Posts By: Stephen Goldberg

Promoting Your Best Performing Employee to Manager

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I have often come across companies promoting the best performing employee to a manager. The problem is that the best performing employee does not guarantee that they will be a good manager.

What often happens is you lose a good performing employee and gain a poor manager. Promoting someone to a new position especially management, should follow a similar process as hiring a new employee.

When someone knows the job, and does it well we think they can guide and teach others how to perform as good. But managing requires a whole new skill set that many people do not have and do not want to develop.

Before promoting someone to a management role follow these steps.

  1. Write a job description or update a current one. Make sure the role description is well thought out and includes the essential leadership and management skills. A good resource for writing a job description is org.
  2. Post the job so you have more than one candidate. Sometimes this may be difficult because the employee in mind is expecting to be promoted. Depending on the situation and size of the company you can post both internally and externally.
  3. Conduct an interview as if you were if hiring from outside. Let the person know that they must fit the job.
  4. Conduct an psychometric evaluation of the person to check for their fit with the job. Use the right assessment tool for this purpose. You need to use a total person assessment that can measure cognitive skills (thinking style), behavioral traits and occupational interests. An interest in people should be high on the list.
  5. Consider the training and coaching that would be required for the new manager. Do you have the resources and who would provide the training?

Coaching an Olympic Speed Skater

employee promotionI once met the coach of an Olympic speed skating champion at an event. We sat next to each other over dinner. He told me how he became the athlete’s coach and I was amazed. He said he had never been a speed skater and new almost nothing about the sport. But the two had met and he took an interest in her. He offered to be her coach and at first, she was skeptical but finally agreed as the relationship developed.  He told me that although he knew little about speed skating he knew people well and how to coach and guide them. He said he knew he could easily learn the success techniques of speed skating but no one could teach him how to build rapport with people and get them to be at their best. He said he always had that ability.

The Sales Manager

I once was hired by a sales manager to conduct a workshop at a conference the company was organizing in Las Vegas. They sold security devices and systems to hotels and institutions. I discovered some of the things that the sales manager was doing to support the sales people across North America. He himself had never sold the product but was a true professional manager. He knew his job well and what he needed to do to make sure that everyone was equipped to sell.

A common error is promoting a great salesperson to sales manager. Often what happens is the person continues to sell and spends little time on management issues like strategic planning, training, coaching etc.

The next time you are thinking of promoting an employee to a management position follow the steps listed above and make sure you are putting the right person in the job.

How to Inspire Teamwork in Your Organization

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Every progressive business owner and leader wants to inspire teamwork in their organization or department. But this is easier said than done.

In our training programs Style of Leadership and Team Development and My Team & I, we ask the question “what is the difference between a group and a team?

Undoubtedly, we get the answer that a team has a clear team goal whereas a group does not. While it is true that goals drive teamwork, a group of people working together can also have a common goal. Think of a large group of people working on designing and constructing a building. Everyone has the common goal of making the building, but they do not necessarily work as a team.

The Secret to Teamwork

inspire teamworkThe crucial ingredient required to boost teamwork is team spirit. Many would argue that team spirit is the result of people working together towards a common goal. This is true if they can work together effectively and autonomously. To achieve this level of performance team members must want to help and support each other. They also need to learn specific interpersonal skills such as active listening, diplomatic disagreement, gently confrontation as well as problem solving and giving feedback,

Self-knowledge and mutual understanding are also crucial elements in building team spirit. This creates greater acceptance and tolerance of others and forms the willingness to help and support one another.

The Leaders Role in Building Team Spirit

It’s the leader or managers’ role to assure that team members develop the interpersonal skills and have a worthwhile and challenging team goal or project.

Team training must include knowledge of oneself and others so that proper team spirit can be generated through training and other types of team activities.

Of course, the leader themselves must also partake of these types of learning and develop the attitude of continuous improvement in both people development and operational matters.

Achieving Higher Levels of Teamwork

When team members learn to help and support each other and work through their differences, greater levels of teamwork can be achieved. Teams that function at higher levels can take on greater responsibility and become more autonomous. This can allow the leader to delegate responsibility and spend more time on strategic issues.

Highly evolved teams can assume responsibilities such as hiring and training new team members, practicing problem solving for continuous improvement and participating in managing an operating budget for their team or department. Teams of this type are often called interdependent or fully functioning teams.

Assess Team Effectiveness

How dependent on their leader are team members? How well do team members know and trust each other? Do they have team spirit? Do they have a common goal? Do the accept and support each other? Can they resolve conflicts on their own? Do they solve problems as a team? Do they practice continuous improvement?

Act to Inspire Teamwork

Rate your team for each item below on a scale of 1 to 5. Where would you like to see your team in six months or a year from now? What can you do to improve? What changes or improvements do you need to make as a leader? You can use the grid below or download this as a form. Have your team complete this as well and compare each others’ perception.

