12 Principles For Successful Performance Management

Posted August 26, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

For many years now we’ve been helping organizations develop and implement effective performance management systems. Here are ten principles that form the foundation of our approach. I welcome input to help us add to the list. I’ve you are interested in having us elaborate on what each of these principles mean for you or your workplace, feel free to contact me.

1.  Change “performance” to “success.”

2. Change activities to results.

3.  Set high standards and make your expectations for success clear.

4. Distinguish between “operational” and “leadership” accountabilities. Operational accountabilities are unique to your specific job. Leadership accountabilities belong to everyone: they are promises to live the espoused values.

5. Demands and support need to be kept in balance. Results have a much better chance of growing in the soil of trust.

6.  Communication should be so frequent that there are no surprises in the success review.

7.  Give corrective feedback early.

8. Without passion, accountability is drudgery; without accountability, passion is fantasy; passion with accountability is destiny.

9.  Negotiate consequences before you have to.

10. Stay positive in public and keep the negative in private.

11. Hire slowly; fire quickly.

12. Have a clear, explicit process for follow up.

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Great Cultures Start With Conscious Action

Posted August 2, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Culture is ultimately about energy – the energy that emerges from the experience of participating in the culture. We are drawn to places – as a customer, employee, patient, or member – that have a high frequency of energy, places where people are engaged, vibrant, and alive. Conversely, we are repelled by places that are bureaucratic, listless, and dead. While positional leaders affect the energy level in a culture, every person – either inside or outside the culture – who participates in the culture contributes to the energy of the culture.

Regardless of what you say or do what face you show to the world, your mental-emotional state cannot be hidden. Everybody emanates an energy field that corresponds to his or her inner state. Most people can sense it even though they may be unaware of it’s effect or unable to articulate it. It’s not what you do, but how you do what you do that determines whether you contribute or  drain energy. The way that you act each moment, regardless of your position or your role, represents a certain vibrational frequency. I’ve learned from Eckart Tolle that if you are not in a state of acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm in any task you do, then you will be creating suffering for yourself and others.

I used to hate housework, and yet I knew that doing housework was a way to contribute and feel a part of the family. Being at war with myself, I would find myself resenting doing any housework, causing stress and suffering to myself and my family. Frankly, I was a pain to live with whenever there was cleaning that needed to be done.

So, I made a decision to accept the simple act of vacuuming. I stopped complaining and resisting and made a decision to stop hating it. In the process, I have actually grown to enjoy housework, and have an improved marriage! Two for one! The enjoyment in the work came, not because the nature of the work changed, but because I changed. I became more present to the experience.

Take an audit of the work you are doing – at home, at your office, or in your community. Become conscious of the actions you are taking and the state of mind you bring to those actions. If you can neither enjoy nor bring acceptance to what you do, then stop doing it. If, on the other hand, you decide that it is important to do this work at this time, then decide to change your state of mind. Becoming conscious of the actions you take and the effect that your inner state has on yourself and those around you, begins to build a new culture, starting with you. Taking this kind of personal accountability – action with consciousness – is not only the core of a great culture. It’s the core of a great life.

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Entitlement: Greatness Run Aground*

Posted July 3, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

I have noticed that every time a great culture is built, there appears to be an opposite and equal reaction to greatness: entitlement. It seems to be human nature. If you give your kids a lot, they want more. I grew up with telephone party lines, with one line for up to five or six residences. There were times when you had to wait 1/2 hour to make a phone call. Now I get impatient with my cell phone provider when I get a dropped call and have to redial with the push of one button. It used to take a winter to travel across this country on chuck wagons and horses. Now, as expectations have been raised, I find myself getting upset if a plane is thirty minutes late. Living in a great country, with world-class health care, education, law enforcement, and political systems seems only to increase our craving for more. Meet our needs with a high standard, and we raise the bar with a demand for more. I’ve seen the same dynamic in organizational cultures. The more the organization gives us what we want, the more entitled we feel. The best cultures I have worked with all experience the challenge of entitlement.

The reverse of this also seems true. My mother lived through the depression in a 900 square foot shack with ten siblings, enduring years of unimaginable poverty, and was void of entitlement. When she was close to death I asked her how she felt about dying. “After seventy-eight years, I accept death. I was fortunate just to have lived!” Joyce did not even feel entitled to life itself. Hard times are an ally in battling entitlement.

