Category: Once 1st semester classes ended, I found myself with more free time to catch up on my internet reading. One of the blogs I’ve been reading frequently is called “Comparative Advantage“, a site dedicated to general management and leadership.
The last two posts on this blog have dealt with the traits of good managers, including performance management. These two concepts have interested me greatly in the last several years as I transition from staff math geek and programmer to managing a staff of math geeks and programmers! And given that my company is just about to begin the year-end review process, these articles couldn’t be more timely!
The first article discusses how employees learn: Do you learn more from bad managers than you do from good managers? Apparently, the CEO of Yahoo! believes this; I do not. Work isn’t like playing on a losing sports team, where you learn from adversity and so forth. To me, life’s too short to work for a bad manager. If you’re not respected at work, both as a human being and a contributor to the overall success of the company, it’s time to move on. The only thing you’ll learn by staying under a bad manager is how to be a better cynic, how to do the minimum amount of work to not get fired, and how to sneak out of the office early! I can’t imagine any of those skills will help farther down the line in a career…
The second article discusses the role of timely and consistent feedback in performance management. One thing I’ve noticed working for two large companies is how difficult it is to give employees good feedback on a timely basis. Workdays are cramped doing work, and unless you actually make time for feedback, the review of quality work is usually made up of a “Good job” or “Way to go”. That’s not particularly helpful in building better behaviors, other than mere recognition. Without looking back at the details of a project, and what went well and what could be improved, employee development becomes stagnant. I’ve definitely felt like that during parts of my career, and that feeling is one of the many reasons I decided to pursue an MBA.
As I mentioned above, I am currently going through my year-end review process. You might be asking yourself, “How is that possible?”, given that it’s mid-October? Well, that’s the fun of working for a multi-national corporation! I need to turn in my self-assessment of 2009, 2.5 months before year-end. The irony here is that the “final” grade I receive for 2009 will be delivered sometime in February 2010, with bonuses/merit increases being paid April 15th (if any). Thus, the performance management window takes approximately 6 months, with 6 months remaining to influence the next year. Even funnier than that is I rarely remember what my goals were for the year at year-end, or they’ve dramatically changed since then (but not reflected in that year’s performance plan) and generally don’t reflect what I actually needed to complete! Needless to say, performance management is a bit tumultuous in my current role, especially given the relative ranking scale common at most financial firms. You might have had a killer year on paper vis a vis your stated goals…but someone else might have generated higher returns in an ad hoc analysis. Such is life, I guess.
One final thought…in Managerial Effectiveness, we talked about how throwing money at employees won’t necessarily make them any more happy or productive. If the work isn’t interesting, and the environment not supportive, employees won’t be able to perform at their highest level. One omission in the class was performance management on an individual level. We spent so much time talking about managing innovation, networks and the overall workplace, we neglected to talk about the most basic building block (the employees!). Oh well, perhaps another class will pick up where ME left off.
You make an interesting point about what Carol Bartz says - I think what she is saying is that if we are to be a good manager, think how differently a situation would need to be handled as compared to a bad manager. It's an interesting point of view, but I guess it's just one angle to being a manager - not the only way . Her story about how she was able to go through lateral experience is interesting.
You know reading about Carol, reminded me of Charlotte Beers . But she is doing a great job at rejuvenating Yahoo! so I hope she doesn't go the Charlotte Beers way.
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