What Did I Do All Year?

It seems like a good time to ask that question, right?

• Spent January and Febuary in India, Singapore and Bali. Taught, watched classical dance, ate great food and spent time with good friends.
• Was certified in DISC Profiling at Ken Blanchards in San Diego. Totally abused the champagne brunch at the Hotel Del Coronado with Angie, Tomo and John.
• Was certified in Six Thinking Hats in Phoenix. Visited Taliesen and Sedona.
• Taught in beautiful Tucson. Hiked the desert country.
• Was certified in Leadership Challenge at Sonoma Learning Systems in Sonoma, California with Brent and Ken. Drank a little wine.
• Taught a number of sessions in Yokohama, Japan. Sang some karaoke with Haemi-chan.
• Started my Masters in Adult Education. Completed 5 out of 13 courses by the end of the year.
• Worked with Nancy Duarte (author of Slideology).
• Went to Los Cabos. Spotted whales, coyotes, and Ryan Seacrest. Released baby turtles to the wild.
• Worked towards certification in High Tech Speaking.

Turns out, this was (in the words of Tori Amos) a "Pretty Good Year".

Five Steps to Better Performance Management

It's performance review time at our company - you can smell the fear and depression in the air.

How have we managed to turn something that should be good - some feedback on your performance, a discussion about next year's goals, and a little extra money - into something that almost no one appreciates?

Do you dread performance reviews? Either giving them or getting them?
Well, you don't need to. Here are five steps to making your performance reviews less painful and more productive.

1. Set Expectations in Advance
If you don't do this... don't even bother with the other four steps. It's critical that you let people know what constitutes performance at a 'meets expectations' or 'exceeds expectations' level.
Two cases in point:

• You ask your team to reduce costs by 20%. They succeed, hitting 21%. Does that performance merit a score of 'needs improvement', 'meets expectations', 'exceeds expectations', or 'far exceeds expectations'.
  The answer, of course, is 'meets expectations'.
  I can guarantee, however (because it's happened to me), that a team where expectations have not been set will score themselves as 'exceeds' or 'far exceeds'. It's human nature. Clearly articulate the target for 'exceeds' and 'far exceeds' and you won't have this problem.
• My favorite example - We have a category on our reviews for 'safety'. Every year, every direct report of mine gave themselves a 'far exceeds' for safety. I held a meeting and explained, "If you save a life, you get 'far exceeds'. If you kill someone, you get 'needs improvement'. Otherwise? You get 'meets needs'. Are we clear?"
  Everyone said yes. And then gave themselves 'exceeds' or 'far exceeds'.
  It took me two years to reprogram this behavior.

One more key point. Make clear that a 'meets expectations' is good!
Grade inflation has pushed us to a point where no one is happy unless they get an 'exceeds expectations'.
Set expectations. It'll save you a lot of trouble down the road.

2. Embrace the Bell Curve
This is probably the most difficult part of performance reviews. Everyday, a manager comes to me and says, "Everyone on my team exceeded expectations! How can you expect me to punish them just to fit a Bell Curve."
My response?

Bullshit.
Show me a team or company where everyone is performing at the same level, and I'll show you a mediocre team or company.
In 20 years, I've never been on a team where everyone exceeds.
If they did, the expectations were too low.
This isn't Lake Wobegone.

I don't have enough room to argue or convince you on this, so go do some reading.
Learn about normal distribution. Read up on Pareto.
Study some motivation theory and see how you're killing your best performers by rewarding the others equally.
Until you get over the "every one's a winner mentality" (how about, "every one's a winner, but not everyone wins"?), you won't be a great performance manager.

3. Write (real) SMART goals
SMART goals are like sex. Everyone talks about it, but no one seems to be doing it enough.

Write SMART goals.
Make them unambiguous, challenging, and measurable.

4. Review results (at least) quarterly.
I'm shocked at the number of managers who have this discussion only once a year. And then are surprised that the employees are surprised!

Hold reviews against the performance objectives at least once a quarter. Agree on the results.
By the end of the year, the score is already decided (and agreed upon).
A performance review then becomes a coronation ceremony and an opportunity to discuss the upcoming year - not the past year.

If your SMART goals are tied to a strong feedback system, there's no reason why reviews cannot happen weekly.

If you're an employee, take control of this. Review your performance with your manager more frequently, and I can guarantee that you'll have better results and get better reviews.

5. Enjoy the process
Just a gentle reminder. This whole process is supposed to be motivating and rewarding.
If it isn't, why bother?

Treat it like fantasy football! If people can sit around getting excited about the statistics of football players they don't know, why can't we all get excited about the statistics of people we know and care about?

What are your tips for Performance Management?
Share them with us...

Book Review: "never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you" by Dr. Mardy Grothe

After reading “I never metaphor I didn’t like” - see my review here - I picked up three other books by the author.

"Never let a fool kiss you..." features ‘chiasmus’, which, according to Dr. Grothe, are ‘a literary devise in which word order is reversed’.

My very favorite quote, “Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought” fits in this category.

