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Workflow, Process and Performance

We hear so much today about performance management.  The Human Resources community has developed entire performance management systems to track the growth and development of our staff and yet there are still serious business performance issues within the organization.  Often I am confronted with this fact when brought into a client engagement.

The scenario goes something like this – I know I have a well-trained and dedicated team of employees and I believe my leadership team is engaged in their growth and development, but I can’t seem to put out the daily fires that distract us from our core mission – WHY?  Obviously there is no one simple answer to this question.

The basic principles are always the same however. How are you monitoring the success of your business?  Are you using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)? Are these KPIs aligned with the key processes that impact the success of your business?  Is there a better way to move product and/or information through your organization?

Having just watched the winter Olympics I can’t help but to think about how the success of the athletes are measured so carefully throughout an event.  They know ahead of time what their performance needs to be to get them to each transition point (KPI).  30 seconds to turn one, 45 seconds to turn two ……. Imagine if you monitored your business that way and better yet, your employees understood what it meant if they didn’t make it to each checkpoint on time.

Good workflow is the foundation of your organization.  The processes that deliver your product or service to your customer at or above the commitment levels set at the time of the sale will either stop the daily fires or fuel them.  In most cases people, when properly managed, are not the issue.

Organizations lose sight of the importance of workflow management because as they grow this gets left up to the day to day managers and in most cases people don’t like change.  If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the expression we have always done it this way I would never have to work again.  I have yet to find an organization in which everything stays the same – at least not a successful one!

Good work flow management that incorporates well developed processes leads to better overall performance every time.  KPIs are an important part of this process as well.  The only way I know to monitor the effectiveness of our workflow is through properly monitored KPIs.  These monitoring points should be measuring operational performance not just financial performance.  An organization can be profitable while losing market share due to poor performance.  Operational KPIs will allow for better management of staffing levels and result in a stronger line level appreciation for corporate profitability.

Your business, like everything else should always be improving the level of service it delivers to its customers.  Better products and better service will always deliver happier customers. If you find yourself asking how to put the fires out and increase service delivery – go back to the foundation of the organization and review the workflow that your daily operation is based on.  This will put the fires out and might even lead to high financial performance as well.

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Happy New Year – so what’s the plan?

Strategic Planning

We have officially entered the new year of 2018; are you ready to grab that golden ring you have been working towards or is your plan to forge ahead and hope for the best?  Running a successful business is a lot like sailing a ship across a vast ocean.  The big difference is many business owners haven’t taken the time to map out their route with up to date navigational information and calibrated gauges that will assist them to take their journey safely arriving at their visionary port on time.

The thing about the business journey is the map of the ocean we will be crossing is forever changing.  Your competitors have changed, the products have evolved and the consumers are completely different than those the business started out with.  Today’s consumer is more informed, less patient, and has the tools available to assess products on a global basis in an instant.   If your plan is to stay the course I am here to tell you that course more than likely no longer exists in the marketplace.

Take the time today to reassess your journey and identify the reasons you are in business and where and when you will arrive at your final destination (mission, vision, values).  Update the market information necessary to ensure your offering will be well received by the end user and develop Key Performance Indicators (KIP’s) that will help guide your path when land is no longer visible.

Share this navigational plan with your team so they can assist you in the journey.  The power locked inside your employees will be the differentiator if you harness it and use it to drive a culture of success within your organization.  Ensure everyone shares the values you believe in by stating them clearly and often.  Only hire those who will add to the growth of the culture and divest yourself of those that detract from the mission, no matter how integral they may be to the business.    Your mission and vision are why you are successful, not any single employee.

Take advantage of the New Year and start planning today.  The time is right to get your entire team engaged in this new journey.  I assure you the excitement and energy this will bring to your employees is explosive and will give you the power you need to reach that final destination, wherever it may be!

Visit the TEC Resource Center and take a free strategic planning assessment (https://tecresourcecenter.com/strategic-planning-assessment) to assist you in determining how to get started planning the future of your business today!

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The Power of Giving Back

I think we can all agree that we spend a lot of time and money hiring, training, and managing our employees.  They are the heartbeat of your organization after all.  A healthy well centered and engaged workforce can make a measurable difference in the growth and success of your business.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year to engage your team in something greater than themselves by giving back to the world around them.  Your employees want to know that the company they work for stands for something other than increasing the bottom line.  They need to know that the organization’s executives are actual people who care about the world around them.  Sponsoring a food or coat drive for those less fortunate, raising money for victims of natural disasters, or spending some time with the ill or dying can be a tremendously rewarding experience for both your staff and the company.  There are so many worthy causes; I am sure you can find one that fits your organization.

The benefits of giving back to the world are well documented.  I have experienced this first hand by watching company sponsored events at a local homeless shelter I volunteer for on occasion.  The employees volunteering were filled with gratitude for the companies that allowed them to take time out of the work day to participate in such a rewarding activity.  They told me they looked forward to these events and admired their organization for the social conscience they so clearly demonstrated.

