The word conflict may bring to mind images of aggression and bitterness but in the workplace scenario, it can be of great use as a little bit of argument can dispel indolence and stagnancy.
The word conflict has a negative connotation attached to it and most people steer clear of creating situations that could lead to conflict. This is, however, not necessarily true. Conflict, especially in business discussions is an indication of involvement and interaction both of which lead to group cohesion and productivity. Omnitech has a special conflict Resolution Team. Senior VP, commercial and HR, Omnitech Info solutions Ltd tells more. It is basically a forum consisting of sales delivery and commercial representatives incorporated with an intention to resolve all customer related issues jointly with minimal escalations to top management. This team is empowered to take business oriented decisions in favor of the customer as well as Omnitech.
The advantages of conflict are many, but they are manifested only if conflict is controlled and restricted to an optimum level. Conflict is often imperative as it helps raise and address problems, energizes work, motivates employees to participate helps people learn ways to recognize and benefit from their differences and improves overall efficiency. It is when conflict is poorly managed that it is a problem. Conflict is a problem when it hampers productivity lowers morale causes more and continued conflicts and inappropriate behavior. Conflict which is purely related to the topic in and is good however, conflict which is a result of personality clashes is not really healthy or one which is not objective and in consideration of the facts.
Elaborating further on the two extremes of high and low conflict: Low conflict indicates minimal interaction, which in turn, means that the employee’s stand is neutral – not really a good place to be in as this indicates a basic lack of interest in the overall decision making process. High conflict on the other hand is an extreme which can create chaos undermine individual and sometimes strain lines of authority. High conflict also indicates a lack of clarity and this is a situation which should be avoided. Thus, while it is clear that too less or too much conflict can have its complications there is definitely no doubt that a certain level of conflict is required for the overall health of the decision making process.
Conflicts are an inevitable part of work life. They arise due to poor communication of management decisions/policies, insufficient resources, role/job clashes, etc. Conflicts hinder productivity and affect confidence levels of the people involved. But if handled effectively, they can aid in raising and addressing problems, help sort out issues and motivate employees to recognize and benefit from their differences.
Conflicts can be of various types: intra-individual, interpersonal, group or even inter-organizational. Therefore, conflict resolution skills are essential since choosing the appropriate technique to solve/prevent disagreements is half the battle won.
Conflicts can be resolved by discussing the causes, learning the facts and settling them by applying rules, regulations and policies. Managers can play a key role in minimizing dissonance at work by regularly reviewing job descriptions, building a rapport with subordinates, maintaining reports on issues and accomplishments, effective planning and ensuring that employees are trained appropriately.
It takes some creativity to use conflict positively. An open work culture where hierarchy is not the trigger for decision making and enforcing becomes a conducive set up for healthy conflict, as in such an atmosphere employees open up and put forth their ideas which can bring creativity to the discussion and throw up some surprising finds which might have otherwise been missed.
–
Sunday, February 07, 2010
On Personality Tests
Personality tests measure basic aspects of an applicant’s personality such as introversion, stability, and motivation.
Many of these tests are projective. The psychologists present an ambiguous stimulus (like an ink blot or clouded picture) to the person. The person must then interpret or react to it. Since the pictures are ambiguous, the person supposedly projects into the picture his or her own emotional attitudes. A security oriented person might describe the woman in Figure below as “My mother worrying about what I’ll do if I lose my job”. Other projective techniques include Make a Picture Story (MAPS), House Tree Person (HTP) and the Fore Structured Sentence Completion test.
Figure Sample Personality Test items
It does not make sense to work hard on something if no one will notice.
1) Definitely true
2) Somewhat true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false
I tend to let others do most of the talking in conversations.
1) Definitely true
2) Some what true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false
I have remained calm in situation where others have become upset.
1) Definitely true
2) Some what true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false.
Other personality tests are not projective. The Guilford Zimmerman survey measures personality traits like emotional stability versus moodiness, and friendliness versus criticalness. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) taps traits like hypochondria. The Interpersonal Style Inventory is a elf report inventory composed of 3000 true / false items covering scales such as sociable, sensitive, deliberate, stable, conscientious trusting and directive. Wonderlic’s Personal Characteristics Inventory measures five personality dimensions, and links these dimensions to likely job performance. The manager administers this test, and scans or faxes it to Wonderlic. They score it and return the same day. The Sales Achievement Predictor creates a report showing the person’s percentile rank on scales such as sales disposition and sales closing and rates him or her as highly recommended, recommended or not recommended for sales.
The Big Five: industrial psychologists often emphasize the big five personality dimensions as they apply to personnel testing: extraversion, emotional stability/ neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.
Neuroticism represents a tendency to exhibit poor emotional adjustment and experience negative effects, such as anxiety, insecurity and hostility. Extraversion represents a tendency to be sociable, assertive, active, and to experience positive effects, such as energy and zeal. Openness to experience is the disposition to be imaginative, nonconforming, unconventional and autonomous. Agreeableness is the tendency to be trusting, complaint, caring, and gentle. Conscientiousness is comprised of two related facets: achievements and dependability.
In one study, extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience were strong predictors of leadership. In another big five study neuroticism was negatively related to motivation, while conscientiousness was positively related to it. Components of the big five – in particular extraversion and openness to experience also correlate with career interest and occupational types. And, in personality research conscientiousness has been the most consistent and universal predictor of job performance.
Researcher in one study defined career success in terms of intrinsic success (job satisfaction) and extrinsic success (income and occupational status). Conscientiousness positively predicted both intrinsic an extrinsic career success. Neuroticism negatively predicted extrinsic success. General mental ability also positively predicted extrinsic career success.
