As a free tool on our website, we have shared many detailed “write-ups” of team training exercises. We get hits (about 700 a day – not a lot by YouTube standards, but not half bad) from all over the world from trainers who take and then use these exercises to great effect with their teams.
“Keypunch” is one of the classics that we’ve used and shared. Since we penned that write-up, we’ve modified how we set it up and facilitate it to focus the team on how they ensure quality work, done safely, within tight time frames. “Quality,” “safety” and “timeliness” are often in tension, so how do you help a team understand these pressures and then make daily decisions which reflect your goals and the priority that you place on these values? For starters, you try the new, improved “Keypads”!
In the video (about 11 minutes long), you’ll hear from me and one of our strategic partners, Sardek Love of Infinity Consulting, as we take a group of engineers through the exercise. I include a picture of the flipchart that I usually prepare and post to set up the work. Detailed notes follow at the end. Enjoy!
A Simple Performance System
I’m not happy. 
We’ve had the pleasure of working with a medium-size, privately held company in the energy sector for the last two years; in that time, we’ve provided two phases of customized leadership skills training to their 80 or so managers and have recently begun delivering a scaled-down (in terms of time) version of the same training to their shop foremen. Our training has been greeted with universal acclaim by the participants, from the President on down.
Different company/different training: We recently completed a series of Trouble Shooting Logic (TSL) training sessions, in which we train employees in rigorous problem solving methods, provide ample practice, then coach use of the TSL tools to solve ongoing, in-plant problems. Again, the participants were thoroughly pleased and,
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[The following is the fourth in a series of emails that we provide to graduates of our Performance Coaching & FeedBack workshops to support their continued growth. Get email number one here, number two here, and number three here.]
As noted in earlier emails, questions are foundational to an effective coaching process. To review, the 5 steps in Performance Coaching are:
Today we turn to step 4. After your associate has admitted his error and you have reviewed the standard, he or she is mentally ready to turn towards a solution, so do your part: ask for it. Ask for a Specific Solution. Note the key words in that phrase …
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[The following is the third in a series of emails that we provide to graduates of our Performance Coaching & FeedBack workshops to support their continued growth. Get email number one here, number two here. -- Rob]
Hey Guys,
Just to review, the 5 steps of the Performance Coaching process are:
An effective step 3 – Review the Standard – is KEY to a successful accountability conversation …
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[The second in a series of email tips that we provide as part of our follow up / ongoing support for clients who have completed our Performance Coaching workshop. See the first Performance Coaching tip here.]
Remember that the primary goal of any performance conversation is that the associate takes full responsibility for his or her actions and results. Everything we as supervisors do or say in a performance conversation should support that assumption of responsibility.
Most supervisors have been trained to “tell” the associate what’s wrong and how it “needs to be fixed.” We agree, partially …
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[The following is the first in a series of email "reminders" that we provide as part of our follow up / ongoing support for clients who have completed our Performance Coaching & FeedBack workshop. Hope that you enjoy. -- Rob]
Congratulations on successful completion of the Performance Coaching & FeedBack workshop. We know that the skills you have learned will be a huge benefit to you and to your employees to the degree that you step out and use them. I encourage you to make good on your commitment to deliberately employ the process to the performance issues you are addressing. Deliberate use will make you more proficient and more confident, both of which translate into more effective conversations.
As we discussed during the workshop, there are five steps to the Performance Coaching process:
The first step of the Performance Coaching process is “Praise Performance.” Praising Performance “works” in that it reinforces positive behaviors and achievements that you want to see repeated; it affirms the associate’s good work; it shows your attentiveness; and it expresses your appreciation.
Praising Performance also works because it prepares the associate to receive constructive criticism … ONLY IF you regularly recognize an associate’s good work and make it a regular part of your performance conversations with him or her.
This Week’s Reminder: Praise Regularly. When you see good work, recognize it. All the time, every time you see it. Then, when you need to have a conversation to raise performance, your associate will be ready to hear your FeedBack.
