Harvard Business Publishing recently posted the results of an employee survey to their Daily Stat blog, claiming that employees are more appreciative and enthusiastic about their jobs than a year ago. From 2008 to 2009:

• Employees who take pride in their jobs rose from 71% to 79%
• Those who recommend their employer rose from 53% to 58%

Since MyStrategicPlan is frequently used as an employee engagement tool or performance management software, we take a close look at the general level of engagement found across the US. But just like the writers at the Be Excellent blog, I question whether these findings truly indicate a more engaged workforce.

During the recession, with jobs being scarce, it stands to reason that employees would take pride in their jobs; they actually have jobs, unlike many of their unlucky neighbors.

…And about whether they’d recommend their employer, with so many people out of jobs, almost everyone has a friend who has asked for help looking for employment. If a job opens up at someone’s place of business, they’re far more incentivized to tell their friends about it than they were when jobs were plentiful.

With other recent reports and pundits warning that a recession recovery will present challenges in employee retention, I don’t believe Harvard’s rosy take on their daily stat should be a signal to employers that their people will stay put.

More than ever, it’s time to make sure that your people are engaged, that they see where they fit in your organization and they know how you plan to get where you’re going- together.

You may also be interested in:

• The Facts About Employee Engagement Still Unconvinced About the Power of Employee Engagement? Look at...
• Google’s Approach to Employee Engagement: Surprise! It’s an Algorithm With Google’s recent announcement that they developed an algorithm for...
• Post-Recession Planning: Employee Retention Will Present a Challenge Planning for the recession to be over? Good. For most...

1. Inviting everyone
   The old cliché too many cooks spoil the broth couldn’t be closer to the truth. While it’s imperative that key employees have a voice in planning, not everyone has to literally be at the meeting table. Too many people in the room can lead to chaos and confusion, resulting in a strategic plan by committee instead of through educated decisions and leadership. Groups of between 10 to 15 are the ideal size for strategic planning meetings. If you have more people than that, you can always break up into small teams.
2. Neglecting to conduct any research before the meeting
   If you neglect to conduct research before the meeting, you get into your session and realize you don’t have information you need in order to make sound strategic decisions. The only way to have a solid strategic plan is to incorporate information about your external environment and your internal operations. Some research is better than none. So if you find yourself in a pinch the day before or the day of the meeting, do what you can to get data about your customers needs, your competitors actions, and your employees opinions.
3. Holding an annual retreat
   Huh? Isn’t this section about holding strategic planning meetings and therefore retreats? Yes, it is. But one common thought process in strategic planning is that you have to hold a retreat. Setting aside a couple of days in an off-site location where everyone gathers in their sweatshirt and jeans drinking cocoa is a typical vision of a strategic planning meeting. Oftentimes a retreat is an annual event and all strategic decision making is reserved for that occasion. Strategic planning should be a habit, not an event. Hold your strategy meetings regularly (more than once a year) to realize enhanced performance. With that said, annual retreats are okay, but make sure that they aren’t your only meetings of the year.
4. Getting through the agenda no matter what
   Strategic planning is hard work. It takes a lot of mental energy to pull all the pieces of the puzzle together, see the future, make strategic decisions, and organize it usefully. At every strategic planning meeting I’ve facilitated, people are mentally exhausted by the end. Getting through the agenda is usually what it takes to have a completed plan.  However, sometimes it’s just not possible to get it all done.Do have an agenda so everyone knows the structure of the day, but don’t be so rigid that you stick to it no matter what. Try some of these tips to help the mood stay light throughout the day: Loosen up a little bit. Have some fun. Interject some games and downtime. Take breaks and switch gears from time to time.
5. Assuming everyone thinks like you
   Of course everyone thinks like you do, right? As a good leader, you know that’s not the case. Unfortunately sometimes you forget what’s obvious and end up structuring a meeting based on your own preferences. In reality, it’s pretty hard to step into other people’s shoes and ways of thinking. But in strategic planning, you want everyone in the room engaged. To get everyone engaged, make sure to secure a comfortable environment. People feel the most comfortable when they’re operating in their own thinking preference.
6. Ignoring the elephant in the room
   Would you like to see a strategic planning meeting go down in flames, or any meeting for that matter? Forge ahead, even though you know you have some staff issues. If any key staff member is upset or has an outstanding problem, your strategic planning meeting may likely be disrupted. That person may sit in the meeting like a brooding elephant and finally blow his top and get the meeting of course.The best way to handle staff concerns is to have a one-on-one discussion with every person who will be attending the strategic planning session. Give your employee the opportunity to voice issues or concerns privately. Make sure that you clarify that your intent is to clear up any problems that may inhibit his or her full participation during the strategy session.
7. Ending on a low note
   You did it! You successfully made it all the way through your meeting. You accomplished everything you intended. You have the key pieces of your strategic plan in place. You’re feeling great. Everyone is slowly packing up their stuff and heading out the door, but you sense a feeling of exhaustion and maybe a little anxiety. You’re wondering why.
   What just happened is you unintentionally ended your strategic planning meeting on a low note. In most cases, you have more to cover in your meeting than you have time for. You end up rushing the last part of the meeting to get it all done. I recommend, no matter where you are in your agenda, structuring the last half-hour to end on a high note by getting everyone excited about the new strategic direction.
8. Overlooking life after the meeting
   It’s so easy to get wrapped up in planning for the meeting and the meeting itself, that follow-up is often overlooked. Committing time and resources to implementing the plan is almost more important than the plan itself. Don’t underestimate how much effort it takes to execute your plan. Here are a few tips:

• Within a week after your strategic planning meeting, send out a timeline that contains the next steps and deadlines for completing the plan. Make sure to communicate this timeline to everyone in your organization so your employees know what is happening with the strategic planning process.
• Send out the strategic plan on the deadline you set, regardless if it is complete or not. As with the previous tip, you reinforce the importance of the plan.
• Post a visible result of the planning session in a common area. Items to post include your mission, vision, and values statements or a poster of your strategic plan.
• Do not, under an circumstance, cancel the next meeting in your planning or implementation process. As the leader, you are responsible for setting the example that the strategic plan is important. Canceling a meeting signifies it is not important. After all, execution is arguably more important than the planning itself.

Here’s to holding your most successful strategic planning meeting ever. And, as a post script, with a little tweaking these tongue-in-cheek tips can help you make all meetings more effective – something everyone would appreciate.

You may also be interested in:

• Eight Ways to Ruin Any Strategic Planning Training Meeting The two words strategic planning provokes reactions anywhere from sheer...
• Four Things To Avoid When Conducting Strategic Planning Training Meetings Strategic planning is tough; that’s why so many organizations either...
• Five Ways to Tank Your Strategic Planning Retreat Anyone who knows what good meetings look like, also knows...

Google’s Search Efforts Enough to Cultivate Human Capital?

Google’s problems are stemming from changes within its corporate structure and culture. Promising engineers, designers, and sales executives who were once attracted to the company’s start-up atmosphere and soaring stock prices have been jumping ship as the company has shed the startup feel and seen stock prices level off. But, will their algorithm, which culls data from employee reviews and promotion as well as pay histories, actually stop the exodus?

Getting inside unhappy employee’s heads, as the company expects their new algorithm to do, can easily be done with a pen, paper and an attentive ear. According to new and past Googlers, the flood of employees leaving for new startups have simple needs. They no longer feel they can make the same impact as the company matures. They feel that Google doesn’t provide enough career planning, and some find the human resources department impersonal. You don’t have to be the leader in high-tech search to address a fundamental problem like this- you just have to work harder at developing your human capital. If your company wants to take steps to stem a potential staffing loss, here’s where to start:

How to Develop Human Capital:

While Google seems to be taking a complicated route with their new “unhappy employee search technology,” you can take steps today by examining your organization’s approaches to staff development and employee engagement.

How effective is your training and development program?  Do your employees have the best tools and work environment to do their jobs? You may have a formalized program, but, again, what really matters is that your employees are doing their best work and achieving their fullest potential. If employees really are your most important asset, you need to develop them to realize the full value of your investment.

Training and development needs to be linked directly to improvement at work. Make sure that you’re training for the capabilities that your organization needs to move forward. We’re constantly amazed at how many training programs aren’t linked to the overall strategy. For example, if you want to improve your productivity, send your employees to a time management workshop instead of a teambuilding ropes course.

Retaining Human Capital:

This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. When it comes down to keeping your people, don’t stress over the fact that you don’t have the resources that Google does. While their new system may help them identify which among their thousands of employees are most at risk, it’s not a silver bullet. The basics of employee retention have not changed.

The words employee retention hit most business owners in the gut. Managing people can be a hard concept for some people, and retention seems to be the perceived outcome of poor management (which isn’t necessarily the case because employees leave for numerous reasons unrelated to their jobs). Nevertheless, do you know the number one reason people leave their jobs? Not feeling appreciated by their boss. Employees need to feel appreciated, challenged, and fairly rewarded to stick around.

How is your retention rate? Because you have invested a significant amount of time and money into your employees, retaining them becomes imperative. Otherwise, you let your most valued asset walk out the door.
So before you consider investing millions of R&D dollars developing a sophisticated algorithm, consider these common-sense approaches to developing and retaining a crucial resource: human capital.

DON’T MISS OUT!

Also, if you haven’t voted for MSP in the People’s Choice Stevie Awards, votes will be accepted until May 30th, so don’t miss out- Because the American Business Awards knows time is money, your vote could win YOU a $1,000 Amazon.com gift card. If you have the time, vote today.

