Self-powered Careerist? Is this another new fancy term to which we now need to become accustomed? Yes – if you are looking for selecting top performers for your organisation!

Are you looking for people who:

• Take responsibility,
• Have learning agility,
• Are explorative and innovative,
• Are “big picture” minded, and
• Enjoy taking on new challenges?

Then you are looking for Self-powered Careerists. People who understand the changes that are affecting every facet of the organisations, and understand what they need to do maximise the opportunities of the changes – and do it!

So, what then is a “self-powered careerist”? Research undertaken by Career Systems Inc has identified 5 critical attitudes typically found in Self-powered Careerists. These are:

1. They step up and take responsibility for what they want and what is needed and don’t blame the “system” for what goes wrong.
2. They are “talent rich” – they have a potpourri of skills and abilities and know instinctively of new talents necessary and go about developing them.
3. They are inquisitive, they ask questions, and they understand the learning needed to power both themselves and the organisation.
4. They don’t see just their aspect of the organisation. They see the “bigger picture” and understand it and know their contribution.
5. They put up their hand when challenging situations arise and are not afraid to take a calculated risk.

But there’s a quid pro quo. Self-powered Careerists need an environment that allows them to be “self-powered”. They need an environment that:

• Has a clearly defined career lattice throughout the organization with no limitations or restrictions,
• Facilitates career conversations and enables people to achieve their goals through achieving organizational goals,
• Allows people to work in areas that taps into their passion, strengths and personal goals,
• Enables people to build a “personal brand” and market that brand as an asset to the organization,
• Creates career opportunities that makes peoples work and lives in the organization a truly win-win situation, and
• Provides the necessary work environment and tools that enable people to perform at their best.

It is up to managers to create this environment and this in turn would ensure:

• Improved productivity,
• A more innovative organization,
• A more engaged workforce, and
• Better retention of critical skills.

That sounds like a “win-win” to us. How about you?

If you would like to create a career lattice for your organization or know more about creating an “engaged” workforce, call us.

A recent Leadership IQ survey asked 48,012 CEOs, managers and employees to reveal their true feelings about performance reviews. While it came as no surprise that no-one likes performance reviews, what was learned about the effectiveness of the reviews currently being conducted was shocking.

• Just 13% of managers and employees thought their year-end reviews were effective.
• Just 6% of CEOs thought year-end reviews were effective.

I’m less interested in the “Why’s” of this finding, having been through numerous of these procedures in the past. I’m much more interested in “How do we change this?”. If the “Performance Appraisal” is a critical element of the Performance Management process, then it stands to reason, for me at least, that making the process more effective will lead to improved Performance Management. So how do we achieve this?

Well, let’s start off by looking at the traditional “Performance Appraisal” process. For 12 months, sometimes six months, work is carried on by the organisation’s workforce. Then, in the 12th month (or 6th month where applicable), each manager is expected to hold a review with each member of their specific workforce. To facilitate this, they are given a sheet of paper with a number of “qualities” and a rating scale – generally 1 to 5. The idea is that the manager will discuss each of the “qualities” with members of staff and, together, they will agree on the rating of that staff member for each of the qualities. The “scores” are then totaled to give a total for each employee.

The burning question is why do we do this? The answers are one or more of the following:

• To review how each person completed their job for the prior year
• A pay review
• A review for bonuses
• An assessment of the employee for promotionTypically the procedure is paper based and HR is the custodian of the information. Where Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) have been introduced, the paper-based system is computerized, but is still based on the same process and outcomes. Just looking at this, it’s no wonder that everyone, including management, hate the process and it’s no wonder that it’s not effective. It becomes an exercise in futility.So, what’s the alternative? The “new” concept of Performance Management provides the answer. Performance Management today is a system that aligns individual and team performance to organisational strategy and performance.They start with understanding the role that individuals and teams play in the success of the organisation, and cascading corporate goals as well as team and individual goals down the organisation. From the individual perspective, Performance Management starts at the beginning of the period (year, quarter, month, etc.) and defines what is expected of each employee for the next performance period. The definition includes specific objectives for the period, backed up by a job description which includes the normal expectations for that position

  Then, the manager meets with each employee on a weekly, or at least a monthly, basis, to judge whether or not the performance goals and objectives for the period will be met. If not, the manager can implement specific interventions to ensure that the employee achieves the goals necessary for individual, team and organisational performance. The emphasis on modern Performance Management is on ensuring that goals and objectives are met, rather than reviewing why they were not met – when it’s too late to do anything about it.

