The wrong choice

Patricia was a push-over. She was the kind of person who would allow others to dictate her will, simply because she was too afraid to say anything. She was small-structured and timid, but had a smile that could light up an entire room. She feared not being liked, and that led to her being unable to say “no” even to things she did not want or believe. For her, that was her vice.As experiences mounted on her shoulder, she began to see that for a person to survive in this world, one needs to be able to refuse certain things. To know when to appear decisive and stubborn, even at the expense of someone else’s judgement at that moment.But she still had difficulty realising that very acknowledgement. And she kept falling into the trap. Because even though she could see that these were the wrong choices to make, the ones that would lead to more trouble in the end, she made them anyway.Not everything makes sense. Not everything has to.  But certain things make you look back in regret and remorse at not being smarter sooner.Patricia realised it when she met a handsome lawyer on the bus one day. He was exactly what she wasn’t: confident, decisive, at times even arrogant due to his obstinate nature. But she fell for him. And she found out that when you love, you sometimes lose control. That is when she understood that in life we need a balance. We need to be able to view our actions pre-emptively, taking into account their impact and consequences.We sometimes make the wrong choices only to fully comprehend the magnitude of making the right ones when the time comes.

Origen: The wrong choice

Organizational Design vs Organizational Development

Is your organization well designed?

How do you know?  What does a well designed organization look like, and how does it feel to work there?  How is it different from a poorly designed one?

The answers to these questions lie in the functional structure, also known as the Organization Design, of your work place.  You’ve heard the term before, “Organization Design”.  The words are familiar to you at a high level, yet may be indistinct as to how they apply to your organization.
Although the concept has been around for ages, many HR professionals are unaware of its strategic impact, and more importantly, how Organization Design should be approached.

In this paper we will examine the concept of Organization Design (OD) and how it can work in your organization.

Doesn’t OD mean Organization Development?

While they share the same acronym, Organization Design is not to be confused with Organization Development.  In fact, these are two separate concepts. Organization Development deals with the “people” side of business performance; leadership, team dynamics, and operational effectiveness.

Organization Development is an effort that is planned, organization wide, and managed from the top.  It is intended to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization’s process, using behavioral science knowledge.    It is used to change beliefs, attitudes and values in an organization.  Organization Development entails leadership coaching, effective communication strategies, and change awareness to name a few factors.

The key to recognizing the difference is to understand that Organization Development is a response to Organization Design.  In simpler terms, Organization Development deals with “soft matters”, while Organization Design is “hard”.

Performance Appraisal Interview

 

The communication to the subordinate about the results of the assessment  is a fundamental milestone in the performance management system. Performance appraisal is useless if the greater interested – the employee – not get to know it. It is necessary to let employee knows  what  information is relevant and meaningful about his or her performance, so that they may attain the fullness of objectives. This communication is set during the interview of feedback performance evaluation.

THE PURPOSES OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATION INTERVIEW ARE:

1. Give the subordinated the necessary conditions to improve their work through a clear and unambiguous communication about performance standard. The interview provides the subordinate the opportunity not only to learn and know what the boss expects him in terms of quality, quantity and working methods, but also to understand the goals of the organization. These are the rules of the game, which can only be played well when players understand them.
2. Give the subordinate a clear idea about how is he or she performing at work (feedback), highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and comparing them with expected performance standards. Often the employee believes subjectively that is doing well, and can develop a wrong idea about their expected performance. He or she needs to know what the boss thinks about his or her work to adjust and adapt their performance to expected standards.
3. Both – employee and supervisor – must clarify measures and plans, to develop and make better use of subordinate skills, the employee needs to understand how it could improve its performance and actively participate in the measures taken to enable such improvement.
4. Stimulate stronger personal relationships between the supervisor and subordinates, in which both are able to frankly talk about the work: how the relationship is developing and how can it be improved and increased.
5. Eliminate or reduce discrepancies, anxieties, tensions and uncertainties that arise when individuals do not have well oriented  work advice.

THE SUPERVISOR’S SKILL REQUIRED

The supervisor must have the ability to present the facts and get that subordinate, to the end of the interview, has assumed the determination to overcome and adjust its performance to the level required by its position, and is aware of the positive and negative aspects of performance. Largely depends on the success of an interview of evaluation of the well that is be prepared, so that the supervisor should know beforehand what he will say to the subordinate and how to say it.

 

Performance Appraisal and Individual Potential Management

Have you ever experienced this?

You have promoted the best salesman in your team to Sales Supervisor position. But as a result he turned out to be a bad Supervisor and you have also lost  a good seller.

This happens more often than you think.
The reason is that companies often promote people based on their current
performance, without considering the potential for people to serve in positions
of greater complexity. And the current performance of the people in charge can be measured by applying different models of performance management, based on quantitative and/or qualitative variables. In turn, the potential applied as the current capacity of the people ( C.A.C. ) of the acronym Current Applied Capability , it can also be established by measuring the complexity of the information that people are able to process.
The latter is observable, for example, and skills can be measured by checking
behaviors associated with them ; the C.A.C. It can be established by observation of
mental processes that the person is able to perform.

Mental processes ordered  of increasing complexity :

1. Concrete Verbal
2. Symbolic Verbal Representation
3. Abstract Conceptual
4. Universals Ideas

Fuente: Jaques & Cason

Compelling Performance Appraisal

 

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People are reluctant to have a performance review driven by  esoteric methods or arbitrary data. On the contrary, if the methodology is accepted objective and reliable by  workers or colleagues, performance evaluation it is taken as a way to give them recognition for their achievements, which impacts positively on the commitment.

A very good tool for measuring individual performance is the use of Dashboards or Scorecard(1) made with quantitative performance indicators. (1) The term Scorecard belongs to Balanced Scorecard authors Norton & Kaplan.

I use Norton and Kaplan methodology to build HR dashboards with objective, relevant and measurable indicators.

Example of an Individual HR Scorecard

Ideally designed dashboards for managers with relevant indicators for business. I mean they are related to the success or business result. These indicators must be quantifiable and objective, i.e., that its measurement NOT depend on who is measuring, so that people are safe that its assessment is not subject to arbitrary or prejudiced by his (her) supervisor. In addition, the scorecard performance, specific indicators should consider both specif  and group measures. The latter, I recommend it because what is really important in a company are its key processes, i.e. sales, customer service, quality control, to name the most obvious. Therefore it is important that those involved in these processes share performance indicators, although in different magnitudes. In these processes concur a collective effort of the organization, for example the commercial department, collections, treasury, accounting, sales management, marketing, quality control, etc.

Keep it simple and concentrate on what matters

With this design, a medium sized company , 100 to 150 people , no need to create and manage a hundred indicators for performance management system . This approach has the added advantage of providing a system in which the company is measured with common goals which encourages coordination and communication between areas of the company. And involve  people in organization strategy. If you do not, your company is in serious problem.