"Well-intentioned, hard-working people often
have 'blind spots' about important tendencies. In fact, they may be the
only ones in their group who do not realize that they have a problem.
Feedback is essential to learning. If people
don't fully appreciate their strengths, how can they use them to their
advantage? If they never find out how their actions create problems for
others, how will they know what to change? And if they never understand
the impact they have, why would they want to make a concerted effort to
improve?
Most people want this kind of feedback. They
want to know what is working and what is not. They don't want to cause
frustration. They don't like having blind spots, and they are interested
in learning how to improve. They are willing to invest in themselves so
they can achieve better results. The problem is that most of their coworkers
don't know how to give feedback in a constructive way and are not comfortable
with confronting them about performance issues."
- Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D.
"Let him who would move the world first move
himself."
- Socrates
A 1991 study of executives from 1,000 of the
nation¹s largest companies indicates that managers spend 13% of their
time the equivalent of six-and-a-half work weeks a year resolving
personality conflicts among workers. This compares to just 9%, or four-and-a-half
weeks per year, in 1986.
- Robert Half International
"I have a lifetime contract. That basically
means that I can¹t be fired during the third quarter if we¹re
ahead and moving the ball!"
- Lou Holtz Coach, Notre Dame
"Treat people as if they were what they ought
to be and you help them become what they¹re capable of becoming."
- Goethe
"Self conquest is the greatest of all victories."
- Plato |
|
Caution:
Career Derailment Ahead!
Why
do executives, managers, and professionals either derail or flounder and
then get shunted off to roles that are out of the mainstream? Typically
it's because they have a psychological blind spot that is all too visible
to others.
Research
studies have pegged failure rates for senior executives at up to 33 percent.
There's
a good chance that the descriptions below of potential derailers will remind
you of some key people in your organization:
He
lacks effective interpersonal skills. He's -
•
Insensitive ("He's too abrasive")
•
Overambitious ("He batters people with his competitiveness; he needs to
be
seen as powerful")
•
Isolated ("He's a perfectionist and seems to do everything his own way")
•
Volatile ("He comes apart at the seams when under fire")
She
has difficulty making tactical shifts. She is -
•
Mired in detail; thrown by change and innovation; too cautious; action-averse.
•
Unable to adapt to those who have different styles.
•
Conflict-averse; unable to harness conflict constructively, as a creative
medium
for change; a poor negotiator.
•
Over-reliant on one skill, on natural talent, or on just raw energy.
•
Rigid in response to most situations; for example, blazingly decisive but
without
regard for overall organizational strategy.
He
lacks follow-through. He -
•
Makes a big splash at the front end of a project, then moves on, leaving
a trail
of loose ends.
•
Leaves people hanging because of unmet promises and commitments; not fully
accountable.
Her
area has never really gelled. She -
Over-/undermanages
(Either as the over-controlling Godmother or as the benignly
neglectful Ostrich; can't collaborate or delegate)
Staffs
in her own image ("I have a good gut feeling about him; the chemistry is
right")
Communicates
poorly ("She operates like she thinks everyone can read her
mind")
Creates
mediocrity (Undermines talented subordinates and/or habitually hires
weak candidates)
Terminate
or Turnaround?
So,
what can be done with the under-performing employee? Often, the response
is to terminate. But, the company must then absorb the staggering costs
associated with the loss of a key person. These costs include:
•
Exit costs
•
Recruiting, hiring, and restart costs
•
Lost training and development costs
•
Cascade effect of multiple position shuffles
•
Opportunity costs, disruption, down time, and lowered morale of the team
•
Disputed termination litigation
A
significantly more effective solution is available
and
it prevents the termination costs.
The
experiences of our clients have clearly shown that a turnaround program
produces better results. In most cases under-performance is not the result
of an ability deficit. Rather, it typically results from a person's blind
spots. With the proper intervention, the struggling employee can be turned
around and, as a consequence, a number of benefits accrue to the organization
and the individual:
•
The company is spared the organizational disruption and corporate expense
(frequently exceeding $100K) that inevitably occur with the termination
of a
key employee.
•
The company is protected from the loss of the person's accumulated industry
knowledge, experience, and competitive information.
•
The turnaround program offers a potent management option for handling a
potentially unpleasant and difficult dilemma.
•
The turnaround option brings objectivity and behavioral science to bear
on
conflict and, thereby, gives the organization and its people a greater
sense of
mastery and less apprehension about handling difficult human problems.
The
message: "We care, and we can work it out."
