainers may spend more of their time on project management and documentation, since unfamiliar clients are more likely to demand a formal rationale for any intervention and to insist on seeing some concrete evidence of success. The positive side is that these demands encourage the kind of analysis and measurement that trainers say they want to do anyway.

Areas of Comfort. Suppose a needs assessment reveals that the main cause of a department’s performance problem is that its manager is inconsistent and capricious. How comfortable are you about going where that data wants to take you? If you’re a trainer, the answer probably is, not very. This is a rather sweeping generalization, but more OD professionals than trainers are at ease in the realm of conflict, climate, and feelings.

Computer‐training manager Dawn Hall of Hunter Industries in San Marcos, CA, is forthright about it. “I didn’t know what organization developers did,” she says, “so I couldn’t figure out how to coordinate with them. Now I’m getting them involved in conflict resolution and team facilitation. They’re better at it than I am.” Consultant Pendergast agrees, noting that OD specialists “take more interest in personal change and attitude, while trainers tend to focus more between the ears, more on skills acquisition.”

Event vs. Process Orientation. While both training and OD professionals get tagged with reputations for analysis paralysis, OD people suffer much more from that image. Valid or not, the perception is that ODers love process and resist closure. Trainers, on the other hand, get credit for consummating their projects. But here’s the rub: These trainers are then charged with being satisfied with educational events instead of pursuing the more elusive but higher‐value systems fixes.

SOME MARRIAGES

The executive on the airplane isn’t the only leader interested in improving the relationship between training and organization development. Now, finally, some companies are moving to blur conventional distinctions between the two. Like Amoco, they see it as a strategy for performance improvement.

Andersen Consulting Education. This St. Charles, IL–based group has received national awards for its commitment to training. But where once Andersen Consulting hired primarily instructional designers and technologists, the company now makes sure to select some people with formal training and experience in organizational design and strategic planning. It’s a business decision, says Larry Silvey, a partner and managing director at Andersen; the firm isn’t doing education for education’s sake. The purposes are change, performance improvement, and business outcomes. For that, Andersen needs a bigger and more cross‐functional toolkit.

AT&T Universal Card Service. Linda Swanson, vice president of human resources at this 1992 Baldrige Award–winning company, says her unit is shifting to a more consultative role, where OD people, human resources people, and trainers perceive themselves first and foremost as business partners to each other and their customers. Bob O’Neal, director of training at Jacksonville, FL–based UCS, puts it like this: “In the past, training would do performance analyses and come up with training and non‐training solutions. Then we’d beg to put solution systems in place. The new organization formalizes all this.”

The new collaborative goals are reinforced by the measurements the HR unit now uses to gauge its success. Instead of counting bodies in classes or the number of team‐facilitation gigs it runs, the new organization will be judged by its ability to contribute to business results. O’Neal is laboring to link services to real problems in the organization and then to measure the improvements that occur.

The United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard has been moving in this direction for several years, as indicated by the “Training Division’s” name change to the Training and Performance Improvement Division. According to Lt. Cmdr. Terry Bickham, commanding officer of the Pacific Area Training Team, this is much more than a change in the letterhead. In July 1994, the Coast Guard commandant issued the equivalent of an executive order (COMDTINST 1500.23) articulating a new philosophy of training, education, and development. The document recognizes the limitations of training without root‐cause analysis and presses the organization toward systemic solutions. An attachment to the actual Coast Guard document demonstrates a much broader philosophy of performance, referring to a wide array of “job performance influences,” like job aids, achievable criteria, policy, feedback, worthy tasks, confidence, strong leadership, timely training, coaching and more. The order ensures that trainers and OD specialists will cooperate in the effort, no matter their place in the organizational hierarchy.

Bickham cites the topic of leadership as a recent success. Historically, the Coast Guard offered formal leadership training in several locations and formats, each associated with the rank or enlistment status of trainees. Henceforth, all offerings, including those provided to midlevel enlisted people, will occur at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. The idea of bringing together many levels of Coast Guard people at the academy represents a significant cultural change, says Bickham. “It says very strong things about the importance of leadership in our organization, top to bottom. It was the right thing to do, and it wouldn’t have happened without the big‐picture collaboration of trainers and organizational developers.”