All the recent attention to building great cultures, empowering employees, and developing leadership capacity so people feel engaged seems to have unintentionally reinforced our love of entitlement. Living in great cultures has somehow fostered a belief that we have a right to get whatever we want without any obligations in return. Doing our own thing and expecting rights without service is self-serving. In the name of a great culture, we see people ask for such things as more pay, more freedom, greater recognition and privilege, more flex time or a risk-free environment without any reciprocating accountabilities.

This is simply wrong. Just because we are attempting to build cultures of trust that encourage you to find your authentic voice doesn’t mean you will get everything you ask for or have absolute security. Cultures of trust require a partnership, a commitment to a dialogue, not acts of concession. Accountable, authentic cultures of trust are based on reciprocal agreements. There are no licenses granted.

At the heart of entitlement is the belief that “my wants are more important than the culture and the culture exists for my sake.” At some point each of us needs to grow up and discover that our self-interest is better served by doing good work than by getting good things. Entitlement also rests on the belief that something is owed us because of sacrifices we have made. In reality, entitlement claims rights that have not been earned. It diminishes self-respect and constrains our freedom. The only way to reclaim what we have lost to entitlement is through acts of commitment and service to an entity larger than ourselves – the culture we work and live in.

When you see entitlement in the culture you live or work in, there are four steps to counter it:

1.     See entitlement as a sign of growth and greatness. You won’t find much entitlement in poverty and highly bureaucratic systems that have been suppressed for years.

2.     Identify the value or values you want to replace entitlement (e.g. self responsibility, service to others, gratitude).

3.     Find the allies in your culture who live by the values you are committed to and support them to foster these values with others who trust them. Like parenting, you only influence the values of people with whom you have a strong, trusting relationship.

4.     Get the values you want to instill off the wall and into people’s hearts through conversations and clearly defined actions. Then make a promise to live and work in accord with these actions, while being open for ongoing feedback and learning. Then shine a light an actions that are self-responsible, committed to service, and exude gratitude. Tell the story. Keep the renewed values fresh, making it difficult to be entitled.

*Thanks to Peter Block (Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) for his inspiration behind many of these insights.

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Granting Grace – A Key To Building An Engaged Culture

Posted May 23, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

What if we could ask for what we need and want from each other? What if we could talk openly, in the spirit of good will and respect, about what would make us happy and loyal in our workplace? What if we could then negotiate what we can and can’t do to meet these needs? What would happen to our workplaces, our communities, and our families if we all practiced being a little more honest and direct with each other in a respectful way?

We can all learn to be more direct with each other, and it takes continual practice, but there’s something more. Farm Credit Canada, an organization that practices good culture, has taught me a very important concept around building strong culture. One of the key principles in their cultural practices and one they work at relentlessly, is the concept of granting grace in their interactions with each other. They hold each other accountable for creating a safe environment where people can speak up without fear of repercussion.

No long ago I spent three days with an amazing team at Farm Credit, and “grace” was a central part of our conversations. They work hard at talking straight in a responsible manner. They are committed to the success of others and hold each other accountable to not engage in “conspiracies” against people. They strive for patience with themselves and others but also respectfully acknowledge when they operate outside the expectations of grace. They don’t get it perfect, but they get it right.

This kind of commitment lends itself to learning to be open and direct with each other. I love the idea of “granting grace.” I also know that it’s an area I need to continually work on. I’m certainly not as graceful in my work and in my life as I could be, especially when under pressure or in the midst of demands and deadlines.

What does “granting grace” mean to you? How do you operate with “grace” in your workplace? What effect does “grace” have on engagement, commitment, and productivity?

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Organizational Culture: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest

Posted May 3, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

To be engaged today, people need to feel a sense of passion, personal vision, and to express their unique talents. But this is only half of what full authentic expression – the heart of a culture – is about. This week, in a committee meeting of a local non-profit group, I was reminded that a commitment to contribution – choosing service over self-interest – is the other component to authentic expression. It’s like the wings of a bird. Without both passion and service, your culture simply isn’t going to fly. It’s the law of giving. The universe operates through dynamic exchange. Culture is ultimately about energy, and authentic expression inspires us while giving keeps the flow of energy moving. In our willingness to give, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives, and the energy of a culture alive.