•
It equips the organization with an effective tool for retaining its human
resources,
an increasingly critical strategy in an age of a shrinking human resource
pool.
How
We Do It
Specializing
in human performance, our firm has designed a powerful individual development
program that integrates our core competencies:
•
Expert software systems that enhance psychological testing and assessment
•
Computerized 360° technology
•
Keen diagnostic skills
•
Advanced rapport-building methods
•
Accelerated development strategies
•
Motivating and creating true behavioral change
By
integrating these performance development technologies, we assist the candidate
in assembling the three essential ingredients for high performance: feedback
(both broad and deep), multi-lateral motivation to make changes, and multi-source
change partners for their development initiative. Together these three
elements serve as the infrastructure for a Blueprint for Action, which
guides the employee's achievement of measurable results.
Turnaround
Program:Four Key Steps
I.
Assess
•
Conduct a series of life-career interviews with the candidate, focusing
on:
• personal and work history
• interpersonal experiences
• attitudes, values, and interests
• aspirations
•
Assess the candidate, using an array of business-based psychological inventory
and 360° tools, most of which are computer analyzed.
•
Integrate performance management data into the assessment. Forge a
consensus on the problem areas and the turnaround objectives.
II.
Plan
•
Deliver an in-depth, confidential debrief of all assessment findings.
•
Identify the candidate's key strengths and areas in need of development.
Highlight limiting tendencies and origins of the derailment problem.
•
Clarify inner motivators for change and inner resistances to it. Harness
the
former and neutralize the latter. Explicitly specify WIIFM (What's in it
for me?)
and WIIFOrg.
•
Synthesize findings into a Blueprint for Action
•
Detail the specific behavioral changes required - precisely what does the
candidate need to continue, start, and stop doing? Resources: computerized
assessment reports and 90-plus activities for development-in-place
(i.e., activities that do not require a job change).
•
Identify all the benefits that will accrue to one self and to the organization
once
the change objectives are achieved.
•
Similarly, identify all potential impediments that could hinder the turnaround
effort - inner, interpersonal, and organizational.
•
Specify the action steps required to achieve the prescribed changes.
•
Enlist the involvement of others. Turnarounds require support from others,
playing an array of roles: coach, mentor, colleague, friend, role model,
protégé, advocate. Change requires
change partners.
•
Establish time frames and metrics, against which progress is measured.
III.
Act
•
Acknowledge and reciprocate with those who gave feedback to the candidate.
Enlist one or some as change partners.
•
Debrief candidate's manager and involve them in the Blueprint for Action.
•
Begin action experiments during real-time, day-to-day work life, then debrief
and
refine with coach.
•
Adopt high-impact behavioral change techniques.
•
Measure progress against plan. Design simple and practical feedback loops
into
work routine.
IV.
Reflect/Evaluate and Reassess/Refine
This
is the final phase of the turnaround process and works best when it is
hard-wired into the Action Phase of the cycle. By designing special monitoring
and evaluation tools, the candidate can regularly assess progress and then
recalibrate the Blueprint for Action.
Final
Thoughts
If
people are truly the primary resource of a company, as most organizations
assert, then they must be managed and developed like other assets. It's
really not unlike the management of any asset portfolio. That is, every
person is like an individual portfolio with a strong potential for either
managed growth or sub-par performance. The portfolio, however, is a least
partially opaque, as regards its assets and liabilities. We have the expertise,
though, to "value" the human portfolio. If one is to optimize the asset-liability
mix, the portfolio must first be valued, that is, assessed for its strengths
and weaknesses. Then after this initial appraisal, we are in an excellent
position to optimize the potential of that individual's set of assets.
The optimization process involves maximizing the person's strengths, minimizing
their weaknesses, and adding new "assets" to their portfolio (i.e., skills,
behaviors, and attitudes), in order to maximize performance and protect
against downside risk.
Whether
we're talking about the development of key contributors, the turnaround
of potential derailers, careerpath development, or even teambuilding, there
is one strategy that is more effective than any other. People can change,
but the most substantive and permanent change is realized when people develop
from the inside out. This is the surest way to prepare and motivate someone
to accept the new change opportunities made available to them.
Consequently,
whenever we're working to enhance an "individual human resource portfolio",
the surest strategy is to begin at the beginning and focus on the inside
(that is, self-awareness and self-understanding) before the outside (that
is, skillbuilding and on-the-job development). This change strategy has
proven to be a more certain way of assisting people through the process
of behavior change, self-development, and performance enhancement.
©
Copyright 1999 The Global Consulting Partnership
|
|
