Behavioral principles for delivering effective feedback. Having a workplace environment in which feedback is given and received productively is critical to performance, but it can be difficult to cultivate that culture.
Here's how behavioral tactics can help managers avoid missteps and deliver more effective feedback. Introduction In 2001, theatergoers flocked to see a movie that would eventually generate more than $550 million. It was about a 30-year-old accountant who is disillusioned by his job and life. 5 Signs Your Employees are Unhappy and How to Fix it. 16 Signs That Your Employees Can't Stand You. LinkedIn's HR chief says the best managers exhibit these 7 behaviors. Here's How Much Your Bad Employees Are Costing You. 5 Reasons Companies Shouldn't Track Employee Hours. Find Your Strategic Leaders. A 5-Step Process For Delivering Tough News.
Maybe an employee’s work has been subpar lately.
Work-Life Balance Is Easier When Your Manager Knows How to Assess Performance. Dave wheeler FOR HBR Not long ago, a manager asked me to name the most important work-life benefit for employees.
I answered that the most important benefit isn’t a benefit at all. Of course, child care, flexible scheduling, and family leave policies are important, but in my experience the best thing we can do to support working parents (and all employees) is to get better at one of the most basic and poorly executed functions of managers: performance appraisals. He groaned and admitted that he dreaded doing performance evaluations, and his employees hated them too. He ticked off the usual complaints — how long they take to complete, their subjective nature, the infrequent timing, and so on. Moreover, he told me that considering the knowledge work his employees performed, it was relatively hard to know how well his people were performing, yet it was relatively easy to observe the quantity of work and of work hours in the office. One Bad Apple Spoils the Company.
Bottom Line: Don’t let the performance of superstars distract you from the damage toxic employees inflict.
Superstar employees get all the attention. Because the exemplary productivity of top performers has been shown to boost firm-wide profitability, companies make it a priority to recruit and retain them. Less scrutinized are the workers who may appear to be top contributors, but in reality are behaving badly or flouting regulations. The negative actions of employees run the gamut from relatively minor indiscretions such as pilfering office supplies to serious transgressions like fraud or sexual harassment. Leaving aside the corporate costs associated with so-called toxic employees — including litigation and hiring replacements — their behavior can take a toll on workplace morale, customer retention, and stakeholder attitudes. Be the Boss They Love and Respect with These 7 Smart Tips. 3 Ways Leaders Undermine Cohesion by Trying to Create It. When companies want to address fragmented cultures, they do some of the oddest things.
For example, we’ve seen at least 15 corporations put “one” in front of their name (as in, “One Acme”), as they launched campaigns to dramatically increase interconnection across the organization. As if that would work. Nonprofit Know-how: Giving Feedback. Feedback is an effective, but underused, way to develop your people and achieve your mission.
“When nonprofits use feedback regularly and effectively, they strengthen the work of the organization,” says Shera Clark, manager of CCL’s nonprofit sector. “Plus, you don’t need extra funding or a formal system to engage in giving feedback.” Clark is author of a new book in CCL’s Ideas Into Action series, Feedback That Works for Nonprofit Organizations.
Handing Conflict at Work. Do You Have a Manager’s Mindset? Julie Long, a senior developer at a software company, was identified by her manager as a high performer.
When she was asked to coordinate a team of three junior developers on a project, Julie was excited about the opportunity to finally move into a management role. However she quickly became frustrated. Things that were simple and easy for her were not getting done in a timely way by her team. After just a few weeks in her new role, as she reviewed the code her team members had written, she found herself seriously considering scrapping their contributions and writing it all herself. She knew that if she worked a few extra hours, she could likely match the output of all three of her direct reports. This scenario is all too common when an individual is asked to make the leap from expert to manager. But this requires a dramatic change in mindset, and it’s this process that is so difficult for many of the recently promoted.
Take the Long View Ask More Questions. Becoming a Manager in a New Country. Becoming a manager for the first time is no easy task.
One day you’re happily doing your own work and achieving your own goals, and then, suddenly, your work life does a 180: Instead of focusing on yourself, you have to focus your attention on others. You have to motivate others, build relationships with your team, and give effective feedback. You need to have empathy and understanding, but command respect. You need to be direct and assertive, but not so much that you crowd out others’ contributions. You need to take responsibility, while at the same time giving others the autonomy to grow. 6 Ways to Turn Managers into Coaches Again. The role of the manager is currently undergoing a transformation.
Historically, managers embraced the role of coach and mentor. Through informal conversations during the commute to work, over a coffee break, or while enjoying a burger after hours, managers passed along crucial information and knowledge about the organization’s culture. Even more formal conversations, like one-on-one meetings and small group gatherings, transferred insight and understanding to employees. Five Signs Your Manager Is A Coward. This is why your employees are quitting. The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership.
This Tactic Will Make Your Employees Perform Better After Mistakes. When your employees screw up, your knee-jerk reaction may be to rip their head off. If they lost the company's biggest client, for example, don't they deserve to be punished? That's a natural reaction, writes Emma Seppala, the associate director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, in Harvard Business Review. Signs That You’re a Micromanager. Absolutely no one likes to be micromanaged. 8-ideas-for-making-your-onboarding-process-more-efficient. Hiring is good--it means you're growing. But when a company doubles or triples in size in a short timeframe, onboarding new hires can quickly derail the schedules of your managers and existing employees.
How can you make sure you're training hires to make the right decisions without slowing down the entire team? We polled a group of founders from YEC about their best tips for making this process more efficient and more successful, too. The Real Reasons Your Team Is Not Engaged. A Better Alternative to Performance Evaluations. Surprising Ways To Improve Those Dreaded Year-End Reviews. Quiz: Are You a Micromanager? How to Help an Underperformer - Amy Gallo. As a manager, you can’t accept underperformance. It’s frustrating, time-consuming, and it can demoralize the other people on your team. But what do you do about an employee who isn’t performing up to snuff? How do you help turn around the problematic behavior? And how long do you let it go on before you cut your losses?
What the Experts SayYour company may have a prescribed way of handling an underperformer, but most of those recommended processes aren’t that useful, says Jean-François Manzoni, a professor of management at INSEAD and coauthor of The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail. Don’t ignore the problemToo often these issues go unaddressed. Consider what’s causing the problemIs the person a poor fit for the job? Ask others what you might be missingBefore you act, make sure to look at the problem objectively. Talk to the underperformerOnce you’ve checked in with others, talk to the employee directly. Reid Hoffman takes on management in The Alliance. There will come a time when your brightest, most beloved employee will want to leave.
Reid Hoffman says you should let her go—or at least, in many instances. 5 Toughest Personalities at Work.