You don’t have to go to Africa to be of service. There are plenty of opportunities to practice giving right in our own communities. Here are three ways:

1. Wherever you go, bring a gift. The gift may be a compliment, a smile, a word of encouragement, appreciation, caring, kindness, gratitude, a generous spirit, or even some patience and grace. As you circulate what you have been given, you keep the energy of your culture alive, because cultural energy is simply universal energy.

2. Practice receiving all the gifts that life has to offer. Recognize, and look for all the ways that people you work and live with are conspiring to help you. Take time to experience the beauty of a sunset, a spring flower, the sound of birds singing, a child in love with life, the wisdom of an elder, or the attempt of a colleague to bring excellence to a project. There are gifts all around us every day, if we just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n long enough to notice. And what you notice, you focus on, and what you focus on grows. Try it.

3. Be a giver, not a taker. There appears to be two kinds of people in the world: those who help, and those who hinder; those who give and those who take; those who lift, and those who lean; those who contribute, and those who consume. Which kind of person will you decide to be? Make a commitment to look, each day, for opportunities to support others, to contribute in some way to making the world around you a better place by your presence, to choose service over self-interest.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Creating A Remarkable Culture: Learning To Lead Without A Title

Posted April 25, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Do you work in a culture that you would call “remarkable?” Are you depending on someone else to make it remarkable, or do you take ownership to create a remarkable culture in the area where you work and can influence?The title of this blog is the title of some of my most recent presentations and workshops. Here are some of the key messages I have been giving to organizations these days:

Building resilient, vibrant organizational cultures is about building leadership capacity at every level and in every position. I define leadership as the capacity of human beings to shape and create a new future by inspiring and engaging others. Leadership is what transforms mediocrity into greatness.

You don’t get promoted to leadership. Leadership is about presence, not position. It’s not a title; it’s a decision. Every person in your organization is a potential leader.

Growing and developing the leadership talent of every single person throughout your organization is your greatest competitive advantage in a turbulent economy.

Learning to lead without a title is the responsibility of every employee.

I love what Dr. Martin Luther King said about personal leadership:

“If a person is called to be a street sweeper, they should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare poetry. They should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did their job well.’”

Even if you have a title, you have to learn to lead without one. One of my clients is very wise. Before he promotes someone into a leadership position, he assesses their leadership capacity by inviting them to work in a nonprofit organization (of their choice) for six months, to see how well they influence with no positional power. “If you can’t lead volunteers, you’ll never be able to lead with a title,” he proposes. Not a bad philosophy.

How do you help people in your organization – with or without positional power – develop their leadership capacity? I’d love to get your thoughts on this.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Protecting Your Talent – The New Challenge For Organizations

Posted April 19, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

As the economy turns, how do you protect your talent asset? After eighteen months of layoffs, wage freezes, and increased workloads, employees are feeling tired and disheartened, ready to jump ship for better opportunities. According to a recent survey by Right Management Inc, six in ten employees intend to pursue new job opportunities somewhere else in 2010, and another 21 percent say “maybe” and are already networking toward it.

This is a time you have to be conscious of and commit to re-earning trust. Even your engaged workers are aware of opportunities elsewhere, and your best employees are mobile. People are always attracted by career development opportunities, attaining work/life balance, or working for a creative culture. If leadership doesn’t provide these things, then workers will seek them elsewhere. Although there is a sense of entitlement with these demands, the good news is that this pressure can push our organizations to be better places to work.

How are smart employers going to inspire workers to stay and be engaged?

By being in touch with employees. Here are a few ways to establish and rebuild trust.

1.       Pay attention to your top performers – those that you want to keep – and don’t take them for granted:

  • Provide meaningful work. Restate the organization’s vision and how the contribution of these leaders – regardless of their position – is connected to the overall organizational goals.
  • Seek their input on how they feel about their job, management, and the organization itself.
  • Find out what they need to move from being worried to being completely engaged. Listen carefully to their ideas for making this a better place.
  • Support them to determine their future goals and highest aspirations, what matters most to them, and provide action plans to help them reach those goals.
  • Help them take on responsibilities that are aligned with their talents and passion.
  • Recognize your key people. Make it a point to let them know how much they are valued and how much value they bring.

