Is Your Organization Really Just Perpetuating Mediocrity? (David Jardin)

Is Your Organization Really Just Perpetuating Mediocrity?

Companies can get a boost in performance and results by communicating standards of acceptable performance.

The best companies, the ones that stay on top, get better every day. One way they do this is by deliberately raising and enforcing standard levels of “acceptable performance.” This drives steady gains in individual and organization effectiveness.

Meanwhile, mediocre companies lose ground as they plod along, merely maintaining the same performance levels over time. Winning organizations move ahead while the mediocre, at best, merely run in place.How to get your organization past the “Mendoza Line”

Mario Mendoza played major league baseball from 1974 to 1982. Mr. Mendoza is best known for his woefully low lifetime batting average.

A player whose batting average is under .200 (i.e. just two hits for every 10 at bats) is said to be below the so-called “Mendoza Line.” Of course this standard of minimum acceptable performance isn’t mindlessly enforced – other pertinent factors are considered when making decisions to retain or release. Still, every big league player fears the associated stigma and risk of losing his spot on the team.

Following the practices below helps companies rise above mediocrity:

• Raise expectations – Research has shown that stretch goals drive higher performance so long as they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and trackable (SMART).
• Align capabilities – Make sure the organization design fits the business strategy and talent is segmented based on forecasted productivity and value creation.
• Deploy capabilities -- It is essential to have the right people on board and to take the wrong people off board. And everyone needs to be in the right role because people can’t realize their full potential if they’re in the wrong position. Home run legend Babe Ruth started his baseball career as a pitcher before he was moved to the outfield giving him more at bats.
• Expand capabilities — Non-job-related development activities enhance job-related development. Examples include structured training; informal learning that is planned or spontaneous; coaching; mentoring; and working on cross-functional project teams.
• Let go — Exiting a person from the company is the last resort. This should happen only after candid conversations and reasonable efforts to find the right fit have failed.

How to assess your company’s readiness

Most people will step up if they know that staying in the lineup means they have to get better every day to meet or exceed rising expectations. And they’ll get the message if you explicitly communicate and rigorously enforce your organization’s “Mendoza Line.”

Companies can get a boost in performance and results by communicating standards of acceptable performance (i.e. “Mendoza Line”) and actively (and compassionately) managing folks whose performance is near or below it.

Here are some questions to assess your organization’s position and readiness:

1. Does our culture demand continuous improvement and high expectations?
2. Do people have individual SMART stretch goals aligned with the strategy?
3. Who would contribute more if they were in a different position?
4. Do we provide the right opportunities to let people expand their capabilities?
5. Do underperformers get a fair chance to improve? Are they treated with candor and respect?

So, is your organization driving sustainable high performance? Or is it perpetuating mediocrity?

David Jardin is a consultant with the iTM System GroupiTM System Group where he works with leaders and teams to make talent management simple, practical, and profitable. He began his career as a CPA and has spent more than 20 years in leadership roles in talent management and organization development with global companies including Citigroup, Coopers & Lybrand, Pfizer, and Tyco Electronics. Contact him at davidjardin@mac.com.

Moving the PR profession from talkers to makers (Martin Waxman)

 

Moving the PR profession from talkers to makers

 

Macher is an old Yiddish expression that, literally translated, means maker, but idiomatically it is far from that.

It’s often used pejoratively and refers to a person who considers her/himself a big shot or big-time operator—often pictured as a guy with a fat cigar.

It’s not all bad; machers are well-connected, like to put themselves in the center of things, and can be good people to call if you’re looking for an introduction or trying to find the latest news. Hmmm, reminds me of a few PR pros I know.

Disclosure: I have, from time to time, been a macher, and it surprises me to say I haven’t minded that at all.

I thought about the term after I talked to Jay Baer on Inside PR 3.49.

I was interviewing him about his new book “Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help, Not Hype” and keynote at Meshmarketing in Toronto.

I asked him about the state of the PR industry, and he said the challenge for PR pros is this: We’re mainly talkers in a world where companies are looking for makers.

Makers are creators of content—videos, websites, infographics, white papers, or other sharable social objects. Talkers on the other hand, well, they talk about it, maybe even offer advice or a strategy, but when push comes to shove, they have to outsource the work.