Caveats: Personality test—particularly the projective type are the most difficult tests to evaluate and use. An expert must analyze the test taker’s interpretations and reactions and infer from them his or her personality. The usefulness of such tests for selection assumes that you find a relationship between a measurable personality trait (like introversion) and success on the job. Measuring aberrant behavior is particular challenge. For instance, personality tests may help predict if an employee’s erratic behavior will pose a threat to workplace safety. However they can also create legal problems for instance, if rejected candidates claim the results are false or violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Many of these tests are projective. The psychologists present an ambiguous stimulus (like an ink blot or clouded picture) to the person. The person must then interpret or react to it. Since the pictures are ambiguous, the person supposedly projects into the picture his or her own emotional attitudes. A security oriented person might describe the woman in Figure below as “My mother worrying about what I’ll do if I lose my job”. Other projective techniques include Make a Picture Story (MAPS), House Tree Person (HTP) and the Fore Structured Sentence Completion test.
Figure Sample Personality Test items
It does not make sense to work hard on something if no one will notice.
1) Definitely true
2) Somewhat true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false
I tend to let others do most of the talking in conversations.
1) Definitely true
2) Some what true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false
I have remained calm in situation where others have become upset.
1) Definitely true
2) Some what true
3) Neither true nor false
4) Somewhat false
5) Definitely false.
Other personality tests are not projective. The Guilford Zimmerman survey measures personality traits like emotional stability versus moodiness, and friendliness versus criticalness. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) taps traits like hypochondria. The Interpersonal Style Inventory is a elf report inventory composed of 3000 true / false items covering scales such as sociable, sensitive, deliberate, stable, conscientious trusting and directive. Wonderlic’s Personal Characteristics Inventory measures five personality dimensions, and links these dimensions to likely job performance. The manager administers this test, and scans or faxes it to Wonderlic. They score it and return the same day. The Sales Achievement Predictor creates a report showing the person’s percentile rank on scales such as sales disposition and sales closing and rates him or her as highly recommended, recommended or not recommended for sales.
The Big Five: industrial psychologists often emphasize the big five personality dimensions as they apply to personnel testing: extraversion, emotional stability/ neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.
Neuroticism represents a tendency to exhibit poor emotional adjustment and experience negative effects, such as anxiety, insecurity and hostility. Extraversion represents a tendency to be sociable, assertive, active, and to experience positive effects, such as energy and zeal. Openness to experience is the disposition to be imaginative, nonconforming, unconventional and autonomous. Agreeableness is the tendency to be trusting, complaint, caring, and gentle. Conscientiousness is comprised of two related facets: achievements and dependability.
In one study, extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience were strong predictors of leadership. In another big five study neuroticism was negatively related to motivation, while conscientiousness was positively related to it. Components of the big five – in particular extraversion and openness to experience also correlate with career interest and occupational types. And, in personality research conscientiousness has been the most consistent and universal predictor of job performance.
Researcher in one study defined career success in terms of intrinsic success (job satisfaction) and extrinsic success (income and occupational status). Conscientiousness positively predicted both intrinsic an extrinsic career success. Neuroticism negatively predicted extrinsic success. General mental ability also positively predicted extrinsic career success.
Caveats: Personality test—particularly the projective type are the most difficult tests to evaluate and use. An expert must analyze the test taker’s interpretations and reactions and infer from them his or her personality. The usefulness of such tests for selection assumes that you find a relationship between a measurable personality trait (like introversion) and success on the job. Measuring aberrant behavior is particular challenge. For instance, personality tests may help predict if an employee’s erratic behavior will pose a threat to workplace safety. However they can also create legal problems for instance, if rejected candidates claim the results are false or violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Appraisal Most Common Mistakes
They're every manager's yearly conundrum. In theory, performance reviews make sense. In practice, the exercise borders on the absurd: You have one hour to review a whole year's worth of work, issue a grade usually based on a rudimentary "satisfaction" scale, and outline goals that you likely won’t revisit until next year’s meeting.
Sound familiar? If this is still how you think about and conduct performance reviews, then you're wasting everyone's time, including your own.
Reviews don't have to feel like you're simply jumping through HR's hoops. In fact, forget about the hoops for a moment, including those satisfaction ratings. If reviews are going to be a valuable management tool — and they can be — you're going to have to put more skin in the game.
Here are three common ways managers misuse the performance review — and what to do instead to make these meetings more effective.
.You’re still trying to look backward.
When you sit down to review an employee, how much time do you spend going over events that have already happened? Here’s where the traditional review reveals how you, the manager, are falling short: If you’re still trying to cram a whole year’s worth of praise and constructive criticism into one meeting, you’re probably shortchanging your employees on feedback during the rest of the year.
The annual review has become an excuse for managers to skip the ongoing feedback that is necessary for an employee’s personal and professional development. Instead, bosses often save up the good and the bad for one annual conversation — way too late to be meaningful for the employee.
Feedback should be a precursor to a great performance, like studying game films in sports, says John Foster, head of talent and organization at design firm IDEO. "You study the films to figure out what you'll do in the upcoming game, not to evaluate how the last game went," he says. "The score of the game serves that purpose."
The Fix: If you're not already, start checking in with employees weekly or biweekly to talk about their projects. This is when you talk about what's working and not working, what your employees are struggling with, and how they could use your help. By the time the annual or biannual meeting rolls around, there shouldn't be any surprises and you shouldn't need to dwell on the past. Instead, use that time to plan for what's to come.
Los Angeles-based Here Media, which owns Out magazine and Gay.com, replaced the backward-looking review with the performance "preview" — a meeting focused exclusively on looking ahead, setting goals, and discussing what employees need to accomplish those goals. To prep for the previews, both the supervisor and the employee jot down a few items that will help the employee be productive in the coming year. This document then serves as a guide for the discussion (and gives HR the documentation they need). Previews aren't just a once-a-year ritual — managers hold them when they feel like both parties need to refocus. VP of Human Resources Christin Dennis says that managers and employees both prefer the new system because it means that they're meeting and communicating more often.
You do most of the talking.
