Category Archives: Personal Growth

Employees, Personal Growth, Teams

B.A.K.E. your employees for better annual review results

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In the previous post I talked about the need I had for a more consistent form of employee evaluation and feedback.

What I needed was something quick, direct, clear and actionable.

The B.A.K.E. Method

What I came up with was a simple table, on a single piece of paper called the B.A.K.E. Sheet, that captures short written elements for each of 4 areas:

  • Behaviors
  • Attitudes
  • Knowledge
  • Execution

Behavior

This is what I (or other employees) observe you doing. These are the actions and interactions of your work. Your words, actions, gestures, and the overall way you conduct yourself in the workplace (or outside it – thank you social media).

Attitudes

These are the mental patterns, thinking, bias’s and mindset that drive behavior, speech and motivation.

Knowledge

This is the expertise of the employee, what they know. It is the skills and training they have or need to get the job done.

Execution

This is how they apply all of the Behaviors, Attitudes and Knowledge coupled with processes and procedures/tools to get the assigned task or job done.

The B.A.K.E. table has 2 columns, one is “Observations” and one is “Desired/Comments”.

How to B.A.K.E. an employee

Every few weeks you sit down with the employee and summarize what you have observed and what needs to be changed improved or doubled down on using the B.A.K.E. sheet. By doing this you have the feedback loop as part of a regular interaction with employees. Necessary changes are discussed more. Incremental improvements can be recognized and rewarded where appropriate. Other circumstances can be responded to as required.

The point is that the discussion occurs on a regular basis. What you end up with is a more engaged workforce and one that has more regular improvements. Regular touch-points also foster a more continual dialog about culture and values that drive the desired outcomes in the 4 B.A.K.E. areas. Its like AGILE for feedback management.

After doing the B.A.K.E. method for a year, the annual review becomes more of a formality. But one that has fewer surprises and more concrete milestones to review, and like a good cake will taste better after its thoroughly baked.

 

Employees, Personal Growth, Teams

What does an oven have to do with better employee reviews?

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It seems its a continual struggle to consistently get and give good actionable feedback to employees.

Annual Review Surprise?

I hate annual reviews where the employee seems surprised by the revelation of some undesirable behavior or action that hasn’t been as clearly discussed as needed along the way. Especially if that employee is me.

Effective employee feedback in 2 forms

Effective managers give feedback at the point of need, whether good or bad, in One Minute Manager style. While this is good, and immediate, there needs to be a more concrete long term environment where change and improvement can be discussed, planned, encouraged and agreed to, regularly. This promotes  change in smaller increments. The discussion gets easier when it’s regular and part of the culture. It builds relationship. Feedback, in the absence of relationship, especially critical feedback, usually yields defensiveness. However, feedback in the presence of relationship, while still difficult sometimes, is more trusted and more likely to be acted upon. So the question is how do you do that type of feedback?

But do you have the right tools?

The times I have worked for large corporations they always had what I called “Performance Review DeJour” where online tools or documents were available to help the feedback process. And these were changed very regularly. However, being at a small company, or being a small business owner, can mean you don’t have access to these formal tools or methods.

So what is needed is a simple form that allows for the easy and regular capture of simple elements of feedback to the employee. Something that could be done on one sheet of paper (or screen). Something that would only take a few minutes but provide clarity and actionable discussion points.

In the next post I will share what I came up with, that is how you can B.A.K.E an employee to better results.

Personal Growth, Small Business Growth, Small Business Purchase, Uncategorized

10 signs a company may be heading for a dead end

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As an investor, you want the companies you buy to be vibrant and heading toward a shared better future.

As an employee, you want to know that the company aspires to something more and has plans to get there.

In either case there are signs you can observe in the corporate environment to help discern whether things are looking up and there is hope or whether things are in a spiral and it may be a dead end.

If the company has these signs it could spell trouble:

  1. Stopped investing in personal development and growth

Learning, adapting and growing is the only antidote to a rapidly changing workplace landscape. It is a crucial way to retain the ability to be competitive in the future. Corporate training, personal development and the encouragement to pursue growth are signs a company is looking to the future and has hope.  Without training and development your skills will slowly become irrelevant. Without a corporate growth culture, the company will stagnate, and be ripe for disruption  from more forward-thinking and engaged competitors.

2. Stopped vision casting, strategic planning and setting goals

Vision and strategy to get there are also forward looking. A clear and well communicated vision of the future is a unifying force in a company, getting everyone on the same page. Strategy and goals allow you to focus the energy of hope in the areas that best achieve the vision. Goals and strategies allow you to say “no” to the other, potentially good activities, that don’t most fully help the company realize the vision. If the company has no vision casting, or strategy discussion, it is a tacit admission that the future looks dim. For no company can continue to exist by simply repeating what they have done in the past. Jim Collins covers this and other corporate killing behaviors in “How the mighty fall“.

3. Stopped analyzing failures and learning from them

Every failure is an opportunity to learn. If your company is not taking the time to ask the why questions surrounding any company ‘failure’ it is neglecting one of the most direct sources of learning and growth available. As the folks over at isixsigma.com state:

“By repeatedly asking the question “Why” (five is a good rule of thumb), you can peel away the layers of symptoms which can lead to the root cause of a problem. “

By understanding root causes, we can make changes to correct, improve and grow. When this process stops, improvement, and growth stop as well.

4. Stopped experimenting

Experimenting, and the the learning that takes place from it, are paths to future products, services and improved customer experiences. Experimentation is the path to discovery. Experimenting is planting seeds for future ideas. Without experimentation you eliminate a key source of corporate learning. Without corporate learning is will be impossible for your company to keep up and competitive in a fast changing market. The market you serve will evolve and change leaving you behind with your antiquated products and services and no one wants to buy.

