The Cranky Middle Manager Show #312 The Future of the MBA Ken Starkey
The Newest Carnival of HR…
Posted on 28. Jun, 2008 by Wayne in General
For those of you who are fans of good writing- and much more unlikely, fans of HR- the latest edition of the Carnival of HR is up. I love these carnivals…they’re a collection of some of the best business and HR-related blogs from some very cool people.
I happen to really like my contribution this month, and that’s not always true. If you are a fan of “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” you might want to check it out…. And heck the Evil HR Lady does a great job of explaining why this should result in her being fired…… hilarious.
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #149 Managing Human Performance- Paul Elliott
Posted on 24. Jun, 2008 by Wayne in General
Host Wayne Turmel talks to Dr. Paul Elliott, of Exemplary Performance. If you have to manage performance, you have to know what they are supposed to do, and why aren’t they doing it. If you’re not familiar with the system of Human Performance Improvement or Human Performance Technology, here’s your introduction. Oh and a Prussian warlord just for good measure.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we dedicate the show to someone who took something messy and chaotic but critical, applied methodology and analysis to it and changed the world….and a lot of borders. Carl Philippe Gottlieb Von Clausewitz is our man, like it or not.
3:00 The quote of the week is from Publilius Syrus….. argue all you want but when a decision is made, get on with it……
4:00 Welcome Paul Elliott. My whole training career was influenced by his work in Human Performance Technology…. the Six Sigma of training, if you will. (He’d hate that description). What is it? If you take good, capable people and put them in a broken system, the system works every time. It looks at performance by trying to integrate all the pieces of their jobs by analyzing six areas:
- Access to information
- Access to the right resources and tools
- Incentives and consequences
- Are they a fit for the job?
- Knowledge and skills
- Motivation
10:23 Performance is based on a lot of things in the environment that have nothing to do with skill or training. (Note to self… open ended questions, Wayne). Study the people who do the job well….. they’ll show you the ways to get it done. He gives us a case study.
15:41 Why are we looking at top performers when we spend most of our time helping the laggers? Activity is not valuable unless you’re getting the results you want. Who’s producing and what are they doing that the rest don’t?
19:49 Hmmm someone who doesn’t think you can teach leadership…. spend your time where you can change behavior. Jobs need to be matched based on strengths and fit to what’s actually going to help them perform. High performers tend to have their own metrics that have nothing to do with what’s in the employee handbook.
24:07 You can’t just ask high performers what they’re doing because they are unconscious of what they really do. OH and this is a cool number. Performance is only a training problem 10% of the time.
Resources:
www.exemplaryperformance.com for more information and tools.
Improving Performance by Geary Rummler and Alan Brache
Performance Consulting by Dana Gaines Robinson and James Robinson
The ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals
Don’t let the weasels get you down!
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #148 Conflict in Teams- Diana Mclain Smith
Posted on 17. Jun, 2008 by Wayne in Podcast
Today, Cranky Middle Manager Wayne Turmel speaks to Diana McLain Smith about her book, “Divide or Conquer- How Great Teams Turn Conflict Into Strength”.
Show Notes
0:00 Greetings and welcome to episode 148. Today we’re talking conflict and teams, so the show is dedicated to Agamemnon and Achilles. (This link is to Diana’s site and she did the hard work here, not me).
Are you a winner or a whiner? How people perceive your behavior can cost your team everything…..
2:27 The quote of the week is fro Johann Kaspar Lavater- would it kill you to let someone talk without trying to look so smart??? Hey, you get my lessons too, gang.
Don’t forget our webinar on June 26th. Find out more here…..
3:58 Welcome Diana McLain Smith. Human dynamics can get weird, and when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Teams just get weird. Everyone from Dilbert to Drucker can tell you that. Why is another question. Is it too much to just ask people to act rationally? (Yes, is the answer)
7:29 We look at Steve Jobs and John Scully in the early days of Apple. On paper, a great relationship. IN reality, a car wreck. We have idealistic ideas of how relationships should work, but after a while reality sets in. Strengths become “failings” and behavior is assumed to be for all kinds of bad reasons.
12:59 We discuss the term “Frame”, which is how we look at someone and all the assumptions we make about their behavior. Visionary zeal can also be volatility, attention to detail becomes micromanaging….you have to check your assumptions at the door.
16:49 Does this mean that opposites don’t attract, and you should avoid conflict on the team at all costs? Not so fast…. when people are doing a task, do we look at the behavior or at the people? And it’s an old habit…. many of us have never learned to deal with conflict.
21:15 an example of a team that makes it work and you might not expect them to- Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. What are they doing right?
25:15 When people say they need to “work on the relationship”… what do they actually do? Going off and thinking does not mean obsessing about the other person but grab a pen and paper. Then ask what you’re doing that you do to set that person off?
Diana’s Resources:
West of Eden :The End of Innocence at Apple Computer
John Meacham- “Franklin and Winston”
Doris Kearns Goodwin “Team of Rivals”
Wall Street Journal article on Gates and Ballmer
Don’t let the weasels get you down!
Let’s Hear From You… Are You Blocking Progress?
Posted on 14. Jun, 2008 by Wayne in General
I read this fascinating/provoking/infuriating article the other day about how Middle Managers (that’s you and me, brethren and sistren) are blocking the implementation of Enterprise Wide, Web 2.0 innovations in companies. Read the article here
Now, since this is a pretty enlighted group of people, I guess my question is- are you blocking these implementations and if so, why? Or, as I suspect, are you leading the charge and can’t get people at the Mother Ship to pay attention to anything newer than “this Blog stuff they have heard so much about”?
Let me know… post…. I’ll be writing about this in this month’s newsletter to be sure…… you can go to www.crankymiddlemanager.com and subscribe if you want to be part of the fun…..