ALIGNING TRAINING AND OD

The relationship between training and organization development may be evolving, but it’s certainly not happening everywhere. When pressed to describe the connection between training and OD in his company, a training executive at a large technology firm dropped his voice and admitted to managing it so that he and his people “didn’t bump into the organizational development group.” This executive is a strong advocate of shifting training’s focus away from educational events and toward systemic solutions based on good needs assessments, and he was slightly embarrassed about the gulf between his people and the OD unit. He acknowledged the oddity of the rift, given his belief in cross‐functional performance support, but he hadn’t done anything about moving toward either acquaintance or alliance.

Situations like that serve neither the professionals nor their companies. Here are some suggested strategies for enhancing collaboration between OD and training.

Capitalize on High‐Level Sponsorship. This article began with an executive—not a trainer or an OD person but a client of both functions—who sat on an airplane and wondered why the two didn’t collaborate. It was the Coast Guard commandant, not someone from training or OD, who could employ a directive to make collaboration the rule rather than an exception.

Develop High‐Level Sponsorship. If it doesn’t exist, try to create it. If your organization’s leaders are unaware of the possibilities, educate them. Cite examples of the cynicism generated when employees are trotted off to classes that have nothing to do with the key behaviors the organization really desires or rewards. Nearly every company has examples of unsupported training events. You’ll likely have to look no further than mandated sessions in telephone skills, continuous process improvement, diversity, or teamwork.

Demonstrate the Fit with Existing and Emerging Initiatives Is a quality‐improvement drive under way at your company? That’s a natural. So is the recent interest in “the learning organization.” Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline and David Garvin in a 1993 article on organizational learning in the Harvard Business Review both lament the cost of organizational boundaries and cheer the benefits derived from more permeable membranes. General Electric CEO Jack Welch identifies “boundarylessness” as a key tenet of GE’s corporate strategy.

Create Pilot Collaborations. Before enacting anything resembling formal reorganization, try some pilot projects. Measure their impact. Publicize the business results they achieve. Establish teams that include OD and training people, and assign them to help key clients solve performance problems. Create ad hoc and visiting relationships so that familiarity can encourage alliances.

Encourage People in Each Specialty to Learn More about the Other. Focus on the commonalities as well as the differences. Use sample requests for training or OD assistance as the basis for discussion about similar and distinct perspectives and approaches. Together, read and discuss the work of Edgar Schein, Chris Argyris, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, M. David Merrill, and Roger Schank.

Analyze What Hinders Collaboration. There are often incentives that create distance and even competition between the two service units. Recognize the rivalry that can emerge in billable contexts, when both groups are trying to achieve their target percentages or recover their costs. Examine the history of the relationship. Work with the leadership of the two specializations to address these obstacles and transcend turf battles.

DRAWING PICTURES

The fact that it is hard to make any case at all against building alliances between training and organization development doesn’t mean that those alliances are easy to bring about. Many trainers are genuinely sold on the idea of broader analyses and examining non‐training solutions to performance problems, but that doesn’t necessarily inspire them to reach out to OD specialists. The Coast Guard, Amoco, AT&T’s UCS unit, and Andersen, large organizations all, have chosen to bring specialized people together in structured and ad hoc ways. In other places, the trend is toward expanding the individual training professional’s repertoire. One friend in government suggests that this individual‐development strategy occurs because partnerships are perceived as too hard to effect.

OD and training are professions in transition, buffeted by shifts in priorities regarding empowerment, organizational structure, and specialization vs. generalization. The only certainty is management’s desire for higher quality, lower costs, faster cycle times, and overall performance improvement. Eventually, these critical goals will precipitate more leveraging of training and OD through means narrow and grand, formal and informal.

At a training conference last year in Atlanta, Amoco’s Quesada and I asked about 100 people to draw a graphic picture of the relationship between training and OD in their organizations. We got circles. We got squares. We got smiley faces and frowning faces. We got lots of white space. What we didn’t get much of was overlap, proximity, and arrows. What kind of picture would you draw?

Biography

This article was first published in Training Magazine, April 1996, 33(4), 53–59, www.trainingmag.com. At the time of its writing, Allison Rossett was a professor in the department of educational technology at San Diego State University and the author of Training Needs Assessment and A Handbook of Job Aids. Today she blogs a little, consults some, and works out a lot. Visit her website at www.allisonrossett.com and contact her at allison.rossett@gmail.com.