5. Stopped listening to customers

With today’s search capability, social sharing and ubiquitous smart phone presence consumers can instantly access real time information about your product or service. This can include reviews, comments, social shares and other information. It is easy for a consumer to find out more about your product than you know. The users of products and services are willing to share feedback as well. This feedback is extremely valuable in product development and service adaptation. Customers will reveal what they need and will pay for if you ask the right questions. Companies that stop this process (or ignore it) are refusing to set themselves up for future success with their customer base. Opening the door wide for competitors who will.

6. Stopped working at employee retention

The real asset most companies have, that doesn’t show up on the balance sheet, is the employee base that shows up and do their job in a competent, efficient manner. The consistent commitment to show up and do their job is what moves a company forward. If all the employees stopped doing that, any business would fold like a garage sale lawn chair. Recognition of this fact, and the commensurate application of retention programs for key positions is important to the future continuity and growth of any company. Companies who don’t value the employee base are not valuing their own future prospects.

7. Stopped focusing on workplace culture

As Peter Druker is famously remembered as saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. A great workplace culture is the lubricant of employee commitment and engagement. If the culture is poisonous or corrosive, or just simply ignored, it will impact engagement, commitment, and implicitly, business results. Culture has to be nurtured and maintained. Stopping the care-taking of the culture is akin to not cleaning the fish tank. Pretty soon it gets unbearable (and kills the fish).

8. Stopped showing thanks and appreciation to employees

Sincere thanks and appreciation from company leadership can be more motivating than monetary reward. We all want to be appreciated and recognized for the contributions we make. In companies where this is not the practice it makes the grass look a lot greener elsewhere.

9. Stopped watching for disruption

Disruption can happen at astounding scale and speed. I talked about my take-aways from Big Bang Disruption where whole industries can be disrupted with breath-taking speed. A company must be always on the lookout for up and coming technologies and companies that would potentially pose a threat. This examination must be part of their planning cycle and strategy discussions.  If you stop the vigilant examination of your industry and its periphery you invite the surprise of your industry changing underneath you and your company having no response.

10. Stopped communicating and serving

If your company leadership is not engaging in communication and re-iterating the vision and culture and discussing openly the challenges and opportunities of the business, that is a clear sign that something is amiss. Either it means they have nothing to communicate, or what they have to communicate is bad and they can’t bring themselves to deliver the message. Both are huge red flag indicators.

 

Most of these are easy to spot and all of them are correctable with diligent, committed and wise leadership. Without that, you may be on the way to another dead end.

Personal Growth

How to immediately improve your work performance no matter what

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Houston, we have a problem

At one point in my career I was part of an area of a company that had no vision other than to keep doing what we had been doing. Engagement was suffering. Growth was flat.  The pipeline was mostly empty. We were directionless and motivation was low. The strategies leadership had tried weren’t working. Layoffs had happened and we reasoned that more were coming. I was personally searching for some way out of this funk in spite of the circumstances. Maybe you have been in a similar situation.

The grass is always greener…

I consumed a lot of entrepreneurial and business books and was always excited by the stories of the business creators, interacting with boards of high-powered, well-known entrepreneurs and business movers and shakers. That environment mentally motivated me. At that time I didn’t work in an environment like that. Initially, when I thought about working in an environment like that it was intimidating because i knew my performance was not where it should and could be. So, that excitement I felt wore off quickly and faded into the same funk I was in. Again. I needed something to help me improve right where I was at that time.

It occurred to me one day that I didn’t have to actually work in a high flying silicon valley darling in order to increase my own performance and motivation. Many of the resources I was exposed to talked about taking action and visualizing where and what I wanted to be.

A key question

I asked myself “What if you did work at a company with an ‘A’ list board and executive team, what would you do differently?” That question changed my perspective about my own situation. I realized that if I imagined that I had a high-powered team of directors and executives I could work like I was working for them instead of working in the difficult environment I was in at the time. What if I was reporting to a personal board composed of business rock stars like  Marc Andreessen, or Seth Godin, or Pat Lencioni or Sally Hogshead or Steve Blank or Elon Musk or Cheryl Sandburg  or Warren Buffett or Richard Branson or Daymond John? Wouldn’t I step up the game in a big way if I was reporting to them? You bet I would and so would you.

Here is what I did

I actually opened up a Word document  (yeah I know, it was old school but thats what you did)  and started typing short imaginary bio’s of my pretend personal board of directors. They aren’t real people like I mentioned above, but they all had very impressive credentials. I even added the inevitable personality quirks that come with many high powered leaders.

Here is what changed

Then I asked myself, “What would I do differently every day if I reported to them?” “What if they were the ones grilling me about projects and strategy?” That forced me to change the way I approached my work. I realized that moping around about the bad environment only hurt me. Thinking about reporting to business rock starts helped me raise my game, improve my deliverables and motivate me in an environment where, at that time,  motivation was difficult. I thought through problems differently. I was more focused and thorough. It helped keep me from just ‘mailing it in’. Visualizing that I reported to the best motivated me to deliver my best in spite of the real circumstances I was in at the time.

No, this little exercise didn’t change anything about the environment I was in but it helped me to operate with a different attitude and a healthier perspective. And that is what makes the real difference. I proved to myself that you can change your attitude regardless of your circumstances.

Who is on your personal board?

Personal Growth, Personality

How do you fascinate?

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I recently had the pleasure of listening to Sally Hogshead on John Lee Dumas’ podcast Entrepreneur on Fire. Very interesting. But I took no action.

I then heard her again, a few weeks later, on Dave Ramsey’s podcast Entreleadership. Again, really engaging but I took no further acton.

Then, after a prod from a colleague, I finally Continue reading How do you fascinate? →