From feedback to feedforward: Smarter performance reviews
The bell-curve orthodoxy is now inexcusable. It is a passive approach that a retrospective view of employee performance would allow distinction of a small number of very high performers and an equivalent number of very low performers, with the majority of people clustered near the average. This distribution would be taken as given and performance management would be driven by that. The operating assumption being that performance is a function of a person’s innate factors and somehow showing him or her a mirror would lead that person to strive to get to a more desirable position in the curve. No wonder, this approach did not lead to high performance organizations. This flies in the face what science tells us about motivation, human potential and behavior. People are driven by desire for meaning, mastery and autonomy. Performance management, thus, is about creating a framework where an individual (and a team) can own the process of accomplishing something meaningful in a way that also leads to personal enrichment. A research by Dr. David Rock, who coined the term “neuroleadership”, shows that when we receive a “rating” or “appraisal” (essentially, feedback) our brain shifts into “fear or flight” mode and shifts to our limbic brain. This shift, which takes place whenever we are threatened, immediately takes us out of the mode to learn or create, making us defensive. So the actual act of executing a performance appraisal itself reduces performance. Clearly the need is to re-engineer the entire performance management process, make it simple and developmental. It does have a definite advantage over the feedback system. Feed-forward is the mechanism to facilitate this. When organizations embrace this forward-looking, future focused approach, employees have something to look forward to, plan ahead for, and be excited about. There is then a sense of purpose—establishment of meaningfulness in everyday’s work. Of course, we are not advocating an ethereal, abstract, dreamy stuff—this sense of purpose has to be real, something that one can measure against, something that one is accountable to. The result is motivation and an accomplishment driven culture. A great mechanism incorporating the powerful notions of feed-forward is OKR’s. It is a forward looking tool where each employee defines his/her objectives in light of the company goals. OKRs are always prospective, not retrospective. OKRs are set for initiatives and measures for future, and not to document something done and accomplished earlier. At Advaiya we have adopted OKRs as a way to set up one’s initiatives, ways to measure them, and have a “feed-forward” discussion—as we ensure that OKRs are continually recreated, each discussion on OKR assessment is essentially about setting up objectives for the future. Like any other training/ coaching model, this approach would also require an easing in process. Once the managers understand the concept and appreciate the importance of feedforward, it should be fairly easy to embrace this approach. In many ways, it is more natural and less adversarial. Still there are some deeply entrenched habits and notions to be wary of. To many managers, the idea of their employees determining and owning their directions can be difficult to digest. The requirement that the individuals would need to be explicitly explained, cajoled and convinced about what to do, doesn’t fit well with the command and control mindset. People may generally be reluctant in suggesting the way forward to others. Similarly, at times, there could be gaps in understanding and knowledge, leading to resistance to guidance on direction from others. Feed forward demands a shift in mindset. It is easy to tweak extant practices and label them as feed-forward approaches, but then such window dressing would only be detrimental to organization’s performance. Organizations, their leadership and their constituents have to realize that feedforward mechanisms put new demands on everyone. Organizations have to be more transparent, managers more receptive (and vigilant), and all employees much more accountable. Yet, the rewards are many. And, yes, it can be fun. Our article was originally published in Business Standard. Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration
The rising IT career aspects
Modern world is characterized by the impact technology has been having on nations, businesses, society and individuals. Just look at the way we shop, the way we connect with peers and customers, and the way we are transforming our businesses, every day. Businesses (both tech and non tech) are striving towards becoming more innovative with adoption of newer technologies like mobile, cloud, analytics, and social. Technology professionals have tremendous opportunities to develop with the rising IT career aspects. IT, as a business domain, has seen major highs and lows. From dotcom bubble to bust, from the massive recession to resilient recovery, IT has seen it all. There was a study in the year 2011, where many distinguished professors emphasized great prospects in the field of Cloud, Business Intelligence, Analytics, HR, Creative and Content. If we look at the current trends, we will note that the forecasts made more than three years back still hold water. These jobs, we expect will pay well, have staying power, and truly influence the organization either now or in the future. HR professional HR: no longer! The world has moved on and so has the role of so-called “HR” professionals. The role of HR has transformed into People management, Talent analytics, and People strategist. HR is playing much important and bigger role in paving the direction of a company. Even at Advaiya, we do not have an HR team but an Employee Effectiveness team whose role is to ensure the effectiveness of people through right balance of work and fun. This need for balancing, acts as a challenge agent which makes “HR” a very attractive and rising IT career aspects, specially for the Gen Y. Analytics and Data scientist Good old records have transformed into Big Data and has opened doors for mathematicians and economists to contribute in the world of IT by analyzing unstructured data, be it customer behavior or talent analytics- to explore the business opportunities. Technology marketer The true value of technology has to be communicated simply, effectively, and with clear regard to the changes in how the audience makes decisions. Thus, it becomes important to understand how to connect with customers across different channels, and still be relevant and impress technology buyers. This requires a technology marketer to have more diverse set of technology and marketing skills. Being in a technology marketer’s role means, to have enormous influence on other areas of business from