  In this way a Performance Diary is maintained for each employee on an ongoing basis making an Annual Review more meaningful, more relevant, and more fair to both employee and the organisation. This process, as part of the manager’s normal “people management” role, is more effective and is enjoyed more by both manager and employee as the focus is on improvement and achievement, not blame and retribution.

  If you are interested in knowing more about the “new” Performance Management and how to implement it, contact us.

This is not mine, it’s by Brian Tracy (www.briantracy.com).  But I think, as a Professional, this should be our “mantra”.  Thanks Brian

July 7, 2011

How to set standards for excellence and back them with total integrity.

A Commitment to Excellence

Leaders have specific responsibilities and must fulfill certain requirements. One requirement of leadership is the ability to choose an area of excellence. Just as a good general chooses the terrain on which to do battle, an excellent leader chooses the area in which he and others are going to do an outstanding job. The commitment to excellence is one of the most powerful of all motivators. All leaders who change people and organizations are enthusiastic about achieving excellence in a particular area.

Be the Best!

The most motivational vision you can have for yourself and others is to “Be the best!” Many people don’t yet realize that excellent performance in serving other people is an absolute, basic essential for survival in the economy of the future. Many individuals and companies still adhere to the idea that as long as they are no worse than anyone else, they can remain in business. That is just plain silly! It is prehistoric thinking. We are now in the age of excellence. Customers assume that they will get excellent quality, and if they don’t, they will go to your competitors so fast, people’s heads will spin.

Have A Vision of High Standards

As a leader, your job is to be excellent at what you do, to be the best in your chosen field of endeavor. Your job is to have a vision of high standards in serving people. You not only exemplify excellence in your own behavior, but you also translate it to others so that they, too, become committed to this vision.

This is the key to servant leadership. It is the commitment to doing work of the highest quality in the service of other people, both inside and outside the organization. Leadership today requires an equal focus on the people who must do the job, on the one hand, and the people who are expected to benefit from the job, on the other.

The Most Respected Quality

The second quality, which is perhaps the single most respected quality of leaders, is integrity. Integrity is complete, unflinching honesty with regard to everything that you say and do. Integrity underlies all the other qualities. Your measure of integrity is determined by how honest you are in the critical areas of your life.

Integrity means this: When someone asks you at the end of the day, “Did you do your very best?” you can look him in the eye and say, “Yes!” Integrity means this: When someone asks you if you could have done it better, you can honestly say, “No, I did everything I possibly could.”

Integrity means that you, as a leader, admit your shortcomings. It means that you work to develop your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Integrity means that you tell the truth, and that you live the truth in everything that you do and in all your relationships. Integrity means that you deal straightforwardly with people and situations and that you do not compromise what you believe to be true.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

1. Identify the area of your work where excellent performance can contribute the very most to productivity and profits. Focus all your efforts in this area.
2. Do your very best on every task. Imagine that everyone is watching even when no one is watching. Imagine that everyone in your company was going to do their work exactly the way you do yours.

Never compromise your standards!

One would think that highly-qualified “knowledge” workers would, generally, be a happy lot. And why not as their job is to foster innovation, resolve problems, and think strategically. And they probably earn reasonable incomes. Clearly a recipe for high engagement. Or not?

Well, despite general high engagement with their jobs, these people appear to have greater levels of stress than other workers. They struggle for work-life balance, and worry about job security. “Greater education opens the door to more opportunities in the job market,” says Thomas Hartley, vice president of GfK Customer Loyalty and Employee Engagement. “But with that comes higher levels of responsibility and pressure to deliver results”.