Teamwork Effectiveness Evaluation Worksheet

Item Criteria Leaders rating 1 = disagree 5 = agree Team member 1 = disagree 5 = agree Gap in perception
1 Team members act independently to complete tasks and make decisions 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
2 Team members readily help and support each other 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
3 Team members know and trust each other? 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
4 Team spirit prevails 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
5 The team has a common goal or project 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
6 Team members confront each other positively and resolve conflicts independently 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
7 The team practices problem solving on their own 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
8 The team engages in continuous improvement 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
Total score out of possible 40

Set a Goal for Improvement

Get going now with you action plan. Use my goal setting process to work on this. Make it a priority if you want real teamwork and team spirit to grow in your organization or department.

 

Annual Performance Review Best Practices

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annual performance reviewMany companies such as Deloite and Microsoft have moved away from conducting an annual performance review or appraisal. In their evolution as an organization they realize that this is not the best practice to boost employee productivity and morale.

However, many companies still force their managers and employees to do an annual performance review. If you are in the situation, then you have no choice and must go through with it.

 

Conducting Regular Reviews versus an Annual Performance Review

Many managers and employees dread this meeting and for good reason. If you have not sat down during the preceding months to discuss the performance appraisal criteria, then there is cause for conflict and disagreement.

My recommendation is to take on a coaching style of leadership or management and meet regularly with employees annual performance reviewto discuss their performance. This is effective to:

  • Build a relationship based on trust
  • Improve mutual understanding
  • Clarify expectations
  • Identify and remove roadblocks to performance
  • Give feedback about performance, both positive and negative
  • Increase employee motivation and engagement
  • Set goals for improvement
  • Identify training and development needs

If you have a monthly or minimum quarterly performance review and discussion with employees, the annual review will be easy. You will both be on the same page. If you are forced to use a rating scale with pre-established performance criteria, you want to include that in the regular review meeting.

A coach is interested in developing the staff member and this takes building a trusting relationship and meeting one-on-one regularly.

Employee Performance Evaluation Criteria

It’s important to establish employee performance criteria that is relative o the job and the expected performance results. Some companies use pre-established criteria that is quite general. This is not very effective in conducting a meaningful performance evaluation and discussion.

Rather than use suggested employee performance criteria from an article or software I suggest using a job description. My free job description template provides a section to establish employee performance standards. By meeting the employee regularly, you can update these standards based on the current situation.

Mutual Performance Evaluation

You might also want to have the employee evaluate you as the manager. Some annual review systems incorporate such an approach. You can do this by asking the employee to express their satisfaction with the level of support you are providing. I’ll get more into this in future articles and videos so subscribe now to get notified.

Summary

To avoid misunderstanding, disagreements and possible conflicts meet regularly with employees to discuss and review their performance. Take on a coaching style of leadership and take interest in developing the employee. Show you care and build a trusting relationship. An employee performance review should be a positive experience for all and another opportunity to contribute to ongoing employee development.

Strategies to Reduce Employee Turnover

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reduce employee turnoverTo implement strategies to reduce employee turnover, you first need to understand the causes of employee turnover. You can only act on things that you can control and so I’ll focus on those strategies and tactics.

I recently interviewed an applicant for a technical sales job I had posted for a client. The candidate was presently employed but was unhappy in his present job due to what he claimed was an incompetent manager.

Causes for Employee Turnover

  • bad hire
  • poor relationship with boss, colleague or team member
  • poor management, training and support

Bad Hire

Hiring the wrong person for the job is the major cause of employee turnover. Lack of competence due to inefficient skills and inability to perform the job as expected is the case. Good hiring is essential to reduce turnover, improve job performance and retain employees. Poor attitude and lack of work ethic is also a contributor to a bad hire.

Poor Relationship with Boss Colleague or Team Member

reduce employee turnoverPeople leave a bad relationship and not a job. This is often the case as in the real-life example I gave earlier. It’s everyone’s responsibility to ensure they get along with each other, but it’s the manager’s responsibility to ensure that everyone’s trying.

Poor Management, Training and Support

Most people want to know that their work contributes to the success of the department and company. They want clear expectations, good communication with their manager and feedback on the work they’re doing. They also want to use and develop their skills and knowledge to they continue to grow and evolve. People need to enjoy their work and feel valued. It’s the manager’s responsibility to fill the needs of the employees and keep them engaged with the job and the company.

Strategies to Reduce Employee Turnover: Solutions and Actions

  1. hire the right person for the job. Ensure they have the skills, behavioural traits and motivational interests to perform the job well.
  2. foster a climate of collaboration amongst team members. Be honest with each employee and treat them with respect. Encourage open and honest exchange.
  3. provide regular feedback on employee performance. Offer interesting work and help employees grow and develop. Seek employees input on decision-making and share your perspective and rationale.

Summary

Certain jobs and industries have greater employee turnover than others. You cannot control external forces but you can control who you hire and how you lead and coach for job success. Review the points listed above and choose one that you can turn into an improvement project or goal. Review my goal planning articles and videos to put your project into action.