Title: "never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you"
Author: Dr. Mardy Grothe
Genre(s): Reference, Communication, Creativity
Summary: to quote the books subtitle: "word play for word lovers"

Favorite Quote: Here are three:

1. “Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time." – Jean Cocteau
2. "This isn’t a bar for writers with a drinking problem; it’s for drinkers with a writing problem." – Judy Joice
3. "I’ve been too fucking busy, and vice versa” – Dorothy Parker

Strengths: It's funny, inspiring, and educational.
Weaknesses: Okay, this one is too short. While ‘metaphor’ was 324 pages, ‘never let a fool kiss you’ is only 119.

Conclusion: I’ll summarize with my own chiasmus - This book is too much fun to be this smart; and too smart to be this much fun.

Post-it Flags: 28 flags
* Each time I find an interesting quote, model, image, or idea in a book, I mark it with a Post-it flag. The more flags, the more value I found in the book.

Top Five Benefits of a Peer Review

Peer Review

This comic illustrates perfectly what a peer review shouldn't look like.

I'm doing a major redesign on one of our core classes, and it's a normal step for us to request a peer review when we've got something substantial to show.

As I just finished my draft of the 100+ page workbook, I asked the crew for a 1 hour review this morning.

For us, a peer review is informal - taking place in our sofa-furnished brainstorm lab, with post-it notes for everyone.

Here are my top five benefits of a peer review.

1. Everyone gets to know what you're working on - This kills any duplication of effort, consolidates resources, and makes sure you don't end up on anyone's project plan ("I didn't think you were busy").
2. You learn - I got six great suggestions from the team. Things I wouldn't have thought of on my own.
3. You build momentum - Seeing their enthusiasm re-doubled my enthusiasm. After all the work, I was a little burnt-out. Not any more!!
4. Talking brings clarity - I worked on this course in silence for too long. It's really helpful to get words out of your head and into the air, so you can hear how dumb they sound - and then improve them.
5. You get buy-in - No one can tell you later that it sucks, unless they're willing to assume some responsibility.

Now, depending on your team dynamics, all five of these could be potentially frightening.
Fortunately, my team is fairly functional (if you don't count me...), so these are productive sessions.

Do you do peer reviews? Tell us about them...

Book Review - The Plenitude by Rich Gold

Being on vacation means catching up on my reading list. I brought 10 books with me to NJ, and I've finished four.

This week I read "The Plenitude" by Rich Gold. I discovered it at the Stanford Bookstore last week after having lunch with David Woodward, the Assistant Director of the Management Communication Program at the Graduate School of Business. David is a smart and funny man I met last year at a storytelling class in San Francisco, but that's a post for another day.

Title: "The Plenitude"
Author: Rich Gold
Genre(s): Design, Business, Life
Summary: "The Plenitude" is what Gold terms the mass of man-made stuff that fills our world. He explores who makes it - scientists, artists, designers, and engineers. He then outlines the 'seven patterns of innovation'. He discusses why there is plenitude (because it's fun to make it!), why that might be a problem, and some possible solutions.
The book is meant to provoke thought, rather than to drive action and it does this admirably.

Favorite Quote: "For an artist user-testing is a joke. For a designer it's fundamental."

Strengths: I liked his distinction between artists/scientists (they work for truth and self, while being paid by patrons) and designers/engineers (who work for and are paid by clients and users).
I also found his Seven Patterns to be useful and interesting.
Weaknesses: None, really. It's very short, which I like. But some might find it superficial.

If you'd like to get a flavor of Gold's writing, go to Scribd.com and search for 'plenitude'. You'll find a presentation that appears to be the 'lost chapters' of the book.

Conclusion: If you're interested in design and creation (of anything). I recommend you read 'The Plenitude'.
Post-it Flags: 14 flags
* Each time I find an interesting quote, model, image, or idea in a book, I mark it with a Post-it flag. The more flags, the more value I found in the book.

Reading "A Whole New Mind" - from Dallas, Texas

I'm in Dallas (Richardson, to be exact), leading a Situational Self-Leadership class.

I'll comment on that tomorrow, but I need to say this today...

Go. Buy. Read.
A Whole New Mind - Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future - by Daniel H. Pink.

It's the best book I've read this year.
Here's a short version of the introduction.

Pink says that to be successful in this new world, we need to develop these Six Right Brain 'Senses': Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning.
He then tells how.

I won't say more because you'll enjoy the discovery more if I say nothing...

Can we move Beyond Culture?

I'm in Seoul this week, delivering two classes.

Each day I have a 90 minute subway commute to the office in Sunae.
I've got my i-pod, a world full of new people to watch, and a book in hand - so I'm happy.

Today, I finished reading Edward T. Hall's "Beyond Culture".
There's at least one thought provoking statement on every page, but here's a favorite quote from the book...

"Today, man is increasingly placed in positions in which culture can no longer be depended upon to produce reliable readings of what other people are going to do next. He is constantly in the position of interacting with strangers, so he must take the next step and begin to transcend his culture. This cannot be done in an armchair."

The emphasis is mine.
Written in 1976, the statement is truer today than ever - and, as demonstrated daily on the world stage, no closer to reality than it was then.

Hall's books give us clear stories and steps to begin the process, making the books true gems. I highly recommend them...