technology inception to production to adoption and consumption. Social media architect / social media strategist / social media manager Social networking is becoming a part of business in almost every organization which includes intra-office communications, enterprise collaboration and even customer-involving social communication. The social media is becoming more complex which requires specialized knowledge and resource to manage it. Cloud architect People having strong IT skills in technologies related to networking, virtualization, storage, etc. can foresee themselves making career as a cloud expert. The more advanced your understanding of virtualization, networking, and infrastructure management is, the more your chances are of succeeding as a cloud architect. A cloud architect should have strong capabilities to evaluate/analyze different types of cloud (Public, Private, and Hybrid) from multiple perspectives – costs, business structure and needs, risks, etc.; so that she can suggest an optimum and sustainable cloud-based solution to its customers. Mobile application architect Mobile is the big thing that is becoming a part of IT career, and this includes developing mobile application, mobile strategies, and mobile security. Companies are demanding mobile technology experts to cater to the new business demand. Having said that, just being experts in a particular technology is not enough. Skills like public speaking, presentation capability, ability to un-learn and re-learn are the asks of business. The focus should also be on the capability of an employee to thrive on chaos and be adaptable to change- two major soft aspects of human attitude to help an individual sustain in any economy. The article was originally published in The Pioneer. Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/avenues/its-a-good-option.html
Evaluate soft skills with 3 key performance steps
Over the past few years, the Indian economy has been through a lot of ups and downs. In such tumultuous times, assessing the soft skills in employees is imperative. Just being experts in a particular technology is not enough. Skills like public speaking, presentation capability, ability to un-learn and re-learn are the asks of business. It indeed is difficult to assess such qualities, as also unfortunately the professional courses of our education institutes do not pay much emphasis on this. At Advaiya, our focus has always been on the capability of an employee to thrive on chaos and be adaptable to change- two major soft aspects of human attitude to help an individual sustain in any economy. Keeping this in mind, we use various methods to assess the soft skills of our employees. We have in place 360° performance assessment through which continuous and timely feedback is given to the employees. The employees also set their quarterly and annual agenda to include personal attributes they wish to hone. We have Building Presence Voicing Thoughts sessions every week which are followed by informal surveys where the presenter is evaluated by peers on aspects of communication, presentation skills, and ability to keep the audience engaged. “Gamification” is one of the most important method to assess the soft attributes. This gives the employees an opportunity to sell their ideas, negotiate with peers and encourages healthy and positive mutual competition. Gamification also helps in recognizing the idea or employee- which is a great morale booster. The most popular idea gets voted and thus encourages even the public shy employees to speak out their minds. We also have forums where people participate in activities like ethical hacking and developing apps in twelve hours. Such activities help people to think on their toes and think out of the box. This article was published in TIMESJOBS and Dooedu.
Six traits of highly productive people on the first day at work
How one conducts herself on the first day is a good indicator of future performance and accomplishments. On the first day in any organization, a person is more likely to be seen without the lenses of the past. What she says and does would form the basis of how that person would be perceived and dealt with. Highly productive professionals make the best of this opportunity to connect and impress, and also to establish that they mean business. A successful professional knows that contexts are dynamic, adaptability is critical, and ability to work with others is paramount. And, this shows on the first day. Is prepared: An important trait of any productive person is that she does her homework. On the first day at the job, she would already know a lot about the company, its people, products and customers. This would be result of authentic research, and not hearsay. This enables her to ask good questions, and plan effectively. With appropriate humility, it also helps in getting embraced as part of the team. Has a plan: A highly productive person would never be seen to be waiting for directions. On the first day, she has a plan of activities that would ease her in the job, and accomplish certain meaningful goals. Even before the boss actually asks, she would share and discuss this plan and enlist her (the boss’) support, of course after asking and including any priorities or specific initiatives that the boss might have. Exudes warmth and enthusiasm: A productive professional knows that she has made the right decision and has earned her place. Hence, she is confident and excited about the work. At the same time she is not threatened and cannot wait to be working with the new team. She responds warmly to all the people around, reaches out, and thus demonstrates that she is approachable, and looks forward to success. Is capable of tough-love: A productive professional can be friendly but sets high standards for herself and people around her. On the first day, she is punctual and focused. She would establish certain ground rules for the team—which would mostly be intelligent extensions of the organization’s expectations—and express her intolerance to sloppiness. She would also ensure that everyone in the team knows that she would be supportive and helpful to all as they work towards organizational goals. Is positive: Every organization is different and not everything about it may be great. A successful professional would boldly and visibly embrace the idiosyncrasies of the organization and tackle naysayers. She successfully resists any cynicism, and looks for the strengths that can be leveraged. Does not have all the answers: A productive professional waits to understand the context and complexities before offering solutions. On the very first day, she does not dole out suggestions but takes time to question, absorb and learn. The best way to win people’s trust is simply by listening to them. This article was published in TIMESJOBS.