Center for Practical Management  I Sandusky, Ohio

To our clients and partners,

As each of you are taking responsive measures to understand and react to the impacts of COVID-19, we wanted to reach out with a message of support for your commitment to employees, customers, and partners.

Managing your employees’ response is key to your success right now. We’d like to offer a training tip for clients to consider distributing to leaders throughout your organization. From our curriculum for Performance Management Workshop, this is a reminder of effectively leading others through change.

During this trying time, we hope you and your families stay safe and healthy. We thank you for your continued partnership with Center for Practical Management. We stand ready to help you in any way that we can.

Very best regards
Rebecca Oeltjenbruns
Owner/President
Center for Practical Management

Creating alignment between culture and strategy isn’t easy. Outside threats and unforeseen forces often disrupt organization effectiveness. When this happens, the C-Suite typically begins to vet consultants, hires new employees who have the desired skillset, and schedules employees for training. This course of action will result in visible changes, but generally, at disappointingly low levels.

Why does this happen?

We underestimate the pervasiveness or sheer mass of organizational culture; it’s only when we add up the components that we can start to understand its true size. It can be found in how we communicate with each other and customers, how we reward or penalize performance, how we measure success, view breaks or vacations, and spend our out-of-work time, etc.

How do Newton’s Laws of Motion apply?

1st Law (Objects in motion stays in motion until acted on by an outside force) The C-Suite identifies an outside force and pushes for changed strategy and new goals in response
2nd Law (Acceleration depends on mass of the object and the amount of force applied) Senior leaders implement strategy designed to limits friction and has the energy required to begin moving culture in a positive direction
3rd Law (Every action has an equal and opposite reaction) The old strategy may limit friction and build momentum; the new strategy could cause the culture to push back with equal force
What actions can the C-Suite take to ensure that their strategy is enough to create sustained change?

• Engage in the cultivation of curriculum and intentionally find ways to align goals with content
  Consider tracking more than just result goals; track activities and behaviors as well.
• Reward positive behaviors and minimize negative ones. C-Suite leaders must be overt about this. Share what you see/hear and why you love it. Use key words that match your strategy and align with your goals.
• Build skill practice into meetings. Just 10 minutes of practice led by a senior leader is enough to reinforce behaviors taught in the classroom.
• Be an active participant in training
• Demonstrate to your team the importance of training; if you are willing to prioritize training, your direct reports will do the same.
• Reduce the intimidation factor by sharing your wisdom and hearing their concerns.

A Center for Practical Management consultant can help guide you in these areas, ensuring that you have the information you need to build sustainable momentum and culture change.

Center for Practical Management helps companies achieve organizational goals and behavioral change initiatives through tailored consulting services, leadership coaching, employee skills training and marketing services. Learn more at www.cf-pm.com.

Every organization has employees that outperform, and underperform. It’s no surprise that many managers struggle with how to have effective coaching conversations with team members who deliver performance at a wide range of commitment and accountability.
You don’t want to feel like you failed as their manager, and you don’t want them to feel like they failed you. Feelings aside, you need to have a plan for coaching both high and low performers. If you don’t, the risk includes staff issues, time management, and team/organizational success.
Imagine that the four individuals on your team are Julie, Brad, Scott and Tammy. Their goals are different, based on ability and past performance. As their manager, you must decide how you will spend your available coaching time. So what exactly will you risk if you don’t have a plan?

1. You could lose your high performers. Many managers spend their time with Tammy or Scott because they appear to be struggling meeting their goals. But, Julie is your high performer and Brad is a rising star. They’ve earned your time; they meet and exceed your expectations. If you coach Tammy and Scott at the expense of Julie and Brad, you may be sending the wrong message. Spending time with high performers demonstrates your commitment to their success and the value they bring to your team.

2. Your low performers continue to challenge your time. With time at a premium, you simply shouldn’t spend it on Tammy. But, it isn’t wasted time if you spend it doing the following:

• Clarifying your expectations
• Sharing your candid feedback (along with the data) about the current level of performance
• Exploring why the employee isn’t meeting expectations
• Gaining agreement that the employee will work towards meeting expectations

3. The job continues to be a poor fit and your team continues to be impacted. It is the hardest thing you will ever do – to tell an employee that the job they currently have simply isn’t the right job for him/her. However, good managers and great leaders do this without hesitation. Your team should not be held back from the highest performance possible and your low-performing employee shouldn’t be stuck in a job that doesn’t fit with their strengths.