You’re the one in charge and you know what your employee needs to do to improve. So why shouldn’t you dominate the conversation?
If you’re the only one that gets the floor, your problem is two-fold: You can’t be sure that your feedback is getting through, and you may be missing important information from your employee. At best, the "I'll-talk-and-you'll-listen" approach leaves an employee feeling overloaded with information and unclear about how to use it, says Samuel Culbert, a UCLA management professor and author of the forthcoming book "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" At worst, your direct report will feel flat-out attacked. Even if you're providing valuable feedback, if your employees don't absorb and learn from it, then the whole process is ineffective, Culbert says.
The Fix: Your direct reports are much more likely to take ownership over their improvement and be less defensive if they are prompted to point out their own shortcomings. Shift some of the conversational burden onto them, says Foster. Require employees to show up with specific details on their own progress, concerns, and accomplishments. You can start the conversation by asking questions such as, "what do you think of your own performance?" and "where do you think you need to develop the most?" This allows you to position yourself as the coach/mentor who's focused on achieving results — not pointing out faults.
You try to motivate employees with rewards.
Usually the thinking goes, if you want employees to work harder, you need to provide positive reinforcement through praise or even a pay raise. But it turns out that our brains are not so simple, says Charles Jacobs, a management consultant and author of the book "Management Rewired." In fact, praise and money often produce the exact opposite reaction you intend.
Here's the problem: A reward is only effective if it's valued. The boss who's handing out five percent raises may think that it's a valuable increase. But if the employee was expecting 10 percent, he may view the smaller raise as a slap in the face.
Likewise, praise can lose its potency if given too frequently, Jacobs argues. An employee can come to expect it without putting in the work to earn it. If your direct reports are trying to do a good job, he says, then they already have intrinsic motivation — it's not something that you can give them.
The Fix: This is not to say that you shouldn't give raises or praise. Your employees want rewards, but they don't want them to seem manipulative or arbitrary. Make sure that doesn't happen by connecting rewards to as objective a source as possible, says Jacobs. For example, attach praise to a specific behavior or result: "David, we never would have completed this project on time and under budget without your guidance." Similarly, tie raises to specific achievements, not just a vague notion of a job well done this year.
"We figured out that everyone wants to do a good job," says CEO John Lilly, who recently revamped the performance review process at Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser. "We wanted to make the conversation about how you can get better and divorce it from the 'do they like me?' discussion." So Mozilla rebuilt the compensation process to make it more transparent and objective. Now, employees earn raises by meeting a set of clearly defined metrics that become more challenging the longer they're on the job and the more they move up. Employees always know where they stand, so reviews need not be about whether they've convinced the boss that they're working hard enough.
Sound familiar? If this is still how you think about and conduct performance reviews, then you're wasting everyone's time, including your own.
Reviews don't have to feel like you're simply jumping through HR's hoops. In fact, forget about the hoops for a moment, including those satisfaction ratings. If reviews are going to be a valuable management tool — and they can be — you're going to have to put more skin in the game.
Here are three common ways managers misuse the performance review — and what to do instead to make these meetings more effective.
.You’re still trying to look backward.
When you sit down to review an employee, how much time do you spend going over events that have already happened? Here’s where the traditional review reveals how you, the manager, are falling short: If you’re still trying to cram a whole year’s worth of praise and constructive criticism into one meeting, you’re probably shortchanging your employees on feedback during the rest of the year.
The annual review has become an excuse for managers to skip the ongoing feedback that is necessary for an employee’s personal and professional development. Instead, bosses often save up the good and the bad for one annual conversation — way too late to be meaningful for the employee.
Feedback should be a precursor to a great performance, like studying game films in sports, says John Foster, head of talent and organization at design firm IDEO. "You study the films to figure out what you'll do in the upcoming game, not to evaluate how the last game went," he says. "The score of the game serves that purpose."
The Fix: If you're not already, start checking in with employees weekly or biweekly to talk about their projects. This is when you talk about what's working and not working, what your employees are struggling with, and how they could use your help. By the time the annual or biannual meeting rolls around, there shouldn't be any surprises and you shouldn't need to dwell on the past. Instead, use that time to plan for what's to come.
Los Angeles-based Here Media, which owns Out magazine and Gay.com, replaced the backward-looking review with the performance "preview" — a meeting focused exclusively on looking ahead, setting goals, and discussing what employees need to accomplish those goals. To prep for the previews, both the supervisor and the employee jot down a few items that will help the employee be productive in the coming year. This document then serves as a guide for the discussion (and gives HR the documentation they need). Previews aren't just a once-a-year ritual — managers hold them when they feel like both parties need to refocus. VP of Human Resources Christin Dennis says that managers and employees both prefer the new system because it means that they're meeting and communicating more often.
You do most of the talking.
You’re the one in charge and you know what your employee needs to do to improve. So why shouldn’t you dominate the conversation?
If you’re the only one that gets the floor, your problem is two-fold: You can’t be sure that your feedback is getting through, and you may be missing important information from your employee. At best, the "I'll-talk-and-you'll-listen" approach leaves an employee feeling overloaded with information and unclear about how to use it, says Samuel Culbert, a UCLA management professor and author of the forthcoming book "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" At worst, your direct report will feel flat-out attacked. Even if you're providing valuable feedback, if your employees don't absorb and learn from it, then the whole process is ineffective, Culbert says.
The Fix: Your direct reports are much more likely to take ownership over their improvement and be less defensive if they are prompted to point out their own shortcomings. Shift some of the conversational burden onto them, says Foster. Require employees to show up with specific details on their own progress, concerns, and accomplishments. You can start the conversation by asking questions such as, "what do you think of your own performance?" and "where do you think you need to develop the most?" This allows you to position yourself as the coach/mentor who's focused on achieving results — not pointing out faults.
You try to motivate employees with rewards.