It’s safe to say that in the evolving marketing communications landscape, PR firms are competing more and more often with ad, digital, social media, content, and whatever new hybrid agencies appear on the horizon. The industry’s challenge is not only to get clients to think about us, but to think of us first.

Putting our creativity where our mouths are

Here are five steps we can take right now to get us closer to the maker end of the spectrum:

1. Lights, camera, PR school. PR education must add visual storytelling to its curriculum ASAP, including courses in photography, audio and video production, coding, and online graphic design. Some graduates can specialize in the new disciplines. Everyone else should at least have a basic knowledge.

2. Go DIY. Working professionals must commit to learning something new on their own time. Maybe it’s making a GIF, starting and maintaining a blog that enhances your personal brand, or researching and writing a long-form article. You can do it yourself, find online courses, or enroll in a local program.

3. Redefine the PR industry. We still spend too much time referring to public relations by what we’re not (i.e., not advertising). Compounding this is that many clients hire us primarily to do publicity, but it’s essential we tell our story by demonstrating the value we provide, and how we help clients achieve their goals.

4. Step out of the news release box. The next time you’re about to suggest a news release, try coming up with three other content recommendations to accomplish the same business objectives, just differently.

5. Hire makers. Listen to them, adapt to their perspectives, and integrate them into the fiber of the agency.

Many people across the disciplines have been trained for one skill, have gotten really good at it, and now find they need to master new types of expertise. Let’s take the lead and transform PR from talkers to makers—or from machers to, um, machers—but without the big, fat cigar.

[RELATED: Learn how to create content that sticks for the long haul at our December NYC summit.]

Are you a talker or a maker? What do you think PR should do to upgrade the profession?

Martin Waxman has his own consultancy and is a senior counselor for Canadian firm Thornley Fallis. A version of this story originally appeared on Spin Sucks.

5 Ways to Modernize Your Relationship with Employees (Shawn Murphy)

5 Ways to Modernize Your Relationship with Employees

When you walk into Menlo Innovations, at first glance it looks like many other tech companies: no cubes, shared work spaces, pets, even little babies. But what you can’t observe immediately is the absence of managers.

Menlo Innovations, a software development company out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has eliminated the need for managers. Certainly a progressive move, yet not one all organizations or small businesses would make. The bold move to eliminate managers puts greater emphasis on a strong team identity and commitment to results.

I spent three days learning from, interviewing and observing Menlonians, that’s what they call themselves, at work and walked away with insights about what makes work relationships effective and enriching. These pearls of wisdom cross over no matter how you’re structured or how large your team or company is.

The way we relate to one another at work is outdated. What we need in our workplaces is a major switch and shift in how managers and employees relate and work alongside one another.

What we need in our workplaces is a major switch and shift in how managers and employees relate and work alongside one another.

Transactional: Shift

What’s familiar for many Gen X and Boomers is the exchange of a paycheck for hard work. The antiquated belief that you’re lucky to have a job alienates employees from their bosses. It’s a passion drainer. It’s a demotivating belief. Why?

We don’t work solely for a paycheck. We want to leave our fingerprints on the organization: the proverbial, “I was here!” We want to make a difference in our work. The transactional viewpoint of the manager-employee relationship is limiting. It needs to shift to that of collaboration.

Collaborator Not Dictator

No person works alone at Menlo. Every team member is paired with another, staying in the pairs for five days then rotating repeatedly, always working on a client project – together. Collaboration skills are essential. Knowledge is constantly spread throughout the small, yet mighty company.

As a manager you don’t know everything. Perhaps you have more experience and, therefore know better, but that workplace axiom has crumbled into irrelevance along with command-and-control management. To get work done, you must collaborate with others.

Lone Renegades, those who work alone, heads down, resurfacing with a brilliant idea for a new product or service are a myth. No one creates something great without the input of others.

Whether you have no manager or if you have a more traditional work structure, the relationships we have with one another must be grounded in collaboration and the respect that fuels it.

No one creates something great without the input of others.

No one person is more important than the team

Remove the pairs at Menlo and their approach to unleash ideas into solutions that please clients begins to unravel. Anyone can pair people together, but it may not yield results that matter.

