In Your Corner Coaching & Consulting Services

As the end of the year approaches, managers and employees approach the season (no, not that season) with dread. It’s performance review time.

At worst, performance reviews can be an exercise in frustration, tension, fruitless efforts to retrieve memories of untracked goals, and sometimes evasion and whitewashing. But at its best, the performance review can be an opportunity for reward, development and retargeting for the coming year.

Mark Goulston of Fast Company magazine offers some wise words.

It’s important for the manager to keep in mind the purpose of performance reviews in the first place. If you’re not careful, performance reviews can be taken as a look at past performance for which the employee expects to be either castigated for doing poorly or rewarded with a raise. But looking back is not what a performance review should be about. Instead, the right perspective would be to ask “what information can I provide this employee that will help him or her reach a higher level of performance in the future?”

Read the whole article here.

One of the easiest things a manager can do is hire the wrong person.

A good way of avoiding that unfortunate outcome is to hone your interviewing skills. The past several years have seen an upsurge in popularity of “behaviorally-based interviewing” which asks the candidate to describes actions he or she has actually taken rather than asking for their speculations about what they would do in a certain situation.

Inc. magazine suggests 10 questions that might provide helpful information in identifying talents (or the lack of talents) that won’t show up on the resume.

1. Have you ever had several projects with the same deadline? How did you tackle that?
   Why: To measure a candidate’s conscientiousness, coping skills, and organization.
2. Could you tell us about a time you failed at a task?
   Why: To see how a candidate responds to adversity.
3. How have you handled the last few angry customers you’ve come across?
   Why: To gauge a candidate’s customer- and client- service skills.
4. Tell us about a project for which you fiscal responsibility. How did you stay on budget?
   Why: To get a sense of how a candidate will handle company finances.
5. Tell us about a recent split-second decision you made on the job. How did you approach it?
   Why: To gain insight into a candidate’s decisiveness and decision-making style.
6. What is the last thing about which you and your boss disagreed? How did you settle it?
   Why: To see whether a candidate is manageable and how well he or she communicates.
7. What is the most significant presentation you’ve given to clients?
   Why: To measure a candidate’s presentation and public-speaking skills.
8. What was your most frustrating experience on your last job? The most satisfying?
   Why: To gauge a candidate’s motivation and general temperament.
9. How do you handle a task when you’re asked to make changes at the last minute?
   Why: To see whether a candidate is flexible and can adapt quickly.
10. Tell us about a time you took a risk and failed. How did it feel?
    Why: To measure a candidate’s resilience and attitude toward risk.

Think only those with direct reports need to know how to manage people? Think again.

The days are gone when we could succeed by keeping our eyes down on our desks, doing our own well-defined jobs and going home. It’s a good bet that, if you think about it, you’ll recognize many times when a project’s success has depended on information, resources or influence from someone not in your hierarchical chain.

Jeff was transferred from product engineering to a newly created position coordinating quality and tracking warranty costs. His technical expertise, which had contributed to most of his success in his previous job, was less helpful now as his straightforward, get-it-done style was tripped up by what seemed to be unwarranted resistance from manufacturing supervisors and accountants. He gradually came to see that unless he found ways of persuading them that working together with him was in their own interests as well as his, he was going to fail. His technical credibility was helpful, but learning to help his new colleagues meet their goals on the way to meeting his own was the key to his eventual success.

But what do you do when this is all new to you or your interpersonal skills need development? See our Resources page for suggestions, or leave a comment suggesting or requesting a recommendation in a particular area.

Everyone is talking about goals. How do you know what goals to identify. Francisco Dao writes in Inc. magazine:

The most frightening trend seems to be goal setting by the process of wishful thinking. Setting the right goals is a tricky matter. If you aim too low, then the goals become trivial, but if you make them so high that they seem unattainable, your employees will likely think you’re delusional.

Read the whole article here.