Usually the thinking goes, if you want employees to work harder, you need to provide positive reinforcement through praise or even a pay raise. But it turns out that our brains are not so simple, says Charles Jacobs, a management consultant and author of the book "Management Rewired." In fact, praise and money often produce the exact opposite reaction you intend.
Here's the problem: A reward is only effective if it's valued. The boss who's handing out five percent raises may think that it's a valuable increase. But if the employee was expecting 10 percent, he may view the smaller raise as a slap in the face.
Likewise, praise can lose its potency if given too frequently, Jacobs argues. An employee can come to expect it without putting in the work to earn it. If your direct reports are trying to do a good job, he says, then they already have intrinsic motivation — it's not something that you can give them.
The Fix: This is not to say that you shouldn't give raises or praise. Your employees want rewards, but they don't want them to seem manipulative or arbitrary. Make sure that doesn't happen by connecting rewards to as objective a source as possible, says Jacobs. For example, attach praise to a specific behavior or result: "David, we never would have completed this project on time and under budget without your guidance." Similarly, tie raises to specific achievements, not just a vague notion of a job well done this year.
"We figured out that everyone wants to do a good job," says CEO John Lilly, who recently revamped the performance review process at Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser. "We wanted to make the conversation about how you can get better and divorce it from the 'do they like me?' discussion." So Mozilla rebuilt the compensation process to make it more transparent and objective. Now, employees earn raises by meeting a set of clearly defined metrics that become more challenging the longer they're on the job and the more they move up. Employees always know where they stand, so reviews need not be about whether they've convinced the boss that they're working hard enough.
Turning Failure Into Success
From the time we’re little, we’re told that time heals all wounds. But nobody tells us it’s only half true. When the wounds are inflicted by somebody else, fine. But when wounds are self-inflicted - also known as mistakes - all the time in the world won’t heal them if we don’t acknowledge them.
Failure is a little bit different, but the concept is similar. Failing to admit and learn from failure will only lead to more dramatic failure. The converse is also true: admitting and learning from failure will ultimately lead to success.
Unfortunately, many leaders seem to be allergic to the whole idea of admitting failure. I’ve seen it dozens of times with business leaders, political leaders, CEOs, and executives. Why that is, I don’t know, but it may have something to do with how success gives leaders a big head, as we discussed in The Problem with Know-It-All Managers.
Regardless, systemic business failure, corporate failure, and personal failure, typically comes down to leaders or managers sticking their heads in the sand. Don’t be one of them. Instead, master these …
10 Ways Failure Leads to Success
1.Change management. Every try changing a company system or process that involves lots of people? If you have, then you’ve failed. And if you didn’t learn from it, then you’re still no good at it.
2.Employee. What, you were a great employee out of the gate? Come on, tell the truth. You made mistakes; that’s how you learned how things work, how to get things done, when to take a stand, and when to suck it up. Or maybe you didn’t. Hmm.
3.Turnarounds. Turnarounds start by clearly stating the problem, what went wrong. Sometimes it takes a few iterations, as with IBM, Apple, and HP. Some boards wait too long, as with Nortel. Are Sprint, Sony, and Dell next?
4.Managing people. I don’t care what business schools say; you don’t learn this in school. You learn it on the job by making mistakes and learning what works and what doesn’t. Period.
5.The scientific method. It’s built on the concept of making an assumption, experimenting, proving it wrong, and continuing until you can’t prove it wrong.
6.Innovation. The whole startup innovation loop is a learning curve based on trial and error. Sure, we love the Google and Facebook founder’s stories, but far more common are entrepreneurs who failed multiple times before nailing it.
7.Consulting. Um, not to get too specific, but the only reason I have any success as a consultant is because I made dozens of mistakes over two decades in corporations. It’s called “learning the ropes.”
8.Strategic planning. Any strategic planning process must begin with an analysis of what’s working and what isn’t. The “W” in SWOT stands for weaknesses, and with good reason.
9.Post mortems. If you don’t do post mortems on lost customers and failed product launches and marketing campaigns, you’re far less likely to get it right the next time.
10.Relationships. If you need me to explain how failed relationships - personal, business, whatever - make you a better partner and team player, then you have bigger problems than I can help you with.
It may seem like a contradiction and it certainly is ironic, but thinking you’re always right is a sure path to failure, while admitting and learning from failure inevitably leads to success.
Failure is a little bit different, but the concept is similar. Failing to admit and learn from failure will only lead to more dramatic failure. The converse is also true: admitting and learning from failure will ultimately lead to success.
Unfortunately, many leaders seem to be allergic to the whole idea of admitting failure. I’ve seen it dozens of times with business leaders, political leaders, CEOs, and executives. Why that is, I don’t know, but it may have something to do with how success gives leaders a big head, as we discussed in The Problem with Know-It-All Managers.
Regardless, systemic business failure, corporate failure, and personal failure, typically comes down to leaders or managers sticking their heads in the sand. Don’t be one of them. Instead, master these …
10 Ways Failure Leads to Success
1.Change management. Every try changing a company system or process that involves lots of people? If you have, then you’ve failed. And if you didn’t learn from it, then you’re still no good at it.
2.Employee. What, you were a great employee out of the gate? Come on, tell the truth. You made mistakes; that’s how you learned how things work, how to get things done, when to take a stand, and when to suck it up. Or maybe you didn’t. Hmm.
3.Turnarounds. Turnarounds start by clearly stating the problem, what went wrong. Sometimes it takes a few iterations, as with IBM, Apple, and HP. Some boards wait too long, as with Nortel. Are Sprint, Sony, and Dell next?
4.Managing people. I don’t care what business schools say; you don’t learn this in school. You learn it on the job by making mistakes and learning what works and what doesn’t. Period.
5.The scientific method. It’s built on the concept of making an assumption, experimenting, proving it wrong, and continuing until you can’t prove it wrong.