I recently facilitated sustainability training and planning for the Board of a community development organization which directly ministers to the poor. At the conclusion of that meeting, Phil Reed, a longtime client and friend, prayed the closing prayer.
One line of his prayer stood out to me. “Lord, bless the people who we serve. I ask that you give them at least as good of an income and lifestyle as I have. And if you’d give them more than me, I would rejoice.” Judging by his tone of voice, Phil meant it.
In our day and age, I find the attitude that represents remarkable. If the truth be told, I tend to see others who make more than me, and I’m secretly just a little bit envious. Sure, I want other people to do well. But not better than me. Not really.
Phil was at one time the Pastor of a church, and he still has a Pastor’s heart. He is focused on his “flock,” and when they succeed, in the deepest sense, he does so as well. Phil’s own organization, Voice of Calvary Ministries, is a 30 year old ministry in Jackson, MS. A few years ago, the ministry experienced a rough patch, and the Board asked Phil to take over the reins. In 2009, the year of the great recession, when giving to non-profits was way down across the country, VOCM had its best year ever.
Ya’ think that might have something to do with leadership? With the inspiration others take from seeing one who is truly committed to the people he is leading and serving? With leadership integrity? I do.
Phil’s example challenges me. How about you?
“Rob, we need to talk. She’s not a team player, and she’s not getting with the program!”
My friend is the Assistant Director of a nonprofit with a heavy summer workload. She had been meeting with program staff, feverishly finishing planning for the upcoming sessions. Afterwards, she approached me about one of her senior staff.
I know this staff person – she has been a participant in our Train-the-Trainer on three separate occasions and has run various aspects of their summer program. This year, she is over the whole youth program.
She is very talented. She knows her stuff … and she knows that she knows her stuff. All good.
But she is not showing the willingness to “get with the program.”
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There is a clear, unequivocal answer for the various economic crises we’ve seen unfold over the last few months. It cannot be simpler: either raise taxes or cut services. I’m not an economist, but my vote for long-term sustainability is “cut services.” Either way, in order to avoid a situation similar to Greece, we’re going to have to pull together as a nation. As communities. As companies. Within your company.
We can come out of this. We need leaders. The type of leader who, like Winston Churchill offering his nation “blood, toil, tears and sweat,” can speak the hard truths and have people collectively embrace what in the moment must seem to be the lesser of two very bad evils.
As my partner George Loyer is fond of saying, “people don’t resist change; they just resist how change is sometimes implemented.” In this week’s Learning4Performance newsletter, we’re starting a seven-part series on Employee Engagement, with the simple goal to answer the question “how does a leader involve his or her people so that they willingly step up and do what he or she needs them to do?”
Even though the worst of the economic downturn may be past, the challenges with which we are left — to work harder, do more with less, to innovate at an ever increasing rate – call for teamwork between line and management like never before. And that requires leadership. We’ll be sharing some tips and strategies to help you as a leader be more successful in stepping up.
The principles that we are sharing owe a large debt to the seminal research of Vic Vroom and Phillip Yetton from the University of Pittsburgh in the late 60s and early 70s (the great ideas, that is, those that explain what actually works, aren’t necessarily contained in books on the latest NYT best seller list). Leadership & Decision Making is a dry read, but a powerful one. We cover those principles in detail in our workshop Mastering Involvement. Sign up for an upcoming public workshop here.
Let’s step up. It’s time.
I saw it again yesterday evening: a presentation on leadership that made much hay (and took several slides) to explain the difference between leadership and management.
Just my two cents, but I am curious as to how the outcome of this discussion matters. I don’t mean to disparage others who have gone before by this comment, as I have pondered this question in the past as well. Don’t we all want our managers to exercise (within their field of decision rights) those characteristics which are usually associated with leadership? Don’t most leaders have to exercise some function(s) associated with management? Rather than encouraging managers to focus on “management duties” and leaders to focus on “visioning,” why not have them both focus on whatever knowledge and skill sets are needed in their particular situations to guide their organizations to superior performance? I think that we would find the resulting competencies to be a mixture of both “pure” leadership and “pure” management, whatever the individual’s rank in the corporate hierarchy.