To investigate this further, GfK Custom Research North America recently conducted a survey of more than 30,000 highly qualified “knowledge” workers worldwide. And their findings were:

• 29% of North American workers with PhDs say they experience extremely high levels of stress at work.
• 39% of those with a master’s degree frequently worry about stress
• 30% of PhDs report extremely high levels of pressure about job security
• 25% of people with a master’s degree frequently worry about work-life balance
• Just 38% of the “creative class” employees with PhDs say they’re highly engaged at work
• 41% of US workers age 29 or younger are considerably stressed at work, the highest of all age groups
• 43% of US workers age 29 or younger are highly concerned about work-life balance, the highest of the age groups.

The main reasons given for why they feel disengaged are:

• They can’t influence decisions that impact their work
• Unclear communications from their boss
• No company commitment to career development

So really, it’s back to the age-old Leadership problem. And I guess it’s quite comforting to know that these “creative class” people actually have the same problems at work as us mere mortals.

“Performance” today needs to be viewed across 3 levels:

• Organisational performance – how well am I contributing to the overall success of the organisation? This is generally about things like Scorecards.
• Job performance – how well am I performing in my specific job? This is generally about KPIs.
• Competence – do I have the necessary competencies to perform in my job? This is generally about Competency Management and Measurement.

These 3 levels roll up – if I don’t have the required competencies, I’m unlikely to be able to perform well in the job, and if I’m not performing well in my job, then its probably impacting on the ability of the organisation to achieve its goals.

So when you say “measure HR performance”, the question has to be “at which level”?

At the top level, measures such as:

• By how much has the workforce improved this year over last year? (borrowed from the book “The New Human Capital Strategy” by Bradley Hall – it’s a MUST read)
• By how much has the value of the workforce increased this year over last year?
• Which HR plans achieved their intended outcome?
• What was the return on investment in strategic HR initiatives?
• etc. (for more info, download our free ebook “Develop a Human Capital Strategy Scorecard” on www.talentalign.com and look at the book “The Workforce Scorecard”)

At the “operational” level, measures such as:

• How many exceptional candidates do we recruit and retain for each strategic job opening?
• How many hours of results-oriented training do new employees receive annually?
• What is the differential in merit pay between high-performers and low-performers?
• etc (for more info look at the book “The HR Scorecard”)

At the “competency” level, you need to have a well-structured Competency Framework in place. There are many Competency Frameworks available for different industries (we have one for the IT industry – go to www.talentalign.com to find out more), you just need to search to find the correct one for you.

So, this is just not a simple questions. Performance, to be realistic and meaningful to the organisation, needs to be measured across all 3 levels.

Each of us make decisions at some emotional level. How well do you know your employees? What are their emotional “triggers”?

These emotional labels and single paragraph descriptions were derived via extensive quantitative research with thousands of consumers, a panel of psychologists, and marketing consultants who specialized in assessing emotional purchase motivation. Taken together, the list is probably the best representation of the full spectrum of human needs which can be met by good people management.