6.Innovation. The whole startup innovation loop is a learning curve based on trial and error. Sure, we love the Google and Facebook founder’s stories, but far more common are entrepreneurs who failed multiple times before nailing it.
7.Consulting. Um, not to get too specific, but the only reason I have any success as a consultant is because I made dozens of mistakes over two decades in corporations. It’s called “learning the ropes.”
8.Strategic planning. Any strategic planning process must begin with an analysis of what’s working and what isn’t. The “W” in SWOT stands for weaknesses, and with good reason.
9.Post mortems. If you don’t do post mortems on lost customers and failed product launches and marketing campaigns, you’re far less likely to get it right the next time.
10.Relationships. If you need me to explain how failed relationships - personal, business, whatever - make you a better partner and team player, then you have bigger problems than I can help you with.
It may seem like a contradiction and it certainly is ironic, but thinking you’re always right is a sure path to failure, while admitting and learning from failure inevitably leads to success.
What Can Go Wrong With Performance Appraisals
, Human Resources, Performance Reviews, Feedback, Boss, Manager, Criticism, Praise, Rewards, Raises, Kirsten Korosec
They're every manager's yearly conundrum. In theory, performance reviews make sense. In practice, the exercise borders on the absurd: You have one hour to review a whole year's worth of work, issue a grade usually based on a rudimentary "satisfaction" scale, and outline goals that you likely won’t revisit until next year’s meeting.
Sound familiar? If this is still how you think about and conduct performance reviews, then you're wasting everyone's time, including your own.
Reviews don't have to feel like you're simply jumping through HR's hoops. In fact, forget about the hoops for a moment, including those satisfaction ratings. If reviews are going to be a valuable management tool — and they can be — you're going to have to put more skin in the game.
Here are three common ways managers misuse the performance review — and what to do instead to make these meetings more effective.
.You’re still trying to look backward.
When you sit down to review an employee, how much time do you spend going over events that have already happened? Here’s where the traditional review reveals how you, the manager, are falling short: If you’re still trying to cram a whole year’s worth of praise and constructive criticism into one meeting, you’re probably shortchanging your employees on feedback during the rest of the year.
The annual review has become an excuse for managers to skip the ongoing feedback that is necessary for an employee’s personal and professional development. Instead, bosses often save up the good and the bad for one annual conversation — way too late to be meaningful for the employee.
Feedback should be a precursor to a great performance, like studying game films in sports, says John Foster, head of talent and organization at design firm IDEO. "You study the films to figure out what you'll do in the upcoming game, not to evaluate how the last game went," he says. "The score of the game serves that purpose."
The Fix: If you're not already, start checking in with employees weekly or biweekly to talk about their projects. This is when you talk about what's working and not working, what your employees are struggling with, and how they could use your help. By the time the annual or biannual meeting rolls around, there shouldn't be any surprises and you shouldn't need to dwell on the past. Instead, use that time to plan for what's to come.
Los Angeles-based Here Media, which owns Out magazine and Gay.com, replaced the backward-looking review with the performance "preview" — a meeting focused exclusively on looking ahead, setting goals, and discussing what employees need to accomplish those goals. To prep for the previews, both the supervisor and the employee jot down a few items that will help the employee be productive in the coming year. This document then serves as a guide for the discussion (and gives HR the documentation they need). Previews aren't just a once-a-year ritual — managers hold them when they feel like both parties need to refocus. VP of Human Resources Christin Dennis says that managers and employees both prefer the new system because it means that they're meeting and communicating more often.
You do most of the talking.
You’re the one in charge and you know what your employee needs to do to improve. So why shouldn’t you dominate the conversation?
If you’re the only one that gets the floor, your problem is two-fold: You can’t be sure that your feedback is getting through, and you may be missing important information from your employee. At best, the "I'll-talk-and-you'll-listen" approach leaves an employee feeling overloaded with information and unclear about how to use it, says Samuel Culbert, a UCLA management professor and author of the forthcoming book "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" At worst, your direct report will feel flat-out attacked. Even if you're providing valuable feedback, if your employees don't absorb and learn from it, then the whole process is ineffective, Culbert says.
The Fix: Your direct reports are much more likely to take ownership over their improvement and be less defensive if they are prompted to point out their own shortcomings. Shift some of the conversational burden onto them, says Foster. Require employees to show up with specific details on their own progress, concerns, and accomplishments. You can start the conversation by asking questions such as, "what do you think of your own performance?" and "where do you think you need to develop the most?" This allows you to position yourself as the coach/mentor who's focused on achieving results — not pointing out faults.
You try to motivate employees with rewards.
Usually the thinking goes, if you want employees to work harder, you need to provide positive reinforcement through praise or even a pay raise. But it turns out that our brains are not so simple, says Charles Jacobs, a management consultant and author of the book "Management Rewired." In fact, praise and money often produce the exact opposite reaction you intend.
Here's the problem: A reward is only effective if it's valued. The boss who's handing out five percent raises may think that it's a valuable increase. But if the employee was expecting 10 percent, he may view the smaller raise as a slap in the face.
Likewise, praise can lose its potency if given too frequently, Jacobs argues. An employee can come to expect it without putting in the work to earn it. If your direct reports are trying to do a good job, he says, then they already have intrinsic motivation — it's not something that you can give them.
The Fix: This is not to say that you shouldn't give raises or praise. Your employees want rewards, but they don't want them to seem manipulative or arbitrary. Make sure that doesn't happen by connecting rewards to as objective a source as possible, says Jacobs. For example, attach praise to a specific behavior or result: "David, we never would have completed this project on time and under budget without your guidance." Similarly, tie raises to specific achievements, not just a vague notion of a job well done this year.
"We figured out that everyone wants to do a good job," says CEO John Lilly, who recently revamped the performance review process at Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser. "We wanted to make the conversation about how you can get better and divorce it from the 'do they like me?' discussion." So Mozilla rebuilt the compensation process to make it more transparent and objective. Now, employees earn raises by meeting a set of clearly defined metrics that become more challenging the longer they're on the job and the more they move up. Employees always know where they stand, so reviews need not be about whether they've convinced the boss that they're working hard enough.