 

By: Helene Tracey, M.Ed.

In the sincerest effort to help another, know the complexities associated with feedback. Resist the enthusiasm conjured up by gift giving and the expectation that gifts are met with gratitude. Always provide a gift that is thoughtfully chosen and caringly given. The receiver of a gift sets its value.

An early definition of feedback according to Merriam-Webster did not apply to people, but rather to machines:

“the return to the input of a part of the output of a machine, system, or process (as for producing changes in an electronic circuit that improve performance or in an automatic control device that provides self-corrective action.”

Somewhere along the line, someone applied this idea to people thereby creating one of the greatest interpersonal challenges: how to give feedback that isn’t resisted or rejected. Google “giving feedback” and a myriad of models to effectively give feedback appears. An old time favorite, the “sandwich” model, is recognized by many HR pros to be widely used and vastly ineffective. They explain its flaws: Upon hearing feedback is coming, the recipient braces for it and misses the first “positive” comment. Then, and now teetering between the virtual pieces of feedback bread, the person is told the “critical” piece of the feedback and uneasiness causes the recipient to miss the message, resist it, or worse debate it. Finally, the last “positive” comment is made and is inevitably not heard at all.

Why so many models to bestow a gift? Why isn’t this gift universally and enthusiastically embraced? Clues can be found if we further explore the notion of resistance to feedback. In his article, Managing with the Brain in Mind, David Rock expounds on what happens when we hear: “Can I give you some advice (feedback)?” (https://www.strategy-business.com/article/09306?gko=5df7f) He writes this question puts people on the defensive because they perceive the person offering advice as claiming superiority—a challenge to their status. Rock cites the findings of three researchers whose independent discoveries reveal the powerful neurological effects status has on our health and performance. Rock explains, “. . . we are biologically programmed to care about status because it favors our survival.” So, neurological factors likely drive resistance to receive feedback.

Curiously, numerous examples can be shared by employees, leaders and HR professionals of the benefits they have witnessed or experienced themselves of giving critical feedback according to a model and improvements occurring. What explains these successes? Neuroscientists tell us other factors like caring relationships decrease the resistance associated with getting feedback and increase the effectiveness of the feedback conversation. Consider a best friend providing feedback. Because there is a belief she has her BFF’s back, the BFF likely does not resist the feedback because there is no threat nor is there a challenge to status.

What happens if the relationship is not necessarily a caring one and feedback are given strictly according to a model? Then, a likely result is the erosion of trust and withdraw; perhaps this is a factor in employee engagement rates that have hovered at about 70% for the last few years.  Possibly, the desire to know what to do more of, less of, or instead of is so great that people adopt a “no pain, no gain” attitude towards feedback and report benefits regardless of the neurological side effects including increased stress. (According to the research mentioned above, Cortisol, a stress-related hormone is an accurate biological marker for the threat response, and it is released when we experience feelings of low status.) Maybe truly wanting to improve outweighs the sting of formula-driven feedback and not being able to stomach sugarcoated feedback leaves employees with no choice but to accept model-driven feedback even the kind that comes virtually wrapped in a bow and called a gift.

If model-driven feedback loses its efficacy if not delivered with care, does ratio-driven feedback work better? The Magic Ratio of 5:1 from a Harvard study reports the number of positive to negative comments was the greatest factor affecting the success of teams. If that study is to compare to the Rock article, one wonders if the nature of the comments not the number of them is the actual determinant of success. (All the comments cited in the online article are non-threatening and do not challenge status. (See www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2017/08/07/tim-gunns.)

Feedback has complexities. Nature has wired us to resist it as a survival strategy. Using those two facts as a foundation, be clear on how your feedback is a gift: will it help? Is it information only you can provide? Is it of great consequence not just the intolerance of an idiosyncrasy? That is, start with questions, then chose thoughtfully and give with care.

By: Helene Tracey, M.Ed.

As the holiday season appears in the rearview mirror, realize this article’s title, for many, is an applicable phase for the holiday season. Tweak just it a bit to “the reason for the rating” and the phrase applies to the work nearly every manager whose organization still executes a traditional Performance Management process at years’ end is now likely undertaking.