At the heart of Menlo Innovations’ pair-partners success is a fundamental belief that no one person is more important than the team. It’s this belief that helps hold pair-partners together and makes it work. It’s a bold culture element, but not necessary for all organizations to understand that celebrating individual success over that of the team is outdated.

As a manager, your role is not to make yourself look good. It’s to support your entire team’s success in doing great work – work that matters.

Whole-Employee

Your employees have a personal life that cannot be “checked-in” at the door. Our personal and professional lives slosh about, mingling together, influencing the other. It’s time for managers to modernize their perspective and learn to leverage the benefits of seeing the whole-employee – personal and professional lives.

From a practical perspective, managers who encourage employees to pursue personal interests and set goals help offset the stress from work demands. From an aspirational perspective, mangers who encourage employees to pursue personal interests and set goals help employees find greater fulfillment in life. And don’t be fooled in thinking such fulfillment doesn’t influence performance at work.

Mangers who encourage employees to pursue personal interests and set goals help employees find greater fulfillment in life.

At Menlo, they celebrate the whole employee. Employees’ personal worlds mingle with their professional-selves as dogs and newborn babies can be brought to work. Why let an employee worry about child-care issues when the organization’s policies can alleviate the concern.

Harness passion; Ground it with purpose

I’ve grown leery of the advice to follow your passion. While it’s hopeful and ultimately plays an important part in doing work that matters, it’s incomplete advice.

Managers must harness employees’ passions but sync it with the purpose of the team and the organization. Purpose is aspirational but solid in focus. Passion without an anchor can lead to frustration. It can be aimless and thus can be lost. Purpose then stalls and disillusions those pursuing it.

Menlo Innovations develops software for clients. Part of the small-company’s success is how it taps into our basic human needs to develop relationships, to belong to a group that has purpose and provides meaning.

These vital outcomes in business present a modernized way of doing business in a manner that matters today.

Business has always been built on the back of relationships. For centuries the focus has been the relationship with the customer. The shift now is to modernize the relationship with employees so they can do work that grows the relationship with customers.

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The Warning Signs of a Highly Disengaged Employee (Cord Himelstein)

You can, of course, tell yourself it's not your job to engage your employee - that's what their salary is for.  If it isn't worth your while to motivate your team, though, don't get mad when you fall behind competitors who do.

The Warning Signs of a Highly Disengaged Employee

The world is an unhappy place when you don’t like your job.

Job dissatisfaction is the gateway to disengagement,disengagement leads to lowered performance, and lowered performance affects your bottom line.

However, if an employee is disengaged, they rarely verbalize it to their manager — which is a problem. Managers must not only be able to recognize the non-verbal cues of disengagement, but also take steps to re-engage the employee in a positive way.

4 signs of employee disengagement

How can you tell when an employee is unhappy at work? The warning signs are fairly obvious:

• An “I don’t care” attitude – Coupled with lower productivity, employees that illustrate less interest or care for their work activities or their organization’s overall mission are likely disengaged.
• Increased tardiness or absences – An employee who exhibits a pattern of tardiness or absences is most likely disengaged, indicating a decreased motivation to get tasks completed. Or, they could be looking for a new job.
• Declining quality of work – Failing to meet deadlines, or meeting deadlines with sub-par work on a regular basis shows that an employee is less committed, especially if you know them to be capable of better performance
• Permanent mood swings – A once happy employee that slips into a persistent negative attitude might be having a bout personal trouble, or they might be disengaged. Either situation is detrimental to the workplace and must be addressed.

Putting them back on the road to happiness

Realizing the first signs of discontent can help you identify a disengaged employee and take the necessary steps to try to get them back on board – starting with engaging them on a personal level.

It’s important for the manager to be a good listener in these discussions, as unhappy employees may find it socially awkward to air their grievances, or they may fear repercussions for speaking up.

Make them feel safe from those things and have a candid conversation that gets to the root of the issue — it will put them on the road to happiness.

This was originally published on the Michael C. Fina blog.

Cord Himelstein is the VP of Marketing and Communications at Michael C. Fina, a leading provider of global employee recognition and incentive programs headquartered in New York that has been family-owned and operated since 1935. Contact him at chimelstein@mcfina.com.