Building a Postive Work Culture that Encourages Innovation

So, let us discuss what can a supervisor or manager do to facilitate the establishment of a positive work culture that promotes collaboration, innovation, and risk taking by employees to maximize their productivity? Did you hear about Terry Jones, the founder of Travelocity.com, keynote address last month at an annual meeting of corporate executives? His presentation focused on how to create a work culture that generates enthusiasm for innovation. Summarized below are key points he imparted to his audience. See which ones you can institute as a line manager in your work unit: 1) Don’t be afraid to fail. “If you don’t fail, you’re not having enough at bats.” 2) “Kill the project, not the person” if an idea doesn’t work. 3) Study your failures like football teams review tapes of unsuccessful plays. 4) Don’t dismiss out of hand ideas of line staff and lower-level employees. This is where many great ideas originate. 5) Surround yourself with diverse talents that can synergize. Source: University of Texas, Press Release http://bitly.com/terry-jones-1017 plays.

The Performance Discussion (Get Your Employees to Initiate It!)

Periodically discuss with employees being more reciprocal when it comes to performance evaluations. Sure, you hate doing performance reviews, but it unlikely you will ignore an employee who requesting one. You won't to get caught not doing your job, right? But there is also much to be gained.

Being happy on the job and engaged, productive, and feeling “at one” with your supervisor is about as good as it gets. One more thing will make it perfect—no surprises at your annual review. Plan upstream to prevent this problem by having a conversation about your performance. The “performance conversation” is about getting feedback on how well you’re doing your job, but you don’t have to wait for your supervisor to initiate it. It can start with you. If you’re beginning to feel unsure about your performance and a little detached and can’t say for certain what your supervisor thinks about how you’re doing, you’re overdue for a performance conversation appointment. Don’t forget to discuss when the next one will be.

No Performance Evaluation Program?

Don't believe the absolute tripe these days about how we should scrap performance evaluations programs and procedures. I laughed looking at LinkedIn the other day where someone decided to post a comment that performance evaluations don't work because they replicated the Master/Slave model. Is this guy serious? If you do not have a performance evaluation program, you have only one thing going for you to manage quality of work, attendance, quantity of work, attitude, conduct, behavioral issues, and availability. Guess what than one thing is? .... your personality and whatever relationship you hold on to with your employee. I've seen this before in many companies where where there were good performance evaluation systems, but management didn't enforce accountability for supervisors doing them. Hence, by default, the relationship with supervisor took over. The result--problems. Anger, conflicts, manipulation, low productivity, theft, "getting back", time theft, and violence in the workplace. Do you realize that a lack of performance evaluation process can lead to death. Don't think so? Absolutely it can in the right circumstances, a dysfunctional relationship with the supervisor can lead to conflicts, unfair treatment, personality clashes, and homicide. I will be talking with you about a marvelous performance evaluation system soon, the one I designed for Arlington County Public School System Trades Department. It's easy, collaborative (key concept), fun, workable, scalable, and no surprises ever pop up on the employees review day. Training supervisors in performance evaluation is easy, and I will show you how to do it.

Supervisors "Quick Anti-Bullying Pitch"

When it comes to training managers and training supervisors, these folks need a “pitch” they can use when addressing the issue of bullying in the workplace (get a handout). Here’s one to consider: "Hey folks, if you work in an environment where people belittle each other, it’s easy to fall in with the crowd and sink to their level. The “go along syndrome” can happen to any employee--this is the “by-stander” effect. But it’s better to stand out by demonstrating civility. Bullying thrives in workplaces where a few strong, negative personalities dominate. Otherwise reasonable people may keep quiet, adopting a “don’t make waves” mentality. Tolerating—and even quietly encouraging—such behavior may seem like the most painless way to get through your workday. But eventually you’ll be on the receiving end of such ridicule and then it won’t seem quite as harmless. Fight bullying by speaking in positive, non-threatening terms. Avoid profanity at all times. And stick up for co-workers under attack. If all this proves hard, think of the Golden Rule. Treat people the way you’d like to be treated and you will blaze path for others to follow.

Training Supervisors: Risk and Supervisors Ignoring Performance Evaluations

Supervisor skills include understanding performance reviews and performance evaluations. If you have been ignoring performance evaluations year to year and your organization does not have a procedure for conducting performance evaluations of employees and making sure they happen, you risk a host of major problems beyond a irritated employee who may complain quietly to friends that they haven had a performance evaluation in years. Here's the point: If you do not conduct performance evaluations, you have only one thing to control the productivity of the worker -- your relationship. This model is fraught with issues and problems, and it can lead to conduct that can even culminate in workplace violence or homicide at work. Don't snicker. It's time to get supervisors evaluating performance again. Stay tuned for a complete course for $695 that you can upload to your internal website or show in a powerpoint presentation, and you'll train supervisors in 20 minutes. Back in a few days.

Supervisory Skills If Your Company Has Been Sucker Punched by Your Managed Care Company

Important supervisory skills training include knowing how to use your company's employee assistance program to tackle job performance problems of employees you supervise. You may at one time in the past had a traditional and much more effective employee assistance program, but your company may have been suckered into giving it up in favor of an 800# associated with the managed care company. These programs are mostly...hmmm...best word is "terrible" for helping troubled employees. Managed care companies do a lousy job of educating supervisors about these employee assistance programs and how they can, should be, and always were supposed to be used as management tools to help you correct the job performance, attendance, and conduct issues troubled employees you supervise. There in a nutshell lies the risk. You can still save a life if you know about that little phone number found on the back of your insurance card that tells you to call "this number" for mental health and substance abuse treatment benefits. This is where you EAP may lie. When you have a troubled employee whose performance is not turning around, sit down, have a corrective interview and if you have reached your wits end ready to fire and terminate--hold off and do this as a last resort: "Tell the employee, what job action you are initiating and there is only one way to prevent it, and that is if the employee thinks he or she has a personal problem contributing to the job performance issues and is willing to phone the EAP (phone number on back of insurance card will lead you to it) and follow through with its recommendations and sign a release so you can verify attendance. Say you are willing to accommodate the employees in this regard, otherwise you will initiate the job action now." Nearly all employees will accept the offer of help, and if a release is signed (part of the bargain) and that communication flows to you about the participation (no personal information), then your employee stands a good chance of getting well. Supervisor training and supervisor skills like these can save lives. This is called "Performance-based Intervention". Follow up is key. We teach these skills in Supervisor Tips and Skills Newsletter. Get a free copy.

Skill: Actively Listening and the New Supervisor

Goal: Ask open-ended questions of your co-workers. By asking questions, you're saying that you are interested in their answers, not just making a polite but generic comment. Supervisor Exercise: In this exercise, you will practice asking open-ended questions. Casual greetings in the hallway are typical in the workplace. This Friday, when people are leaving work, instead of saying "Have a great weekend", say "Do you have any special plans this weekend?" Try this exercise with two different employees on Friday. Evaluation: When you asked an open question, how did the employees respond? Did they give a one word answer, like “no”, or did they share with you some of their plans for the weekend? Did the employee rush to leave, or did they seem to enjoy talking with you. Did you share your weekend plans with the employee?