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How to Increase
the Numbers of
Soaring Eagles
“Lone eagles, soaring in the clouds, fly with silent, peaceful poise, while turkeys, in their earth-bound crowds, fill the atmosphere with noise.”
Those words of scholar William Arthur Ward succinctly capture the different characteristics of two kinds of birds. But Ward is talking about more than just birds. He is telling us that we should admire and emulate the eagle, and that too many of us fit in too well among the "earth-bound crowds."
Nothing against turkeys, but Ward has a point. Yes, turkeys are the icons of a well-set Thanksgiving table, but consider what that means: They get eaten, especially this time of year. So why not soar with the eagles? That's a good goal for both individuals and organizations, and it fits well with recognizing incompetence on the managerial team and doing something about it.
If you have read Profiles' "Eight Signs of Incompetent Managers," and know you have some work to do, here are some ideas for proceeding.
• Before you make your next managerial hire or promotion, make sure the person you are considering for a position of responsibility is management material. Some people can grow into the role, and some cannot. Scientific assessments such as ProfileXT and Profiles Performance Indicator provide insight that helps improve selection and team performance. Our clients have used one or both tools successfully, depending on their needs. Either way, these assessments work. They offer more validity than just guessing or following your instincts.
• If you already know you have managers who are not performing to your standards, take action sooner rather than later. Planning a course of action is good, but only if you execute the plan in a timely manner. If the person in charge of execution puts off corrective action week after week because he or the plan "is not ready," you have just discovered another ineffective leader in your organization. Leading often means going outside one's comfort zone to do what needs doing, and some managers need training to do this. Demonstrate to subordinates what action looks like. Show them that taking action is essential. Letting a poorly performing manager squeak by for an extended period can damage your organization.
• If you determine a manager cannot fit the role of leading others, you owe it to him or her, and to yourself, to find out how he can best serve. Look at what he was doing before management. What aspects of his previous performance prompted his promotion? Was he a strong salesman? An expert technician? Superb at customer service? If he showed strength in a prior position, your next step is to move him to the place he performs best with the message that you want both him and the company to succeed. If this employee adds value to the organization, you do not want to imply that he failed. Some people are just not management material, and chances are that your worker knows that as well as you do.
• Use your high performers as models for both current and future employees. Smart recruiters use PXT on the front end to make sure they are hiring people that look like the organization's top performers. Creative workplaces find methods of spreading high performance around. Leaders put their high performers in teams to train others. They give them the responsibility of an important project and let them detail to the rest of the organization how they executed it. Show off anyone who does the job the right way. Remember: Praise in public, correct in private. Get to the point where you praise more than correct, and your job will be more enjoyable and certainly easier.
These ideas will put your organization on the flight path of soaring eagles. May their numbers increase.
Jim Sirbasku, CEO
Profiles International
Pop Quiz
Indicate a T or an F on each
question. Then read below to find out the correct answers.
1. An effective manager agonizes
over each detail of a big plan.
____True ____False
2. Employee attitudes toward change are impossible to discover. If
an employee knows his organization wants him to embrace change, he
can mask his attitude successfully.
____True ____False
3. A
competent leader delegates responsibility only after analyzing
whether the employee is capable of successfully completing the task.
____True ____False
4. Some subordinates don't want to do what needs to be done; they
prefer to exercise their creativity in their own way. A leader faced
with this kind of worker should leave her alone to work the way she
thinks best.
____True ____False
5. A verbose manager can hinder effective communication.
____True ____False
6. Only weak leaders ask for help once they have set their course of
action.
____True ____False
7. Telling team members to observe an expert at work is the best way
to develop talents in others.
____True ____False
8. Effective managers stay with a problem indefinitely, even when it
appears impossible to solve.
____True ____False
Answers:
1. False. A manager who cannot move
beyond the small details of an important plan has lost sight of the
big picture.
2. False.
Although some employees are adept at hiding things, top leaders can
discover such things as attitudes toward change through a sharply
focused assessment. Moving a worker who dislikes change to another
position will result in a better job fit and more productivity.
3. True.
Competent leaders delegate responsibility after assessing their
workers' capabilities, interests and development needs.
4. False.
Effective leaders clearly spell out their expectations for
subordinates. Although constructive corrections might bruise an ego,
a leader cannot lead someone pointed in the wrong direction.
5. True.
By its definition, communication requires that more than one person
speaks—a give and take—never a give and give and give. Even if team
members disagree, considering all viewpoints can lead to creative
solutions. Voila! Communication!
