SMART Goals and HARD Goals

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What are SMART Goals?
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound
Why We Like SMART Goals
  • It forces people to focus on specific things
  • It is very clear when goals are achieved
  • They are connected with the overall objectives of the organization

What are HARD Goals?

  • Heartfelt – My goals will enrich the lives of somebody besides me
  • Animated – I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I achieve my goals
  • Required – My goals are absolutely necessary to help this organization
  • Difficult – I will have to learn new skills and leave my comfort zone to achieve my goals

Why We Like HARD Goals

  • It takes people beyond normal performance
  • Encourages discretionary effort
  • The only way to create a “game-changer”

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Ace Your Annual Performance Review

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Why Things Go Wrong With Performance Appraisals
  • They are treated as an annual “event” rather than part of the ongoing feedback process.
  • People don’t prepare or dedicate the time necessary.
  • The giver and receiver of the feedback are from different planets
How Discrepancies Occur
  • You don’t fully understand the expectations
  • You measure performance by different “yardsticks”
  • You are delusional
How to Address Discrepancies
  • Know how performance is evaluated:
    • Goals & Objectives
    • 360
    • Behavioural Observation
    • Unstructured format
  • Ask to see the forms/format prior to review
  • Articulate expectations in writing
What If You Don’t Agree?
  • Raise objections professionally and stay calm
  • Ask for specific examples that led to a particular rating/comment
  • Escalate the matter if you have to, but be careful
Manage Perceptions All Year Long
  • Agree in advance on performance goals and metrics
  • Proactively upward manage your boss
  • Keep your own performance feedback file
  • Ask for feedback regularly and act on it

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A Guide to Ace Your Annual Performance Review

In many organizations, Annual Performance Reviews are about as popular as Ike at the Tina Turner Fan Club meeting.  They are done sporadically, if at all, and they typically have very little impact on organizational performance.

The last big multi-national corporate organization I worked for as an employee had a fascinating “system” for the annual performance review.  I would suggest it’s very typical to what is seen in other companies, so in the interests of demystifying the whole process, here is a list of definitions and translations to sort out some of the vernacular that accompanies the annual performance review:

Annual: In the case of the annual performance review, “annual” means maybe once every 18 to 24 months, or maybe never at all.

Performance Review Meeting: This is where both manager and employee avoid eye contact and share some awkward small talk before the boss launches into his/her diatribe of the last year in review.  Similar to a bad sitcom in format.

Coaching: This is the organizational equivalent of Batman.  You might see it late at night after a signal (usually a corporate memo) has been flashed, but if you see it at all, it will be in a poor light, and you’ll never be sure if it happened or not.

Developmental Opportunities: These are the things you will get fired for, if you don’t fix them.  If there were no employment laws, they would revert to what they used to be called: threats.

Pay for Performance: Managers who get along well with people, take the amount of discretionary salary dollars they have, and divide by the number of direct reports they have.  Managers who don’t care how well they get along with people give it to the people they like the most.  In the rarest of cases, there is a good measurement system in place that everyone understands, and it truly is pay for performance.  It is about as common as spotting a unicorn at the fall carnival.

Performance Appraisal Documents: This is a template that bears little resemblance to your actual job, written by someone in HR who has never worked in the core business.

Performance Review Meeting Preparation: This describes the immediate 30 seconds prior to the meeting starting

The Sandwich Method of Feedback: This is where poorly trained managers slip some “constructive” feedback in between two compliments.  For example, “Nice shoes; you’ve got some significant improvement to make on your analytical skills, but I like your socks.  Also known as the “Sh*t Filled Twinkie” method.

Performance Management Philosophy: This is the same affliction that causes writers of annual reports to declare, “Employees are our most important asset” without the implied disclaimer, “unless they cost us money, or otherwise inconvenience us.”

Seek the Employees View: This is the final 30 seconds of the meeting where the employee is expected to thank the supervisor for the constructive feedback, and declare his/her intentions to act on it.  Only trouble-makers would disagree with the feedback.  Under no circumstances should an employee ever speak his mind here.

I hope this translation helps.  For ideas on how to cope with, and ultimately succeed at your Annual Performance Review, download this week’s podcast.

Bad Bosses? Not to criticize, but you’re stupid!

Larry was my boss back when I had a real job – the kind of job where you show up every day (in body, at least), work as part of a cog in a huge corporate wheel, and try to attach meaning to mundane tasks.

The world was black and white for Larry:  if he thought you were a hard worker, he could be charming and funny.  If he didn’t like the way you worked, your life at work quickly descended into a living hell.  In the core skills and talents of the business we were in, there was probably no one stronger than Larry.

Larry did many things right as a leader;  he was not burdened by the need to have people like him, he got lots done, he was an excellent teacher, and he consistently produced the desired results.