2.     Be transparent:

  • Share corporate and financial information at monthly meetings.
  • Have “up close and personal” sessions, giving staff company news and updates, and allow time to field questions on any topic, from the organization’s growth to their vacation plans.
  • Let people know where you stand and why decisions are being made and enlist their input.
  • Get your key employees involved in critical decisions and discussions wherever possible. Help them feel they are a part of something and are needed to succeed.

3.     Ramp up your commitment to mentoring, and ensure that people are getting the support they need to succeed, grow, and develop pride.

  • Expose your best employees to senior leadership through opportunities for mentoring.
  • Consider job rotations to give employees experience in other areas.
  • Allow high-potential workers to handle special projects or work on high-potential accounts. Support your best people to take risks.

4.     Reconsider rewards. If your company was forced to implement pay cuts or a wage freeze that you can’t afford to reinstate, find other ways to compensate staff: days off, flexible working hours, or even product discounts. Get to know what motivates individuals, and do what you can to show your commitment to them.

Remember that your best people are the ones that can always get a job anywhere, but if they trust you to have their best interests at heart, they will be committed to the organization. More than anything, people want to belong and contribute to something that is lasting. The payoff is that as you see signs of life in the economy, you will see signs of life in your employees. It is inspiring to have people wanting to step up rather than step out.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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Granting Grace – A Key To Building A Good Culture

Posted April 11, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

What if we could sit down and ask for what we need and want from each other? What if we could talk openly with each other, in the spirit of good will and respect, about what would make us happy and loyal in our workplace? What if we could then negotiate what we can do and what we can’t do to meet these needs? What would happen to our workplaces, our communities, and our families if we all practiced being a little more honest and direct with each other in a respectful way?

We can all learn to be more direct with each other, and it takes continual practice, but there’s something more. Farm Credit Canada, one of my clients and an organization that practices good culture, has taught me a very important concept around building strong culture. One of the key principles in their cultural practices and one which they work at relentlessly, is the concept of granting grace in their interactions with each other. They hold each other accountable for creating a safe environment where people can speak up without fear of repercussion.

I spent three days with one of their teams this week, and “grace” was a central part of our conversations. They work hard at talking straight in a responsible manner. They are committed to the success of others and hold each other accountable to not engage in “conspiracies” against people. They strive for patience with themselves and others but also respectfully acknowledge when they operate outside the expectations of grace. They don’t get it perfect, but they get it right.

This kind of commitment lends itself to learning to be open and direct with each other. I love the idea of “granting grace.” What does “granting grace” mean to you? How do you operate with “grace” in your workplace? What effect does “grace” have on engagement, commitment, and productivity?

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Organizational Culture: Lessons From A High School Musical

Posted March 28, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

This past week our seventeen-year daughter, Hayley, performed in an amazing high school musical production of Les Misérables. Months of preparation went into this production. As these young people prepared themselves for a performance, I witnessed organizational culture at its very finest. Here it was: a group of ninety youth (from grade nine through twelve), all focused on a shared vision, all deeply engaged in the project, all passionate about their work, with high energy, and servant leadership. I sat back and just took in the buzz with absolute awe. I started to think, “What if we could create this kind of culture in a workplace?” With the right ingredients, focus, and leadership, I believe it’s possible because I’ve seen it done.

Here are some lessons from this high school musical theatre production that I believe can be applied to any organization.

1. Leadership with a vision. Merilie Stonewall, the artistic director at Hayley’s high school, had a vision to  produce this musical years ago when she first saw Les Misérables and was spell bound. Then she waited nine years after the rights became available for the special talent needed to cross the band room threshold. Everyone – from the actors to the crew and set designers to the tech staff, had a vision of the end result.

2. Leadership inspired by love. Merrilie has invested years of her life into her students at Cochrane High School. She cares deeply for her work and her students. She has never, in all her years of teaching, ever fallen out of love with her work or her students. It is inspiring simply to be around her. Merrilie’s credibility was earned long before the first audition. It’s built on her love and commitment to youth and to music. And everyone knows it.

