I was coaching a line manager, helping her to better deal with conflict within her team. I raised the issue of under or poor performance and how she dealt with that. She said, “Oh, we don’t deal with that, it has to go to HR, they deal with those issues.” I said, “Really, how does […]
One of the situations most avoided by leaders is dealing with unacceptable behaviour and performance. The main reasons are: Fear of failure. Causing more conflict or escalation. Losing or breaking relations. Not knowing how to do it effectively. Concern about the process being onerous. Yet, those leaders who have invested the time to learn how […]
Ineffective leadership is the biggest reversible cost to a business. If the leadership is dysfunctional at the top, then it gravitates downwards, infecting leaders at other levels. However, dysfunction in leadership at any level will have a negative impact at all levels of the business. The costs come from loss of: - talent engagement productivity […]
Michael is a good guy. Most people like him. But Michael doesn’t deliver his work on time or at the right standard. He always agrees to the suggestions made to improve, but it just doesn’t happen. Do you know this guy or someone like him? Nobody wants to be the bad guy that gets on […]
“I’ve done it David!” my client, the CEO of a mid-sized professional service provider, told me, the relief in his voice apparent. “What?” I asked. “I’ve canned our performance management process!” he replied. “Fantastic!” I couldn’t help expressing. “I’ll bet you had no push back on that” I tested. “Well actually I did, but not […]
He’d had enough. There was too much bureaucracy and costs coming from his HR department and he couldn’t see a return on investment from what they were doing. So he did this, honourably and efficiently: Closed down his HR department. Kept one HR person to manage records and ensure compliance – there are software systems […]
Work is rapidly evolving. People are becoming far more conscious of what matters most and it isn’t just about work. People are well and truly over the old ways of performance management and command and control. They are looking for meaning, value, appreciation, being included and making a difference. Technology has enabled us to be […]
Improving productivity is high on the leaders’ agenda. Scholarly and practical articles alike focus on the productivity outcome created by the relationship between inputs and outputs, debating only what inputs and outputs to measure. What are measured mainly are financial and product or service data. I think they are missing the secret reality. There are […]
We don’t have enough leaders who are effectively engaged with their employees. That is the primary reason why ‘employee engagement’ remains a hot topic. How can you expect employees to be engaged in their work if their leaders aren’t effectively engaged with them? Most leaders are very busy. Strategy meetings; studying spreadsheets; spinning sound bites; […]
Senior leaders tend to require their people to be trained without attending themselves. There are various stated reasons for this: They are too busy. They’ve already been trained in those areas (albeit some time ago). They are not the ones who need development. They aren’t sufficiently connected with the people being trained. They don’t want […]