As you can imagine, he also did a number of things wrong.  His treatment of people he didn’t like would clearly fall under the definition of harassment if it happened today.  I still remember the day when he repeatedly shouted at one of his direct reports (in front of many others), “You’re stupid!  You’re a stupid, stupid man!”

No one knows how many potentially good people he chased out of the business because his first impression of them wasn’t good.  And his volatile demeanor often took a minor incident and exaggerated it into a major crisis that required more time and energy by all involved to finally get resolved.

The company did invest in Larry by sending him off to corporate charm school, where he learned to soften his feedback:

“Not to criticize, but you’re stupid”

When I went on to leadership roles, Larry was a role model for me – both for what he did well, and by serving as a warning beacon for things he didn’t get right.  Here are some lessons I learned from Larry, that still guide me today:

  • If you want a lot of friends, or have a high need for the approval of others, you need to stay in an individual contributor’s role.
  • You always need to treat people with respect.  It doesn’t mean, however, that you don’t hold them accountable.
  • You need to be absolutely clear about your expectations, and then dole out both positive and negative consequences when things go right/wrong.  Leaders who think they can over-acknowledge good performance, and not deal with poor performance, are weak and will fail.
  • What you do is far more powerful than what you say.
  • Leadership is hard work

Larry retired many years ago, yet his impact on me (and a great many others) is still felt.  I’m sure if I asked Larry, he would have absolutely no idea how profound his influence was on me or anyone else.

So one final lesson from Larry: As a leader, you have a significant impact on people’s lives… perhaps for decades to come.

The Power of Persuasion: Selling Your Ideas

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Why Sell Your Ideas?
  • Your projects, programs, and career turn on the difference between “no” and “yes.”  Part emotional intelligence, part politics, and part psychology, selling ideas is not like tricking someone out of his money.   It’s about helping others to see things your way— engaging their minds and imaginations.  (Richard Shell, author of “The Art of WOO – Using Strategic persuasion to Sell Your Ideas”)
  • On today’s knowledge based workforce – “In our world, the right to give orders has largely been replaced by the need to facilitate, lead, and exercise influence.” (Klatt, Murphy, Irvine)

Influence Pre-Work

1. Establish Credibility

  • Authentic professional relationships
  • Expertise
  • Trust

2. Plan

  • Know how you are perceived by others.
  • Know your audience – what do they value?
  • Inside an organization selling your idea is likely to be a series of interactions rather than one single “pitch”

The Pitch

1. Context

  • Frame Your Idea
  • State the opportunity

2. Clarify

  • Explain the details
  • Why should they act?  (in their frame of reference)
  • Supplement numerical evidence with stories, metaphors, analogies that will speak to the heart as well as the head

3. Create

  • Deal with concerns or objections
  • Seek and share ideas

4. Commit

  • Determine Who will do What by When

5. Close

  • You’ve already closed the “selling of your idea” and have commitment.  This is more about ending the conversation appropriately, saying Thanks.  Don’t keep selling at this point …. Get out of the conversation and move on.

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Good Boss, Bad Boss: Be a Better Boss

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Why care about Leadership?

  • Retention – Unwanted turnover = 1.5 – 2.5 annual salary
  • Capturing Discretionary Effort  – What the value of 10% more productivity?  How about 100% more?
  • Less stress

Realities of being the Boss

  • You are under a microscope
  • The blame you get, and the credit you get are both exaggerated
  • Most people land in leadership roles because they were good technicians or practicioners of their work
  • Leaders underestimate the impact they have on others

5 Things you can do right now to be a better Boss

1. Be a better listener

  • Take the time
  • Don’t multitask (especially PDAs)
  • Seek to understand… not to plan your response
  • Paraphrase without being a parrot

2. Be a Teacher

  • It may take more time in the short-run
  • Don’t micro-manage
  • Tell people why
  • Connect them to something bigger

3. Give and receive feedback in abundance

  • Look for opportunities to offer feedback on a daily basis
  • Ask your direct reports for feedback frequently – and act on it
  • Offer both positive feedback, and corrective feedback

4. Be crystal-clear in your expectations

  • Write important expectations down formally at least once per year
  • Constantly reinforce expectations
  • Use several different media to describe important expectations
  • Practice what you preach at all times

5. Provide consequences for both good and poor performance

  • People will do what gets reinforced
  • You are currently getting the performance you are asking for
  • Be absolutely consistent with consequences
  • Apply consequences to reinforce both good and poor performance

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The Power of Persuasion — How Great Ideas Die

“Selling” is not a bad word – it is an essential business skill.  It’s easy to see how some people would think that influencing others is somehow underhanded or unethical:

“Yep… this one’s got really low miles.  Only driven to church on Sunday by a little old lady from Pasadena”

In reality, many great ideas die an agonizing death because they have not been properly sold.  There also seems to be an inverse correlation between our technical ability, and our willingness to sell.  In other words, probably the more technically skilled you are in your area, the less likely you are to want to sell your idea.  (With all due respect to the Engineers out there.)