It’s the New Year, which means millions of Americans are kicking off their 2020 New Year with resolutions. Whether it’s to quit smoking, lose weight, take up a new hobby or spend more time with family and friends, 80% of us will fail by February. (U.S. News & World Report)

So how can we make sure our resolutions stick? The American Psychological Association offers these tips to make sure your resolution doesn’t fail:

1. Start small: Make resolutions that you think you can keep and are realistic.
2. Talk about it: Sharing your goals with family and friends can keep it fresh in your mind and provide you with additional support.
3. Don’t beat yourself up: We’re human, and sometimes we slip up. Recover from your mistakes and get back on track.
4. Ask for support: Find support from someone else wanting to achieve a similar goal, or a mentor who can offer advice and guidance.

While many of us create resolutions for our personal lives, the same can be done in the workplace for you and your teams. Center for Practical Management curriculums provide skill development for making sure your professional goals are SMART goals!

Specific: Goals should include specific results you want to achieve, activities you commit to doing and knowledge and skill you plan to acquire. Be sure to answer Who, What Where, When and Why.

Measurable: Make sure you can measure your progress and the goals. If that means tracking your success on a spreadsheet or recording how many prospect calls you make each day, being able to measure your progress is imperative in successful goal setting.

Attainable: Is your goal realistic? Workplace goals should be higher and comparable to past performance but not so far out of reach that you won’t hit the mark.

Relevant: Ask yourself, is this relevant to my job functions or my teams’ performance? If the answer is no, reevaluate your goals so that they align within your team or department’s duties.

Timely: Goals should have deadlines. By having a deadline, you are committing to progress and will take the goal serious. Without a deadline, you may procrastinate and put your goals on the back burner when a more pressing project arises.

We recommend 30-day action plans, so that progress is easier to achieve. If your professional goal is one that will propel your career in 2020, your SMART action plan may be much longer (i.e., 9 months). It may also include more individuals to teach and support your development.

Whether you have personal goals or professional goals, following the SMART strategy will set you and your team up for success in 2020. Happy New Year, and Happy Goal Setting!

It’s that time of year again. Time for performance appraisals. Managers, as well as employees, often wonder why organizations do performance appraisals at all. Many of us probably even think they are a complete waste of time. If the performance appraisal was going to be valuable at the end of 2019, what might be different?

Here’s a few ideas for making the performance appraisal experience a more rewarding one:

• The appraisal would identify strengths that the employee has developed over the course of the year. Of course, this means that the manager and the employee meet routinely throughout the year (at least once a month) and work to leverage these strengths, finding new ways to apply them.
• The employee and the manager would collaboratively create the appraisal together. Employees should know exactly what they have done well and where their performance needs to improve. Seeking their input first encourages self-awareness and ownership.
• The appraisal would allow for the opportunity to set goals for the coming year. These goals, if clearly aligned with specific activities on which the employee should focus, allow for the performance appraisal to serve as motivation for continuously improving performance.
• The appraisal would outline next steps for development using balanced feedback.

Balanced feedback is the crucial component of effective and meaningful performance appraisals. Balanced feedback happens when the following simple steps occur:

Step 1: The employee self assesses first, beginning with his/her strengths.
Step 2: The manager shares additional insights and perspectives, beginning with strengths and then moving to opportunities.
Step 3: Opportunities are framed not as judgment for the past, but as a focus for the future: “Next year, consider trying . . . “ and “In the future, when you . . . you might . . . “
Step 4: The manager offers his/her help and assistance to support the employee throughout the year.

The difference between wanting more and doing more to get more becomes the fuel toward any development goal. In business, the effort is known as turning up the heat on increased productivity and performance, and it comes down to types of motivation and skills of motivators.

One of the most important tasks for managers is learning what motivates individuals on their team. More experienced managers know that different types of motivation work for some individuals, but not others. In the same way, one motivation could be a successful influence once, but then an irrelevant motivator later.

Good managers dedicate time to conversations for motivation effectiveness. Great managers always have a motivation heat source ready to charge employee productivity and performance.

Review these industry-leading best practices for coaching and motivating employees:

1. Praising their effort. Research studies show that employees rank praise from their manager as the number one motivator of their performance and engagement. Be sure you know if your employee prefers public or private praise.
2. Dedicating your time. After praise and recognition, employees cite time with their manager as the next leading motivator. A weekly face to face conversation with employees is recommended.
3. Developing their skills. Opportunities to showcase skills can be found in small project ownership or research assistance initiatives.
4. Championing rewards. While money motivates a vast majority of employees, research shows that this particular motivation is short-lived. Managers should always balance financial rewards with other rewards.

In preparation of your next goal-setting discussion, consider staging the conversation around how better teaming can help fuel engagement and growth in your organization.