A Leadership Screw Driver: The 90 Day Improvement PlanLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. A Leadership Screw Driver: The 90 Day Improvement Plan article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Word count: 648 Summary: All leaders must eventually deal with poor performers. The author describes a method to help poor performers become good performers. It is based on developing and executing a 90-Day Improvement Plan. A Leadership Screw Driver: The 90 Day Improvement Plan by Brent Filson I was talking with first-line supervisors in a utility company about how to deal with poor performing employees. 'You've gotta put the screws to him!' suggested one supervisor to his colleague who was having trouble managing one particular poor performer. 'I've put so many screws to him he's dead weight!' the supervisor replied. We all knew what 'putting the screws to him' meant -- using rewards and punishments to force change in behavior. The trouble is, rewards and punishments are the least effective ways of dealing with poor performers. That's because poor performers are usually smart, motivated, and tenacious -- when it comes to poor performing. To change the behavior of poor performers, avoid the outside-in approach of rewards and punishments and cultivate an inside-out approach. Aesop understood that. There is the Aesop's fable of the wind and sun competing to see who can remove a coat from a man. The wind tries to blow the coat off, but the man clutches it tightly to his body. Then the sun grows hotter, and the man, perspiring heavily and getting hotter and hotter, gladly rips the coat off. The leadership lesson is clear: You can bluster and blow to get somebody to accomplish a task, but that's not as effective as setting up a situation in which the person gladly does it. Here is a way to deal with poor performers using Aesop's lesson: the 90-Day Improvement Plan. A business leader tells me that he uses such plans as tools for change. Each plan is comprised of two pages: the first page pointing out that the individual must improve and the second page detailing the precise ways that improvement must take place. 'Be specific about improvement,' he says. 'For instance, one leader I gave an Improvement Plan to was very bright but was not getting results. He tended to deal with future, strategic issues; whereas our business wants results now, preferably yesterday. We identified specific ways he could improve his performance in getting results, such as precise calls to make and exact, quick-closing targets to pursue.' The objective of 90-Day Improvement Plans should not be to get rid of people. 'Their objective is to improve performance,' he says. 'Though I do write on the first page, ‘If the objectives are not met, further actions, including dismissal, can be taken.'' He sometimes combines Improvement Plans with the force-ranking of all his leaders into a 20/60/20 continuum. The bottom 20 percent get the Plan. He says, 'My objective is to have the bottom 20 percent be indispensable leaders.' Mind you, in developing a 90-day Improvement Plan, keep Aesop's fable in mind and seek not compliance but commitment. The Improvement Plan must not be imposed from without but agreed upon. Here is a four-step process to do that. First, all parties must agree to develop a 90-Day Improvement Plan. If people are forced to do it, it won't work as it should. Second, ask the poor performers to describe what should be in it. Remember, you can veto any suggestions. However, it is best if its key components come from the other people. Only after they have run out of suggestions do you incorporate yours. Third, develop the Plan together, and agree on its action steps. Fourth, implement it. Have weekly or bi-weekly meetings to insure the Plan is being carried out. If the Plan is forced upon someone, it becomes just another screw, another imposed reward/ punishment. However, if it is put together with mutual consent, indeed with mutual enthusiasm, it becomes the screw driver by which poor performers may very well gladly put the screws into themselves. 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
|
More Articles:1. Dividing The Loot By Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker – conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive investment cycle – rarely will internal strife arise and threaten its existence. It is when the company… 2. Riding the Waves to Success By Bob Scheinfeld Last week I was confused and frustrated about a few things related to one of my businesses, and a bit upset with myself and "The Universe." As a result, I went into a deep meditation to get some clarity and help.In response to my questions and requests for help, my Director/Inner CEO asked to me make a shift in the way I was looking at my business affairs (although as you'll see, the advice I got applies to personal life too). He suggested that I start looking at the ebb and flow of opp… 3. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management Skills By Jeanne Sawyer Solving a big problem is a project: you’re far more likely to solve it successfully if you treat it like one. That means you’ll need to identify tasks, make and adjust assignments, and keep track of what is due when.Get on the right track immediately by starting a task list as soon as you start working on the problem. Every time you think of something that needs to be done, put it on your task list along with the owner, due date and completion criteria (how you’re going to know the task is suc… 4. An Original Perspective on Waging Conflict as a Way to Promote and Restore Self-dignity By Neil Warner Conflict is a fact of life for all of us, but too many painful consequences are generated by avoiding or managing it in the wrong way. When we deal with everybody else day after day in any capacity as leaders or team managers, is inevitable that we will be personally confronted with conflict. Our jobs, our reputation and our own satisfaction level are contingent upon knowing a basic principle to understand interpersonal conflict. If you are a leader, you need to learn and apply this principle… |
||||
