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. Managing Monsters in Meetings - Part 1, General Strategies for Unproductive Behavior It happens easily. You're conducting a meeting and suddenly a small side meeting starts. Then someone introduces an unrelated issue. Someone else ridicules the new issue. Everyone laughs, except the person who mentioned the idea. Then someone insults the person who told the joke. Two people stand up and walk out. Others complain that the meeting is a waste of time.Now, what do you do?And how do you prevent this sort of thing from happening?Or what could you have done to stop it once it started?H… 2. Is Chess Good for Management? By Bright Johnson The game of chess has been applauded and taught in business school as a game that gingers creative intelligence.Chess is a game involving kings, queens, bishops, knights, castles, and pawns like a real life. The pawns (also called soldiers) advance first, lead or supported by officers all to fight and protect the king. It is like fighting a real war similar indeed to fighting or capturing business competitors, employees, or customers. The only difference is that at the end it is only a game.Ch… 3. Project Management - How to Plan and Schedule More Complex Projects Gantt charts are useful tools for analysing, planning and controlling complex multi stage projects. Gantt Charts can; Assist in identifying the tasks and sub tasks to be undertaken Help you lay out the tasks that need to be completed Assist in scheduling when these tasks will be carried out and in what order Assist in planning resources and needed to complete the project, Assist in working out the critical path for a project where it needs to be completed by a particular date. When a complex o… 4. The Supervisors 14 Essential Truths For Communicating With Direct Reports By John Robertson One amazing, but sadly true, fact of today's advances in communication tools is that we really don't communicate much better than in the past.Indeed one recent study determined the number one advancement in communication tools was the availability of cheap on-line airfares.The airline trip was needed to clarify some earlier communication sent out electronically!Therefore a Manager/Supervisor must be able to clearly communicate to his/her direct reports in an effective manner.The following are … |
||||