3. Everyone’s talent was needed. Everyone in the production – from grade nine to grade twelve – contributed. Everyone made a difference. And everyone knew their important piece they played in the puzzle. When talent gets aligned with the vision, loyalty, passion, and energy is the result.

4. High standards of performance were set and expected. No one ever takes pride in doing something easy. Every person on this musical team was stretched and pushed beyond their comfort zone. Football players were inspired to sing in lead roles, work on technical support or paint sets.  Shy kids were coached out of the woodwork to bring their unique talents forward. High standards were set and reached.

5. Open communication. Conversations were going on continuously. Everyone seemed to be talking to everyone. Roles were clear and openness abounded.

6. Work was fun. Even in the midst of high expectations, everyone somehow knew that the goal of all this was to be in the moment of creative human expression. If we aren’t truly enjoying ourselves, what’s it all for anyway? Ms. Stonewall, like all great leaders, understands that the work is merely a means to a much higher end: the building of stronger, more confident youth. She, like all who watched this production unfold in the past months, knew that the experience and memory of being on this team will stay with these kids the rest of their lives.

7. Results. Results are essential as they are the ultimate measure of success. Hundreds of people in our community attending a sellout performance for five straight nights. Five straight standing ovations. It was as good of a product as you will see anywhere from an amateur theatre group. When a team produces these kind of results everyone wins, and everyone on the team knows they made a difference in making that happen.

What a vision to aspire to as we bring our passion and unique gifts to our work.

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Passion, Culture, and Commitment

Posted February 14, 2010 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Valentine’s Day and the start of the winter Olympics has me thinking about passion. Yes, there is lustful passion, but I’m thinking of the passion that inspires people to bring their whole self to their work. You certainly see passion in an Olympic athlete who has devoted their life to mastering a sport. I learned from my father that it’s a lot easier to be disciplined and accountable if you have a passion. For example, when you are lying in bed debating whether you should get  up to exercise it’s a lot easier if your goal is to be an Olympian. Then you have a reason to be disciplined. You are working for a higher purpose that inspires you.

So, in the work of building an engaged organizational culture, how important is passion? I think it’s very important, but I don’t believe you have to find passion in every task. I’ve met hard working janitors that don’t  find passion in cleaning up other people’s messes and I know stay-at-home parents that don’t find a lot of passion in changing diapers or washing clothes. When I was a competitive distance runner, I was passionate about the sport, but I wasn’t necessarily passionate about every one of my workouts. Sometimes it was just painful and hard work. The same is true about being a CEO. Inspired by the results that my clients experience and the work I do, I am not passionate about every aspect of the “job.”  While some are blessed to experience passion in their work (we call that a vocation), for others, their passion lies away from their work (we call that a fulfilling job). Both are valid.

I think it’s unrealistic and even dangerous to think that you have to be passionate about everything you do in order to feel “authentic” or true to yourself. The expectation that you always have to find passion in every responsibility can lead to narcissism, disenchantment, and self-centered resentment. Anyone that’s been married longer than 2 weeks understands this. The real work of marriage begins when the passion wains. Then you discover the true meaning of character and commitment: extending yourself for the greater good – even when the passion isn’t evident.

So how do you ignite energy and engage people in the midst of drudgery? Two ways: first, by connecting with a higher purpose, a vision that provides a strong enough reason for doing the task, and second, by connecting with talent. Both fuel passion and thus engage people. Passion is important in any relationship but it doesn’t necessarily have to come in the nature of the task. It can come with a strong enough reason to perform the task. Passion comes when you connect a task with the context of your life. For an athlete, passion comes in the dream and satisfaction that the tough, lonely workout is taking you toward the vision. It comes in a marriage when you realize that you are serving a more important goal than immediate self-gratification. It comes in a job when you connect the accomplishment of that job with a purpose that matters to you – at work or at home.

Organizations are the stewards of people’s passion and talent, and leadership is about creating an environment where people are inspired to participate with their full selves. This happens when we find out what matters most to people and then support them to experience their day-t0-day jobs as a tool to make it happen. When you are able to maintain this kind of perspective, you don’t just get committed, loyal employees and a better workplace, you get a meaningful life.

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