Here’s an ugly truth:  marketing is everything.  Think of the examples in consumer goods:

  • 8-tracks were far superior in quality to cassettes or records.
  • BetaMax was most certainly better than VHS
  • Apple’s Mac has long been superior to any PC.

So if these are any indication, great products and great ideas require great marketing if they are to be adopted.

So what do you do?

First – you have to value the idea of selling your ideas.  You need to tell a story about how your idea is going to enhance pleasure, or reduce pain.

Second – Put together a marketing plan.  Depending on what you’re doing, it might only be half a page long, but have some idea about what story you are going to tell, to whom, and via what media.

Third – Check out our podcast this week to hear more about Influencing Others

Finally – remember that we are all “in sales”.  If you live in a society of more than one person, you will be constantly trying to lobby people to your way of thinking about one thing or another.  The sooner we all get comfortable with this reality, the sooner the good ideas will at least seem to “sell themselves”.

Leadership Boot Camp

Find out all about the Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp:

  • Why bother?
  • What it’s about
  • Who should participate
  • How it works
  • What’s covered

Listen to the ‘Leadership Boot Camp’ Podcast:

: Download Podcast (MP3)

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The 80/20 Rule and the Office Martyr

As a society, we’ve decided that many behaviours that were acceptable only a few decades ago, are now completely out of the question.  A careful viewing of any episode of Mad Men will confirm how much has changed in a relatively short time.  Gone are the days of getting completely plastered at lunch, and then driving back to the office to finish up your day.  Same goes for smoking, recreational drug use, gambling, gluttony, and virtually all other forms of excessive, self-destructive behaviour.

There is one glaring exception: workoholism.  I am often bombarded on Monday mornings with tales of alleged heroism about how someone successfully avoided their family all weekend, so they could work right through to finish some insignificant office project.  The same people will drone on about how they get to the office before 7.00am, and work past 6.00pm on a regular basis.

Here’s a newsflash: this is something to be embarrassed about, not something one brags about. Not many people entertain people at the water cooler boasting about their other self destructive vices:

“I spent the weekend gambling away my kids’ tuition money!”

“I ate 12 boxes of Krispy-Kreme’s in one sitting on Saturday.  Then I purged, and did it again.”

“I’m pretty sure my eating disorder is serious enough now to warrant medical attention”

All of these sound as ridiculous to me as, “I work 80 hours per week on a regular basis”.  Congratulations – you’re completely dysfunctional, and probably need to see a mental health professional – top speed.

Workoholism is the working professional’s last and only chance to be a martyr.  These martyrs think the tales of their self-perceived heroics will place them in higher standing amongst their peers and boss.  It doesn’t – the only thing your organization cares about is what you get done.  Think of how many times in your working life you’ve seen the obsessively hard worker be passed over by someone else, who works significantly less, but gets way more done.

There are only two situations that I could envision someone working an 80 hour week:

1)   The exceptional project, event or occurrence that will quickly pass to return to a more reasonable way of working, or

2)   You are a farmer – in which case you have my gratitude and respect.

The rest of you need to wake up and realize this self-destructive behaviour for what it is.  For thoughts on how to get out of workoholic trap, visit our site this week, where we talk about the 80/20 rule, and how to apply it.

Manage Your Boss — Don’t be a Brown Noser

“If a bulletin came out from head office saying that all managers had to wear a dress, he’d be the first guy in line down at the ladies-wear store” — Rick

Rick was a facility manager I interacted with many years ago who was an excellent upward manager.  He also disdained boot-licking as is evidenced in the quote above.  Most managers understand the importance of leading and managing well the people that report to them.  Unlike Rick however, these same managers have a huge blind spot when it comes to managing their bosses.

Rick was a good manager.  He knew his business very well, and he was very even-handed in how he managed people.  In some cases, he knew the business better than his bosses, and didn’t hesitate to tell them so:

“I’m not sure who came up with this idea, but they’ve never actually worked in this industry before.  I guess I’ll have to read them their fortune, and let them know it will never fly”.

Rick had no problem saying “no” to his bosses.  In many cases his boss would thank him for pointing out some of the ridiculous things that somehow made their way out of head office.  So how did he do this, and not get himself fired?

First – he picked his battles well.  The bigger the organization, the more people there are far away from the perverbial coal-face to think up stupid ideas.  You can’t possibly fight all the stupidity, so you need to choose wisely.

Second – he knew what he was talking about.  He didn’t offer platitudes and opinions when he opposed his boss.  He brought data and evidence.  It’s hard to argue with someone who has done his homework

Third – he offered good feedback to his boss as much or more as he offered constructive criticism.  He nurtured a “no BS” relationship with his boss, and constantly improved his credibility.  When it came time to challenge his boss, his credibility account was built up enough that even when his boss disagreed, he would still listen.

Give it a try – or you could just be an unbelievable brown noser.  Apparently that can work too:

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