6. False.
Seeking help to complete a project on deadline is always a more
effective course of action than stubbornly pushing forward toward
failure. There is no "I" in team.
7. False.
Observing a master at work is only one way of developing others'
skills. Other necessary methods include observation of the
employee's habits, constructive criticism, and focused training.
8. True.
Effective managers know that every problem has a solution. And they
find it.
Product Focus
Checkpoint and Team
Analysis Banish the 'Nightmare Boss'
The "nightmare boss" is a
popular topic during employee break-time, after-work get-togethers and
in ongoing jokes. Workers complain about incompetent leaders because
they believe that venting is all they can do. They feel powerless to
change the dynamic of a supervisor who doesn't, a CEO who believes
everything is just fine, and subordinates who must stumble along, trying
to get the job done and wishing top leaders could walk in their shoes
for just one day.
Profiles International offers
two assessments that put teams in the driver's seat when it comes to
trying to change the dynamic of ineffective leaders. One is Checkpoint,
which allows managers to see themselves through the eyes of their
subordinates—and, hopefully, adopt changes that will make them more
effective. Another is Profiles Team Analysis, which allows managers to
put together teams that move forward productively and harmoniously.
Managers don't have to use
both tools—but they can.
First, let's examine
Checkpoint, which focuses on a manager's job performance in eight
competency areas: communication, adaptability, task management,
productivity, development of others, leadership, building relationships,
and personal development.
Each person participating
completes an evaluation. This process takes about 15 minutes, and can be
done via Internet or on paper. Except for the boss, none of the
participants uses his name. This anonymity allows for more objective,
honest responses. The results go into a report that the manager receives
and uses for improving his performance.
Part two of the Checkpoint
process is SkillBuilder, which systematically takes the leader through
the process of developing a comprehensive development plan custom-made
for him.
An assessment that helps
managers develop effective teams by getting to know individuals better
is Profiles Team Analysis. PTA examines 12 different areas, including
patience, ambition and precision. It tells the leader whether the
employee is team-oriented and/or quality-oriented.
The PTA report comes in four
sections:
• The Team Balance Table. Team
leaders can see overall representation of certain qualities—where
players excel and where they might not.
• Overall Team Balance. This section explores characteristics that are
not well represented, because a leader must be aware of his team's
shortcomings—and shore them up—to ensure a successful mission.
• Behavioural Factors. Team players with scores in each of the 12
factors are identified so the leader can use the information to match
the natural characteristics of members with team goals.
• Action Summary. Specific steps help the leader supervise to get the
greatest contribution from every member of the team.
Relegate tales of the
"nightmare boss" to the myth pile. With Marcourt Communications help,
organizations can raise the level of break-room talk to topics that
everyone—even the boss—can enjoy. Call 519-893-1933.
Regarding inertia:
'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful.'
Samuel Beckett, author
'So many fail
because they don't get started—they don't go. They don't
overcome inertia. They don't begin.'
W. Clement Stone, American entrepreneur
Regarding
productivity:
'The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is
willing to do and dare.'
Dale Carnegie, author and self-improvement guru
Regarding adapting
to change:
'In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be
partners with their people... they no longer can lead solely
based on positional power.'
Ken Blanchard, leadership expert
Regarding
development of others:
'The growth and development of people is the highest calling of
leadership.'
Harvey S. Firestone, American industrialist
Regarding
development of others, self-development:
'Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your
own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn
from it—immediately.'
Stephen Covey, author and leadership/organizational consultant
Strategies For Winning
21 Days to a Winning, Motivated Team
What Goes Around*
See your
Managers' Strengths from Every Angle
A senior
manager announces his decision to move to a competitor and the
senior management team convenes a crisis-management meeting to
figure how the organization will survive. Meanwhile, for the
rest of the team, it's party time! The champagne is flowing;
everyone's wearing funny hats, blowing noisemakers, and toasting
their good fortune. The topic du jour is "With that clown gone,
maybe now we can get on with business."
What happened?
How can someone so valued by senior management work so badly
with the troops on the ground? The reality is most senior
managers have no awareness of how they or their fellow managers
perceive them throughout their organizations, even at a time
when so much is spoken about achievement of corporate goals
through team-based efforts. No wonder that more than 30 percent
of all people changing jobs are doing so to get away from their
bosses. They're not leaving their jobs—they're leaving their
managers!
This sort
of disaster can happen only in an environment where the
performance of management is appraised using traditional
boss-down appraisals, with performance of managers assessed only
by their direct bosses. This traditional approach means that the
views of those who most directly experience the effectiveness
(or otherwise) of a manager's performance—peers and direct
reports—are
never tapped. If your success depends to any extent upon your
team, that's just not acceptable any more.