Non-modernized performance processes have managers do a lot of work with ratings behind the scenes to make sure the ratings makes sense to senior leaders and align to a bell curve. (See more about this (See Laszlo Bock’s Work Rules.) Managers also ensure that the budget for bonuses and salary increases has not been overspent. (Non-modernized performance management processes have not unbundled performance management from compensation. Others factors that make the process non-modern include not acknowledging our inability to accurately rate others; underestimating the widespread bias at play at work; under-appreciating the benefit of employees working autonomously; and misapplying the science behind behavior change.)

If you are stuck with a non-modernized process, going rogue by not doing any of the processes or just going through the motions of it aren’t effective alternatives if you want to create conditions for optimal performance.  You can be more effective in your efforts by making a few “in-bound” tweaks.

First, don’t be selectively smart. You are very likely aware of the best interactions you have with your team regarding interpersonal effectiveness. You are also likely aware of flawed processes that have the same appeal as aptly described by the following phase from the Grinch song written by Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel: “a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce.” Executing a sauerkraut and toadstool performance management process can cause some managers to explain to their employees, “HR makes me do this.” (Makes one wonder if someone told those managers to jump off a cliff, . . . .) Flawed execution of this process could also include providing feedback on incidents that happened in the distant past or sharing feedback from non-identified sources. In moments of great clarity and wisdom, managers would never consider executing practices they know to be ineffective regarding performance management; that is, they would not be selectively smart.

Second, imagine alternatives. Try any or all of the following actions.

Tell less. Listen More. If employees have done a self-assessment, have a discussion about it as soon as possible by asking a few open-ended questions. If self-assessments are not an official part of your process, ask your employee capture on paper his/her most significant work or outcomes of the year. Review this information or the assessment before discussing it with him or her so you can reflect on it. Don’t call this first conversation a “performance review”! It’s not. It is an opportunity for you to gain your employee’s perspective on his/her work, accomplishments, and interests. Mine the conversation for nuggets aligned to your employee’s strengths. Ask questions about assignments that hold interest and areas of keen curiosity. Your goal is to make a genuine connection with your employee while looking ahead and agreeing on work that aligns to your employee’s strengths. As the performance management process unfolds over time at your company to conduct “performance reviews,” use this conversation as a foundation for the review. It could help the actual review be less de-motivating for your employee.

Ask yourself questions. Benefit from the interesting work Marcus Buckingham is doing work (See Marcus Buckingham’s blog.”. An interpretation of his work regarding managers executing performance management includes them asking themselves questions like, “Would I assign this major project to the person again?” “Would I hire this person again?” “Would I allocate a great portion of the bonus budget to this person?” Note, the manager is reflecting on his/her actions, not the actions (performance) of others thus avoiding rater bias, which leads to unreliability in ratings.)

Describe the business’ results. Talk about the company’s financial performance and other key metrics based on information that has already been shared or made public. Listen for your employee to respond to your explanation of these results to ensure you are both on the same page. The intent is to set realistic expectations for salary increases without talking out of turn.  (After all, many employees have suffered through poor performance reviews for years and have given up on them being helpful so their keenest curiosity could be about money.)

Be clear on the reason.  Research tells us we retain a part of the brain from prehistoric days that causes us to be threatened when others rate us. More importantly, research also tells us we are not effective when rating others even with mind-blowing spreadsheets that can calculate a rating to the nearest one-thousandth. Thinking the complexity of such a spreadsheet can help you objectively rate someone one is like believing a thousand words can help a color blind person fully appreciate the many shades of green found in an Irish landscape. Express the reasons you view his/her performance was on the mark, off the mark, or beyond it. Then, listen. Likely, key information will be shared and conditions for better performance created. If your perspective of the performance is off the mark and this is a surprise, explain your delay. Apologize and commit to being more regularly available in the future to listen to your employee as he/she reports progress/barriers, and/or requests your assistance or guidance.

Lastly, make the best of a less-than-ideal process by having thoughtful conversations with your employees; connecting with them regarding work that aligns to their strengths; and explaining how you see their work based on reasons you both agree to.  Most importantly, volunteer to partner with HR to make 2018 the last year for non-modernized performance management.