Take time this year and think about how you and your team can make the world a better place.  Your employees will thank you for allowing them to participate, your organization will be empowered by the experience and you will beam with pride for having done a great thing for your fellow man!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Create Safe Accountability in Your Organization

 

  1. Set clear and mutually agreed upon expectations with people in regard to both performance and behavior.  This reduces confusion, mixed messages, and judgments of non-performance.
  2. Share information openly and timely to avoid unnecessary surprises.  Develop a communications strategy for informing everyone about relevant and current information.
  3. Surface any conflict directly with the person involved.  Focus on ways to avoid conflict in the future. (This is far more effective than avoiding the person, telling everyone about the conflict, or blaming the person as the one who was wrong.)
  4. Provide encouragement, guidance and other forms of support to individuals who need to make a change but who may not realize the importance, or the process, of doing so.  Typically, we either ignore people who are struggling, or we sympathize with their discomfort and let them off the hook.
  5. Focus on functional roles and processes, rather than position and power, to accomplish outcomes.
  6. Support the development of people and systems in order to respond to the needs of tomorrow and to avoid reacting only to crisis.
  7. Monitor and measure the results of each team and individual so that people know exactly where they stand.  This is the only way to let people know of their successes and their need for improvement.
  8. Do not allow people to perform poorly without making it clear that their performance is unacceptable.  Skirting the issue only causes people to feel deceived and victimized.  No one benefits by carrying a poor performer.
  9. Follow up on commitments so that people can depend on your words and your consistency.  If you are unable to keep a commitment, let people know as soon as you know.
  10. Let others know the care, appreciation, and compassion you feel, instead of holding back.  Honor their humanity as well as your own.  When all is said and done, we are FIRST human beings with fears, needs and imperfections, and SECOND, employees hired to complete a job.

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Do you have the right people on the bus?

Do you have the right people on your team, and are they sitting in the right seats? Often managers find they have wonderful people working for them. They are dedicated and they work hard. Still, though, they are not getting the results they want from their team. The sad truth is that they may be wonderful, hardworking and dedicated, but they may not be right for the job.

I had a client that was so distraught over his hiring record. He said he always felt he picked the perfect person. His favorite saying was, “They looked so good on paper.” On the interview they seemed so gung ho. He felt hopeless.

Sometimes you meet a person who is really nice, the life of the party, and deep down a really good person, however, you don’t immediately move in together or get married. No matter how fun or well-meaning they are, you have to know you will be good together and work well together to build the life you want. I think this is how Match.com became so successful!

Your work relationships should be regarded in the same way and it starts before the interview process. Selecting the right people to help you build your business or run your department is key to YOUR success. You need to spend time in this process to avoid wasting time later. Here are some tips on how to improve your success rate in selecting the best candidate for your position:

Prepare for the hiring process:

Make sure you understand the Knowledge, Skill and Abilities (KSA’s) the candidate must possess to be successful in the job. Identify the MUST HAVES and the NICE TO HAVES. Write these things down so you can base your questions around them and then rate your candidates after each interview based on these areas. What attributes and values must the candidate embody to add to the overall culture of the organization? Look carefully at the team they will become a part of and understand the behavioral style that will best augment that team.

Review resumes:

I’m assuming you have a job description for the position, so first review it and see if it needs to be tweaked a bit. Review the resumes first to see that the candidate meets the qualifications keeping in mind the KSAs. If you are lucky enough to have too many resumes, start narrowing them down by the MUST HAVES and NICE TO HAVES. Then look for any red flags on the resume:

  • Overall appearance
  • Blanks and omissions
  • Gaps in time
  • Overlaps in time
  • Inconsistencies between education and experience

Create Powerful Questions

This is the most important piece in my opinion. Think about the interview as a time to get to know the person. You really want to see what they are made of. Did they really do the things they have listed on their resume? I’m not saying people lie, but…………. Powerful questions allow you to confirm what is on the resume, so make them count. Ask open ended questions that cannot be answered with a yes or a no. So don’t say, “Are you familiar with……” They know the answer you want is yes, and you really won’t be able to tell if they really have experience with it. Ask them something that will demonstrate knowledge, like, “Can you tell me the biggest issue you have experienced with……..”

Make your choice:

Ask the same questions to each applicant based on the KSAs and MUST HAVES and NICE TO HAVES. Your follow up questions will vary of course, based on their answers. Make yourself a little grid and rate how each candidate did on each base question. Then come up with a total rating. This will help you choose who is statistically best for the job, not who you like best.

Nobody’s perfect

On a personal note, this is obviously not fool proof. People have become very skilled at interviewing due to all the resources that are now readily available to them. But I’ll bet if you look back at some of your good and bad hires, you will find, YOU had a lot to do with the mistakes or the successes. I once hired someone for an administrative position. On my MUST HAVES I listed proofreading skills. After I hired this woman I liked very much, I realized proofreading was actually a weakness, not a skill of hers. I wondered what happened. I went back to my grid. Sure enough, I only rated her 3 out of 5 on proofreading based on what she told me. I didn’t follow my own advice! Here are 3 common errors people make when interviewing:

  • Leniency Error – You know the candidate or they were referred to you by someone you know. Tendency is to rate him/her higher than deserved.
  • Error of Contrast – Some interviewers tend to compare some traits shown by a candidate with their own traits. May be better to choose someone who has more of what you don’t!
  • Halo/Horn Effect – Initial impression about the candidate (good or bad) cloud the interview. I immediately connected with the person I mentioned above on a personal level. It made me overlook a very important qualification she did not have.

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