They're every manager's yearly conundrum. In theory, performance reviews make sense. In practice, the exercise borders on the absurd: You have one hour to review a whole year's worth of work, issue a grade usually based on a rudimentary "satisfaction" scale, and outline goals that you likely won’t revisit until next year’s meeting.
Sound familiar? If this is still how you think about and conduct performance reviews, then you're wasting everyone's time, including your own.
Reviews don't have to feel like you're simply jumping through HR's hoops. In fact, forget about the hoops for a moment, including those satisfaction ratings. If reviews are going to be a valuable management tool — and they can be — you're going to have to put more skin in the game.
Here are three common ways managers misuse the performance review — and what to do instead to make these meetings more effective.
.You’re still trying to look backward.
When you sit down to review an employee, how much time do you spend going over events that have already happened? Here’s where the traditional review reveals how you, the manager, are falling short: If you’re still trying to cram a whole year’s worth of praise and constructive criticism into one meeting, you’re probably shortchanging your employees on feedback during the rest of the year.
The annual review has become an excuse for managers to skip the ongoing feedback that is necessary for an employee’s personal and professional development. Instead, bosses often save up the good and the bad for one annual conversation — way too late to be meaningful for the employee.
Feedback should be a precursor to a great performance, like studying game films in sports, says John Foster, head of talent and organization at design firm IDEO. "You study the films to figure out what you'll do in the upcoming game, not to evaluate how the last game went," he says. "The score of the game serves that purpose."
The Fix: If you're not already, start checking in with employees weekly or biweekly to talk about their projects. This is when you talk about what's working and not working, what your employees are struggling with, and how they could use your help. By the time the annual or biannual meeting rolls around, there shouldn't be any surprises and you shouldn't need to dwell on the past. Instead, use that time to plan for what's to come.
Los Angeles-based Here Media, which owns Out magazine and Gay.com, replaced the backward-looking review with the performance "preview" — a meeting focused exclusively on looking ahead, setting goals, and discussing what employees need to accomplish those goals. To prep for the previews, both the supervisor and the employee jot down a few items that will help the employee be productive in the coming year. This document then serves as a guide for the discussion (and gives HR the documentation they need). Previews aren't just a once-a-year ritual — managers hold them when they feel like both parties need to refocus. VP of Human Resources Christin Dennis says that managers and employees both prefer the new system because it means that they're meeting and communicating more often.
You do most of the talking.
You’re the one in charge and you know what your employee needs to do to improve. So why shouldn’t you dominate the conversation?
If you’re the only one that gets the floor, your problem is two-fold: You can’t be sure that your feedback is getting through, and you may be missing important information from your employee. At best, the "I'll-talk-and-you'll-listen" approach leaves an employee feeling overloaded with information and unclear about how to use it, says Samuel Culbert, a UCLA management professor and author of the forthcoming book "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" At worst, your direct report will feel flat-out attacked. Even if you're providing valuable feedback, if your employees don't absorb and learn from it, then the whole process is ineffective, Culbert says.
The Fix: Your direct reports are much more likely to take ownership over their improvement and be less defensive if they are prompted to point out their own shortcomings. Shift some of the conversational burden onto them, says Foster. Require employees to show up with specific details on their own progress, concerns, and accomplishments. You can start the conversation by asking questions such as, "what do you think of your own performance?" and "where do you think you need to develop the most?" This allows you to position yourself as the coach/mentor who's focused on achieving results — not pointing out faults.
You try to motivate employees with rewards.
Usually the thinking goes, if you want employees to work harder, you need to provide positive reinforcement through praise or even a pay raise. But it turns out that our brains are not so simple, says Charles Jacobs, a management consultant and author of the book "Management Rewired." In fact, praise and money often produce the exact opposite reaction you intend.
Here's the problem: A reward is only effective if it's valued. The boss who's handing out five percent raises may think that it's a valuable increase. But if the employee was expecting 10 percent, he may view the smaller raise as a slap in the face.
Likewise, praise can lose its potency if given too frequently, Jacobs argues. An employee can come to expect it without putting in the work to earn it. If your direct reports are trying to do a good job, he says, then they already have intrinsic motivation — it's not something that you can give them.
The Fix: This is not to say that you shouldn't give raises or praise. Your employees want rewards, but they don't want them to seem manipulative or arbitrary. Make sure that doesn't happen by connecting rewards to as objective a source as possible, says Jacobs. For example, attach praise to a specific behavior or result: "David, we never would have completed this project on time and under budget without your guidance." Similarly, tie raises to specific achievements, not just a vague notion of a job well done this year.
"We figured out that everyone wants to do a good job," says CEO John Lilly, who recently revamped the performance review process at Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser. "We wanted to make the conversation about how you can get better and divorce it from the 'do they like me?' discussion." So Mozilla rebuilt the compensation process to make it more transparent and objective. Now, employees earn raises by meeting a set of clearly defined metrics that become more challenging the longer they're on the job and the more they move up. Employees always know where they stand, so reviews need not be about whether they've convinced the boss that they're working hard enough.
HR Tests Validity
Reliability, while indispensable only tells you that the test is measuring something consistently. It does not prove that you are measuring what you intend to measure. A mis-manufactured 33 inch yardstick will consistently tell you that 33 inch boards are 33 inches long. Unfortunately, if what you’re looking for is a board is one full yard long, then your 33 inch yardstick though reliable is misleading you by 3 inches.
What you need is a valid yardstick. Validity tells you whether the test (or yardstick) is measuring what you think it’s supposed to be measuring.