You may also be interested in:

• Google’s Approach to Employee Engagement: Surprise! It’s an Algorithm With Google’s recent announcement that they developed an algorithm for...
• Balanced companies, loyal employees For strategic execution to happen, you have to engage with...
• Employee Engagement Stats from Harvard Harvard Business Publishing recently posted the results of an...

BUT, this is no time to forget morale- in fact it’s the best time to step it up.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, especially during tough economic times where most employees may be considered lucky to simply have a job, but just because the economy is leaner that doesn’t mean people don’t still need recognition. The value people receive from their jobs includes much more than just their paycheck. In a recent post titled How Much Recognition Do Employees Need? Anthony Portuesi wrote the following:

Think of the last time you were praised for providing your best efforts or the time you put into a particular project. How did you feel? Recognition doesn’t always have to be a grandiose event. Even simple recognition of routine efforts can be the difference between an employee increasing productivity and silently looking for other jobs over their lunch hour.

In the research for their book, 12: Elements for Great Managing, Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter found that less than 1 in 3 employees can give a strong positive answer to the statement, “In the last seven days, I have received recognition for doing good work.”

It takes thought, but every manager can make sure that their employees are recognized at least once a week. Think of the benefits of recognition- especially during a recession:

• It’s FREE (or at least cheap). You don’t have to spend money recognizing an employee. How much does a good talk and an honest appraisal of work cost you, really?
• The results can be immediate. If an employee is in need of some recognition, they may be less than motivated. For them, a dose of praise could inspire a dramatic change right away.
• It makes you a better manager. If employee recognition isn’t your strong suit, use it as a chance to grow and improve your own leadership skills.
• Employee retention saves you money. It costs to train new employees- keep the ones you have happy and you win.

So, what simple, free gesture will you take today to encourage someone on your staff?

You may also be interested in:

• 7 Resources For Increasing Employee Loyalty For FREE Are you worried about losing your best employees and having...
• Employee Engagement Stats from Harvard Harvard Business Publishing recently posted the results of an...
• Google’s Answer to Unhappy Employees May Miss the Mark Google announced this week that in response to an increase...

So, why do so many people try so hard to manage themselves and still fall short? Most people want to perform. They want to accomplish great things, but never seem to catch up on everything they are given to do in the course of a day. How many times have you said to yourself, “it’s five o’clock and my to-do list is bigger than it was when I got here at eight?”

For most of us, it’s a matter of overhauling our personal performance management systems, and finding a way to avoid the following five traps that so often trip us up:

Failure to see the big picture

Your performance management system should have a reason behind it. If you’re reading this, chances are that your current system, if you have one, isn’t working to some degree, and this is the most common reason. Instead of just jumping into your mountain of tasks, stop first and ask yourself”why am I doing all of these things?”

There must be a reason why you work. The answer for you may be your children, or your career goals, or because you want a better standard of living. Whatever the reason for your work, you need to keep your eye on it or else eventually you’ll lose motivation. Big-picture thinking allows you to create a plan inside which you can structure a performance management system.

Setting inadequate goals

Do you believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to give yourself tasks? A great goal, or a SMART one, is specific, measurable, attainable, has assigned responsibility and has a due date. Failure to concretely lay out when you’ve reached the goal can cause it to stretch on forever, just like failing to set a measurement ensures you’ll never know when it’s done. The cliché that says when you aim at nothing you hit it every time is wrong- plenty of people get a few things done without SMART goals, but you’ll never tackle your mountain of work that way.

Using your head- rather than a trusted system

Depending on your memory to manage your tasks will lead to missed deadlines and frustrated bosses. Why? Because we’re not designed to work that way. Our brains get cluttered with all of our uncompleted tasks while trying to also focus on the tasks at hand, eventually mixing all of them up. The answer, according to Productivity Guru David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, is a system you can enter all of these tasks into. “Get everything out of your head,” Says Allen, “Make decisions about actions required on stuff when it shows up — not when it blows up.”

Crucial to being able to get things out of your head as tasks and make decisions on how to approach them is having a system in place that you trust. Whether it’s a notepad filled with lists or a performance management software application, find something you trust and rely on it.

Going at it alone

Accountability is a powerful thing, but it doesn’t always have to come from our boss- in fact, it shouldn’t. If you’re having trouble getting things done in a timely fashion stop and think, “who holds me accountable and how often?” Bosses are great to have around, but they shouldn’t have to track you down and ask you what you’re up to all of the time. Letting your peers know what you’re working on can be a much better incentive to accomplishing your tasks.

Friends, family and co-workers who know the goals you have set for yourself have a greater chance to inspire you- even without them knowing it. Sometimes, just knowing that you’ve broadcast your goals and action items to others is enough accountability to motivate you.