Multi-Rater Feedback
Modern business
has rendered the traditional boss-down appraisal extinct, and a
more appropriate approach to assessing management competencies
and performance has emerged. That new approach is multi-rater
feedback, and Profiles Checkpoint is an excellent example of
this model.
Every year,
more than 250,000 managers worldwide use the Profiles Checkpoint
Multi-Rater Feedback System, a system that provides managers and
leaders with an opportunity to receive an evaluation of their
job performance from the people around them—their boss, their
peers (fellow managers), and their direct reports (the people
whose work they supervise). From this feedback, managers can
compare the opinions of others with their own perceptions,
positively identify their strengths, and pinpoint the areas of
their job performance that need improvement.
The Profiles
Checkpoint process is concerned with a manager's job performance
in eight universal leadership and management competencies and 18
skill sets:
Communication
• Listens
to others
• Processes information
• Communicates effectively
Adaptability
• Adjusts
to circumstances
• Thinks creatively
Task
Management
• Works
efficiently
• Works competently
Development of Others
•
Cultivates individual talents
• Motivates successfully
Leadership
• Instils
trust
• Provides direction
• Delegates responsibility
Relationships
• Builds
personal relationships
• Facilitates team success
Production
• Takes
action
• Achieves results
Personal Development
• Displays
commitment
• Seeks improvement
How
Does it Work?
Each participant completes an evaluation – a process that takes
about 15 minutes. Participants are guaranteed anonymity (except
for the boss) and urged to be honest and objective in their
responses. Participants complete their feedback via the
Internet, or on paper if desired, and results from all
participants are compiled in a report that is returned to the
manager.
Checkpoint
reports have colourful graphs and useful charts, as well as
narrative descriptions of the results, to help the manager read,
understand and effectively use the data for self-development.
The report has a special personal-growth section that coaches
the manager and helps improve performance in development areas.
The Checkpoint
report also encourages managers to link directly into an online
system called Checkpoint SkillBuilder, which takes them through
the step-by-step process of developing a comprehensive and
personalized development plan.
Round and Round…
The upshot is a more detailed and objective assessment of a
manager's strengths, and of any areas where additional
development might be required. This assessment then forms the
basis of a development plan between managers and their
bosses—whereas the managers are fully aware of the dynamics of
their relationships with the people around them, they are also
effectively locked into the organization by the commitment of
the organization to their ongoing skill development.
After a period
of six or 12 months, the process is run again; the effectiveness
of the development plan is assessed; and new development goals
are set for the following period.
Multi-Rater
Feedback vs. Boss-Down Appraisals
There are several
reasons managers at all levels are eagerly embracing this
approach to performance appraisal.
Equitable
For the manager being appraised, multi-rater appraisals differ
from boss-down appraisals in the same way that judge and jury
courts differ from "hanging-judge" courts. Managers benefit from
a wide variety of feedback upon their actual job performance,
and, to be deemed top-performing managers, are no longer solely
dependent upon the extent to which they have developed a good
rapport with their direct boss.
Proven
Effectiveness
For the appraising boss, a positive change is more likely when
an appraisal draws upon multiple sources trusted by the manager.
Multi-rater appraisals are more effective than boss-down
appraisals in driving a manager to make necessary behavioural
changes or to improve management skills. If your boss says you
need some improvement in some particular area, you may think,
"What would she know?" or explain it away as a personality
thing. If, however, 11 different people of your choosing, people
with whom you work closely and whose views you trust and value,
send you the same message, you really have to listen.
Team
Motivation
Multi-rater feedback systems also have a positive team-building
effect. Research has proven the motivating value of the exercise
for those involved as reviewers. Your people are sent a clear
message that their opinions are valued, and they can help effect
positive change in the management where required. Traditional
reviews have given way to this much more effective tool for
management development, as Fortune 500 organizations are
mandating their use.
Used regularly
as an integral part of a strategic development plan, 360-degree
appraisals can lead to more consistent management development,
better alignment of corporate goals with personal-development
objectives, more open communication, and better team balance.
*From the book 40
STRATEGIES FOR WINNING IN BUSINESS by Bud Haney and Jim Sirbasku. ©
S&H Publishing Co., 5205 Lake Shore Drive, Waco, Texas 76710-1732.
All rights reserved. Contact S&H Publishing Co., (254) 751-1644, for
reprint permission.
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