A test, as we said, is a sample of a person’s behavior but some tests are more clearly representative of the behavior being sampled than others. A typing test, for example, clearly corresponds to an on the job behavior. At the other extreme, there may be no apparent relationship between the items on the test and the behavior. This is the case with projective personality tests. Thus, in the Thematic perception test, the psychologists asks the person to explain how he or she interprets an ambiguous picture. The psychologists use that interpretation to draw conclusions about the person’s personality and behavior. In such tests, it is more difficult to prove that the tests are measuring what they are said to measure in this case some trait of the person’s personality that they have valid.
Test validity:
The accuracy with which a test, interview and so on measures what it purports to measure or fulfills the function it was designed to fill.
Test validity answers the question. Does this test measure what it’s supposed to measure? Put another way, validity refers to the correctness of the inferences that we can make based on the test. For example, if Jane gets higher score on a mechanical comprehension tests than Jim can we be sure that Jane possesses more mechanical comprehension than Jim? With employee selection tests, validity often refers to evidence that the test is job related – in other words, that performance on the test is a valid predictor of subsequent performance on the job. A selection test must be valid since, without proof of validity, there is no logical or legally permissible reason to continue using it to screen job applicants. You would not be too comfortable taking the GRE, if you didn’t think about your score. Equal employment law calls for use of valid tests. In employment testing, there are two main ways to demonstrate a test’s validity: criterion validity and content validity.
Criterion validity:
A type of validity based in showing that scores on the test (predictors) are related to job performance (criterion).
Demonstrating criterion validity means demonstrating that those who do well on the test also do well on the job, and that those who do poorly on the test poorly on the job. Thus, the test has validity to the extent that the people with higher test scores perform better on the job. In psychological measurement, a predictor is the measurement (in this case, the test score) that you are trying to relate to a criterion like performance on the job. The term criterion validity reflects that terminology.
Content validity:
A test that is content valid is one that contains a fair sample of the tasks and skills actually needed for the job in question.
Employers demonstrate the content validity of a test by showing that the test constitutes a fair sample of the content of the job. The basic procedure here is to identify job tasks that are critical to performance, and then randomly select a sample of those tasks to be tested. In selecting students for dental school, many schools give applicants chunks of chalk, and ask them to carve something that looks like a tooth. If the content you choose for the test is a representative sample of what the person needs to know for the job, then the test is probably content valid. Clumsy dental students need not apply.
Demonstrating content validity sounds easier than it is in practice. Demonstrating that (1) the tasks the person performs on the test are really a comprehensive and random sample of the tasks performed on the job and (2) the conditions under which the person takes the test resemble the work situation is not always easy. For many jobs, employers opt to demonstrate other evidence of a test’s validity – most often, criterion validity.
What you need is a valid yardstick. Validity tells you whether the test (or yardstick) is measuring what you think it’s supposed to be measuring.
A test, as we said, is a sample of a person’s behavior but some tests are more clearly representative of the behavior being sampled than others. A typing test, for example, clearly corresponds to an on the job behavior. At the other extreme, there may be no apparent relationship between the items on the test and the behavior. This is the case with projective personality tests. Thus, in the Thematic perception test, the psychologists asks the person to explain how he or she interprets an ambiguous picture. The psychologists use that interpretation to draw conclusions about the person’s personality and behavior. In such tests, it is more difficult to prove that the tests are measuring what they are said to measure in this case some trait of the person’s personality that they have valid.
Test validity:
The accuracy with which a test, interview and so on measures what it purports to measure or fulfills the function it was designed to fill.
Test validity answers the question. Does this test measure what it’s supposed to measure? Put another way, validity refers to the correctness of the inferences that we can make based on the test. For example, if Jane gets higher score on a mechanical comprehension tests than Jim can we be sure that Jane possesses more mechanical comprehension than Jim? With employee selection tests, validity often refers to evidence that the test is job related – in other words, that performance on the test is a valid predictor of subsequent performance on the job. A selection test must be valid since, without proof of validity, there is no logical or legally permissible reason to continue using it to screen job applicants. You would not be too comfortable taking the GRE, if you didn’t think about your score. Equal employment law calls for use of valid tests. In employment testing, there are two main ways to demonstrate a test’s validity: criterion validity and content validity.
Criterion validity:
A type of validity based in showing that scores on the test (predictors) are related to job performance (criterion).
Demonstrating criterion validity means demonstrating that those who do well on the test also do well on the job, and that those who do poorly on the test poorly on the job. Thus, the test has validity to the extent that the people with higher test scores perform better on the job. In psychological measurement, a predictor is the measurement (in this case, the test score) that you are trying to relate to a criterion like performance on the job. The term criterion validity reflects that terminology.
Content validity:
A test that is content valid is one that contains a fair sample of the tasks and skills actually needed for the job in question.
Employers demonstrate the content validity of a test by showing that the test constitutes a fair sample of the content of the job. The basic procedure here is to identify job tasks that are critical to performance, and then randomly select a sample of those tasks to be tested. In selecting students for dental school, many schools give applicants chunks of chalk, and ask them to carve something that looks like a tooth. If the content you choose for the test is a representative sample of what the person needs to know for the job, then the test is probably content valid. Clumsy dental students need not apply.
Demonstrating content validity sounds easier than it is in practice. Demonstrating that (1) the tasks the person performs on the test are really a comprehensive and random sample of the tasks performed on the job and (2) the conditions under which the person takes the test resemble the work situation is not always easy. For many jobs, employers opt to demonstrate other evidence of a test’s validity – most often, criterion validity.
Importance of The Good Selection of People
Once you have a pool of applicants, the next step is to select the best candidates for the job. This usually means whittling down the applicant pool by using the screening tools explained later tests, assessments centers, and background and reference checks. Then the prospective supervisor can interview likely candidates and decide who to hire.
Selecting the right employees is important for three main reasons: performance, costs, and legal obligations.