1. Feeling Loved: Feeling Loved implies that a person has a satisfactory number of significant attachments in his or her life from whom (s)he receives an adequate amount of emotional nourishment on a daily basis
2. Feeling Attractive: Having a strong level of comfort with one’s physical being. Knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence. (Note: ‘Feeling Sexy’ … the specific ability to attract a desired sexual partner, is a special kind of attractiveness, which is rated separately)
3. Sense of Adventure: Interested in exciting and remarkable experiences, sometimes involving unknown danger and risk. Rising to the challenge, exploring new territory, feeling excited about new leanings, new experiences, etc.
4. Feeling Financially Secure: Believing one has adequate money to take care of the majority of their BASIC needs and desires in the present and in the future. Feeling Financially Secure is different than Feeling Affluent or Wealthy – which means one believes they have enough money to buy WHATEVER they desire (more than basic needs and wishes) and has more money than one could reasonably spend.
5. Sense of Accomplishment: Seeing progressive evidence in one’s life that particular worthwhile goals are being sought after and achieved.
6. Feeling Caring or Nurturing: Interested in providing emotional, physical, financial, or spiritual support to others, warmly enjoying the process of doing so.
7. Being Altruistic: Able to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of society. To forgo one’s own gratification in favor of the interest of others whose well-being will not enhance one’s own.
8. Being Assertive: Able to stand up for and strive to obtain one’s own interests, especially given the presence of difficult people who stand in the way.
9. Feeling Brave or Courageous: Being willing to face risk and danger for the purpose of obtaining a positive benefit (when it is judged to be beneficial and wise to take the risk). (Being willing to face risk and danger without judgment is ‘foolhardiness’).
10. Feeling Creative: Interested in and able to UNIQUELY express oneself in words, behavior, or the arts.
11. Excitement or Liveliness: Having a strong sense of being alive, having the energy and interest to partake of all life has to offer.
12. Feeling Fair, Just, or Ethical: Marked by impartiality and honesty. Able to make judgments free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism. Interested in upholding these principles.
13. Feeling Luxurious or Pampered: The belief that one has enough resources at hand to enable splurging on things that are understood to be unnecessary DESIRES as opposed to essential NEEDS.
14. Feeling Healthy: Having confidence in one’s physical well being, strength, and ability to avoid disease and illness.
15. Feeling Athletic: Having confidence in one’s physical strength, stamina, flexibility, and ability to meet various physical challenges. (Especially sports, but also non-competitive physical challenges)
16. Feeling Flexible or Adaptable: Able to change one’s perspective and use one’s strengths according to the demands of a wide variety of situations.
17. Feeling Free: Being able to say what one wants to say, think what one wants to think, go where one wants to go, be with people one wants to be with, and behave how one wants to behave. Generally, being able to do as one pleases!
18. Being a Good Friend: Believing oneself to be attached to and supportive of a cared for other. Providing companionship and enjoying their company.
19. Enjoying Humor: Seeking to laugh regularly. Enjoying the ludicrous or absurd. Liking to make others laugh.
20. Feels like a Good Teacher: Able to successfully impart useful knowledge or abilities to others.
21. Being In Control: Able to influence one’s self and surroundings as desired. Being able to predict, manage, and successfully react to the occurrence of stressful events. Having the ability to decide when, how, and where one will engage in particular verbal or behavioral expressions.
22. Feeling Independent: Able to care for oneself, not requiring others to meet one’s needs.
23. Being Insightful: Able to make useful new connections. Seeing the broader picture, able to understand the way things work in new ways.
24. Having Integrity: Walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Knowing one’s behaviors are consistent with one’s principles. Able to put off or deny one’s own gratification at the moment in favor of a cherished principle. Being willing to hold oneself accountable for one’s actions.
25. Feeling Wise or Intelligent: Being mentally keen or quick. Knowing that one has a high degree of mental capacity which has been used to accumulate the kinds of knowledge and experience which makes one particularly well suited to meet the challenges of life.
26. Taking a Leadership Role: Serving as a leader for others, helping guide others towards worthwhile goals and being directly responsible for their supervision and performance.
27. Peaceful – Relaxed – Calm: Feeling peaceful, relaxed or calm. Having peace of mind, body, and spirit.
28. Having a Sense of Power: Able to wield influence over one’s own life and over others. Occupying a position of importance in life.
29. Being Productive: Believing oneself to be effective in consistently contributing some valuable work product to one’s own life, family, or society.
30. Feeling Respected: Being acknowledged and recognized for one’s value or contributions to one’s loved ones, family or society.
31. Feeling Spiritual: Feeling an established connection with a higher power of one’s own definition (one that transcends the mortal world). Can be, but is not necessarily, the higher power defined in one’s chosen religion.
32. Feeling Sexy: The specific ability to arouse the desire to mate in a potential partner of the desired gender. (Feeling Sexy is a specific type of the more general ‘Feeling Attractive’: which is knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence).
33. Feeling Romantic: Enjoying the thoughts, feelings and perceptions associated with the desire to be ONE with another human being.
34. Feeling Safe: Reasonably knowing no harm will come to oneself. Able to rest assured in life or in a relationship.
35. Sense of Belonging: Knowing on a gut level that one is part of a family, group of friends, or society where one ‘fits in’ due to similar values, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies.
36. Feeling Trustworthy: Will not harm others in favor of one’s own gratification if given the opportunity. Reliable, dependable, able to be counted on.
37. Feeling Unique: Feeling unique implies that one is aware of being an individual distinct from all others.