Achieving Goals_ Define and Surpass Your High Performance Goals - Kathleen Schienle [20]
Make sure you listen to what your staff thinks about other key players in your organization—and they will likely have plenty to say. You will also hear what your team thinks about clients and other contacts outside the company, as well as what these clients say about your team. This is essential for managers who don’t directly interact with these clients.
You can also pass on to your team, both formally and informally, what you’re hearing on the managerial grapevine that might affect them. You can confirm good news, as well as squelch rumors before they escalate.
MBWA also gives you the chance to talk up your company’s direction and goals—making them more integral to day-to-day operations—and to point out their relevance to your team’s own goals. Encourage your staff to discuss new initiatives and policies that help them accomplish their goals.
So give yourself a break from meetings and e-mails and walk the halls a couple of times a week, not just when things are going well.
Providing Casual Feedback
By interacting with your employees daily, you keep information steadily flowing between yourself and your staff. Constant spontaneous feedback can reinforce productive behavior, energize unproductive employees, and improve negative attitudes. Providing frequent, casual feedback, in fact, is key to increasing your staff’s ability to reach their goals.
Dos & Don’ts
GIVING EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK
Always give feedback as you monitor your employees’ progress toward their goals.
Do show your honest concern and appreciation.
Do be timely about delivering praise, so that your employees see the direct connection between their actions and your response.
Do praise in public, reprimand in private.
Do give details about how things should change or why they need to continue as they are.
Don’t be judgmental; keep your comments objective.
Do focus on specific behaviors.
Do make time for discussion.
Do keep a written record of what you agree on together.
“Ask, don’t tell,” is a smart approach to giving feedback casually. Simply asking an employee about a project or about a potential problem is often enough to open communication and invite the employee to seek your help if they need it. In response to your employees’ answers, offer constructive feedback, without any implied threat.
Many supervisors believe they’ll appear weak if they do too much asking; they assume that leaders should have all the answers. Yet you can enhance your own professional achievement and growth by asking your employees questions. You will not only understand their perspective and needs better, but you will also deepen your knowledge of their areas of expertise. In addition, asking questions goes a long way toward building trust. By showing an interest, you’re also showing employees that they matter, something all workers desire.
Of course, there’s a risk of being too casual. If you are overly offhand and friendly, some may misconstrue your intentions or, thinking you’re a pushover, try to take advantage of you. Either situation undermines your authority and effectiveness. Be aware of the fine line between giving casual, honest, open feedback and being too friendly.
Casual feedback and monitoring not only strengthens your relationship with your staff and helps keep them focused on achieving their goals, it also paves the way for successful formal evaluations.
Evaluating Goal Achievement
“One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.”
—Michael Korda,
author of Another Life
In many companies today, honest, formal feedback and true goal-setting are all too rare. It’s not surprising, then, that skeptics—from the rank and file to organizational behavior experts—question the value of performance reviews and call for their reform or elimination.