Performance: First your own performance always depends in part on your subordinates. Employees with the right skills will do a better job for you and the company. Employees without these skills or who are abrasive or obstructionist won’t perform effectively and your own performance and the firm’s will suffer. The time to screen out undesirables is before they are in the door, not after.
Cost: Second, it is important because it’s costly to recruit and hire employees. Hiring and training even a clerk can cost $ 5,000 or more in fees and supervisory time. The total cost of hiring a manager could easily be 10 times as high once you add search fees, interviewing time, reference checking and travel and moving expenses.
Legal Obligations: Third, for US employers it’s important because of two legal implications of incompetent hiring. First, equal employment laws require non-discriminatory selection procedures for protected groups.
Negligent Hiring: Hiring workers with questionable backgrounds without proper safeguards.
Second, courts will find the employer liable when employers with criminal records or other problems use access to customers’ homes (or similar opportunities) to commit crimes. Lawyers call hiring workers with such backgrounds without proper safeguards or negligent hiring. In one case, Pointcase v KMS Investments an apartments manager with a passkey entered a woman’s apartment and assaulted her. The court found the apartment complex’s owner negligent in not properly checking the manager’s background. When lawyers recently sued Wal-Mart alleging that several employees with convictions for sexually related offenses had assaulted young girls, Wal-Mart instituted a new program of criminal background checks for qualified candidates.
Negligent hiring highlights the need to think through what the job’s human requirements really are. For example, non rapist isn’t likely to appear as a required knowledge skill, or ability in a job analysis of an apartment manager, but in situations like this screening for such tendencies is obviously required.
Avoiding negligent hiring claims requires taking reasonable action to investigate the candidate’s background. This includes:
1) Making a systematic effort to gain relevant information about the applicant and verifying all documentation.
2) Scrutinizing all information supplied by the applicant and following up on unexplained gaps in employment.
3) Keeping a detailed log of all attempts to obtain information, including names and dates for phone calls or other requests;
4) Rejecting applicants who make false statements of materials affects or who have conviction records for a offenses directly related and important to the job in question
5) Lancing the applicant’s privacy rights with others need to know especially when you discover damaging information
6) Taking immediate disciplinary action if problems arise.
Selection is thus important. We’ll start with testing. A test is basically a sample of a person’s behavior. Using a test (or other section Tool) assumes the device is both reliable and valid.
Reliability: The consistency of scores obtained by the same person when retested with the identical tests or with alternate forms of the same test.
Reliability is a test’s first requirement and refers to its consistency: A reliable test is one that yields consistent scores when a person takes two alternate forms of the test or when he or she takes the same test on two or more different occasions.
There are several ways to estimate consistency or reliability. You could administer the same test to the same people at two different points in time, comparing their test scores at time two with their scores at time one; this would be test estimate. Or you could administer a test and then administer that experts believe to be an equivalent test later; this would be an equivalent form of estimate. The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is an example of the latter. A test’s internal consistency is another reliability measure.
Selecting the right employees is important for three main reasons: performance, costs, and legal obligations.
Performance: First your own performance always depends in part on your subordinates. Employees with the right skills will do a better job for you and the company. Employees without these skills or who are abrasive or obstructionist won’t perform effectively and your own performance and the firm’s will suffer. The time to screen out undesirables is before they are in the door, not after.
Cost: Second, it is important because it’s costly to recruit and hire employees. Hiring and training even a clerk can cost $ 5,000 or more in fees and supervisory time. The total cost of hiring a manager could easily be 10 times as high once you add search fees, interviewing time, reference checking and travel and moving expenses.
Legal Obligations: Third, for US employers it’s important because of two legal implications of incompetent hiring. First, equal employment laws require non-discriminatory selection procedures for protected groups.
Negligent Hiring: Hiring workers with questionable backgrounds without proper safeguards.
Second, courts will find the employer liable when employers with criminal records or other problems use access to customers’ homes (or similar opportunities) to commit crimes. Lawyers call hiring workers with such backgrounds without proper safeguards or negligent hiring. In one case, Pointcase v KMS Investments an apartments manager with a passkey entered a woman’s apartment and assaulted her. The court found the apartment complex’s owner negligent in not properly checking the manager’s background. When lawyers recently sued Wal-Mart alleging that several employees with convictions for sexually related offenses had assaulted young girls, Wal-Mart instituted a new program of criminal background checks for qualified candidates.
Negligent hiring highlights the need to think through what the job’s human requirements really are. For example, non rapist isn’t likely to appear as a required knowledge skill, or ability in a job analysis of an apartment manager, but in situations like this screening for such tendencies is obviously required.
Avoiding negligent hiring claims requires taking reasonable action to investigate the candidate’s background. This includes:
1) Making a systematic effort to gain relevant information about the applicant and verifying all documentation.
2) Scrutinizing all information supplied by the applicant and following up on unexplained gaps in employment.
3) Keeping a detailed log of all attempts to obtain information, including names and dates for phone calls or other requests;
4) Rejecting applicants who make false statements of materials affects or who have conviction records for a offenses directly related and important to the job in question
5) Lancing the applicant’s privacy rights with others need to know especially when you discover damaging information
6) Taking immediate disciplinary action if problems arise.
Selection is thus important. We’ll start with testing. A test is basically a sample of a person’s behavior. Using a test (or other section Tool) assumes the device is both reliable and valid.
Reliability: The consistency of scores obtained by the same person when retested with the identical tests or with alternate forms of the same test.
Reliability is a test’s first requirement and refers to its consistency: A reliable test is one that yields consistent scores when a person takes two alternate forms of the test or when he or she takes the same test on two or more different occasions.
There are several ways to estimate consistency or reliability. You could administer the same test to the same people at two different points in time, comparing their test scores at time two with their scores at time one; this would be test estimate. Or you could administer a test and then administer that experts believe to be an equivalent test later; this would be an equivalent form of estimate. The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is an example of the latter. A test’s internal consistency is another reliability measure.
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