Forgetting to take care of yourself

As a recent study has shown, even the strongest, most resilient people have a limited amount of will-power. If your will-power gauge isn’t monitored, you can actually run out of personal-motivation gas. Know when you need to take an occasional break, and you’ll find that getting things done over a longer period will become easier.

In addition, know how and when to celebrate your victories. Rewarding yourself, even in small ways, can keep you internally motivated. Whether it’s a 15 minute break, a treat or a vacation in the Bahamas, some of us need rewards to train ourselves much like Pavlov’s dogs.

Internal Advertising:

For more information on performance management, you can check out some of our other articles, or try a free trial of MyStrategicPlan, our online web application that helps your employees avoid the PPM Pitfalls by:

• Creating a big-picture plan
• Setting SMART goals
• Keeping track of tasks in a trusted system, and
• Keeping everyone informed on the status of goals and tasks

CC Photo Attributions:

• San Francisco from Air 3 by BrockyVicky
• Fail Georges by Mr. dale
• Hipster PDA 0 by Andy Ciordia
• Alone on His Path by Rantes
• coconut jewel cupcakes 1 from Chotda

You may also be interested in:

• Do Your Employees Trust Your Performance Management Process? Managers face this problem far too often: you want to...
• How to Get the Most of Performance Management Software Many businesses, even those with well-made plans, fail to implement...
• B-EYE Covers The Best & Worst Performance Management Trends From 2007 B-Eye, the Business Intelligence Network, recently issued their “Best and...

Business Performance Management: Crucial, but tough to implement
Business Performance Management, or BPM, is defined as “a framework for organizing, automating and analyzing business methodologies, metrics, processes and systems that drive business performance.” Basically, it’s a system for maintaining alignment between your company’s resources and your strategy. For employees, it usually determines how they are compensated and held accountable by their managers.

So, why do so many BPM systems fail to be adopted? I think it comes down to a matter of trust. Does your staff really BELIEVE that this new system or program will make a difference? In the mind of the average employee, “if it’s going to change the way I do things or give me extra tasks, there better be a payoff.”

Instead of buying a system and expecting it to work, there must be a plan in place to encourage adoption and manage the system for success. Otherwise, many in the company will fail to trust in it.

According to a recent study by BPM Authority, Sibson Consulting, Only 30 percent of employees actually trust their company’s performance management system. Less than one third! That means that as a manager or business owner, you have more than 2 thirds of your company to convince if you’re going to implement a BPM solution.

What builds trust?
Communication: Sibson’s Senior VP concluded from the results of the study that “the organizations getting the most impact from performance management are those that have strong leadership support and that execute well in differentiating performance and giving performance messages.” There absolutely has to be strong support communicated from senior executives. It must be clear, and each employee must know inside and out how the system will impact them positively. More communication nearly always means more trust.

Consistency: It’s far too easy to lose momentum for a new system as soon as everyone gets back to their regular jobs. As we’ve said at MSP, someone at your company should be appointed to champion your system in order to make it work. Messages need to be repeated and employees need to see results consistently- then they’ll trust the system.

Coaching: Listed along with Sibson’s study is a quote from Research Ranager Dr. Lise Flores-Reed, that the results of the study “suggest there is opportunity for organizations to enable their managers to become more effective at communicating performance messages and coaching their employees around performance issues.” Encouraging, inspiring coaching of employees is key to successful performance management.

For more information on making your performance management system work for you, check out our article How to Get the Most of Performance Management Software.

You may also be interested in:

• How to Get the Most of Performance Management Software Many businesses, even those with well-made plans, fail to implement...
• The 5 Traps of Personal Performance Management Performance management is a problem. More specifically, how most people...
• Performance Management and the Planning Process By the time company managers get to the action...

Started at Motorola in the 1980s, Six Sigma, which translates into 3.4 defects per million opportunities, uses a variety of statistical models to measure the company’s performance on a slew of internal processes (Barakat, 2002). The reason that this management system is being included as a tool for strategy formulation is because of its implications for company strategists. To adopt the program, there is a significant cost to the corporation to hire or train quality experts, namely the green and black belts. The strategy of the corporation will be adjusted based on the statistical analyses of the company’s processes.

Since it became popular, Six Sigma philosophies have been adapted to other industries outside of manufacturing. For example, Fort Wayne, Indiana claims that it was Six Sigma management practices that have improved the response time of their public works department, which now patches 95% of all of the city’s potholes within 24 hours of being reported.

But as Jack Welch said – about 70% of Six Sigma is covered by just knowning one statement: “Variation is evil.” If it was only so simple!

You may also be interested in:

• Strategy Tools Great online and traditional media resources can help you give...
• Inspired by success In case you don’t think selling your business is likely...
• Innovation Strategies for the Time-Strapped Manager The M3 Team had the privilege of hearing Terry Jones,...