Gather Employee Input Before You Try Managing Their Performance

Before you craft your performance management strategy, don’t miss this valuable tip for capturing your employee’s loyalty and valuable ideas. As our VP of Marketing Erica Olsen says, “recognition is the number one motivator of employees.” You can try yelling at them. You can try tossing money at them (well, probably not in this economy), […]

The 5 Traps of Personal Performance Management

Performance management is a problem. More specifically, how most people approach their own performance management is riddled with pitfalls. This is evident with the torrent of self-help and self-management books that have gained popularity, the increased talk of inbox management and especially in the colossal failure of the once heralded term, “multi-tasking.” Everything points to […]

The Most Important Question You Can Ask About Your Meetings

Think about the last meeting your business conducted, and hold on for that question. First, read this list. It may look like an informal set of rules your organization adheres to when trying to accomplish something as a group:

Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
Make […]

6 Reasons we Procrastinate and 7 Ways to Quit It

What usually gets in the way of implementing your plans? How can a company put so much time into creating a plan, only to have it end up collecting dust locked in a filing cabinet somewhere? The common answer, from a performance management perspective, can most likely be found in why we procrastinate.
Below you’ll find […]

Do Your Employees Trust Your Performance Management Process?

Managers face this problem far too often: you want to mange your team to success, but when searching for a software solution to help you there’s usually a whole line of abandoned programs and tactics that you’ve tried before. Employees can often-times look at management processes and systems as “the flavor of the month,” dismissing […]

B-EYE Covers The Best & Worst Performance Management Trends From 2007

B-Eye, the Business Intelligence Network, recently issued their “Best and Worst of Performance Management in 2007” highlighting important trends for Performance Management.
The most encouraging trend is the continuing importance that companies are placing on managing performance:
Best Business Decision: BPM is no longer being placed on the back burner, and companies are adopting performance management in […]

A Fresh New Year - 3 Questions To Start off 2008

So, here we are in 2008. As employees return to work from the holidays with fresh outlooks and reinvigorated spirits, this is a fantastic time to take advantage of the momentum and kickstart the year!
How did you do last year?

This is a great opportunity for you to break out your strategic plan and review your company’s goals. How many did you reach? If your team performed well this year and your company is on track, make sure you didn’t forget to reward everyone involved. The new year is a perfect time to set new, more challenging goals!

Seeing the Future

How much time do you spend thinking about your company’s future?
Chances are, not much. For the most part, putting out fires and taking
care of the day-to-day tasks consume most of your time. But to be
strategic in your business, you must discover how to spot future
opportunities as soon as possible. Yes, you do need to […]

Coaching for success

Previously in this space, we discussed how business leaders
are increasingly analyzing their abilities to execute on strategy in addition to delivering the strategic vision.
It’s no longer the case that managers alone are expected
to handle the details that turn vision into reality. We encouraged
“coaching for performance” then
and thought enough of the idea to devote another column […]

How Does Your Game Plan Stack Up?

When the top "most used" business management tools globally were
announced in Bain’s Management Tools & Trends 2007 study earlier
this year, the results were no surprise to us.

Strategic planning
Customer relationship management
Customer segmentation
Benchmarking
Core competencies, mission & vision statements (tied).

In fact, when asked to consider both usage and satisfaction with
management tools, the 1200 international executives participating
overall gave […]