goal setting

Day-to-Day Coaching: The Best Way to Help People Get an A

/ Ken Blanchard

An effective performance management system consists of three parts: performance planning, day-to-day coaching, and performance review.

Most organizations, unfortunately, devote the greatest amount of time to the third part of the performance management system: performance review. This is where manager and direct report sit down and assess the direct report’s performance since the last annual review. Over the years I’ve heard HR leaders boast, “You’ll love our new performance review form.” I always laugh because I think most of those forms could be thrown out. Why? Because they tend to measure things nobody knows how to evaluate, such as initiative, willingness to take responsibility, or promotability. When people don’t understand how to win during a performance review, they focus most of their energy up the hierarchy. After all, if you have a good relationship with your boss, you might have a higher probability of getting a good evaluation. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but it’s certainly not an effective way to manage performance.

Many leaders in organizations do a good job on performance planning and set very clear goals with their people. But then what happens to those goals? Most often, they get filed and no one looks at them until it’s time for their annual performance review. Then everybody runs around, bumping into each other, trying to find the goals.

So which of the three parts of the performance management system do you think managers are least inclined to spend time on? You’re right: day-to-day coaching is the most ignored of the three—yet it is the most significant aspect of managing people’s performance. Why? Because the most important feedback—praising progress and redirecting inappropriate behavior—happens on an ongoing basis.

In our book Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A,” WD-40 Company CEO Garry Ridge and I discuss in detail how an effective performance management system works.

The book was inspired by my ten-year experience as a college professor. I was always in trouble. What drove the faculty crazy more than anything was how, at the beginning of every course, I gave students the final exam.

When the faculty first found out about it, they came to me and said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m confused.”

They said, “You look it.”

“I thought we were supposed to teach these students.”

“You are, but you don’t give them the final exam ahead of time!”

“Not only will I give them the final exam ahead of time, what do you think I’ll do throughout the semester? I’ll teach them the answers so that when they get to the final exam, they’ll get A’s. Because life is all about getting A’s.”

I tell you this little story because it is a great metaphor for an effective performance management system. Here’s why:

  • Giving the final exam at the beginning of the year is like setting goals during performance planning: it lets people know exactly what’s expected of them.
  • Teaching the answers is what day-to-day coaching is all about. Check in with each person on a regular basis. If you see or hear about someone doing something right, you don’t wait a year to congratulate them during their performance review—you give them a praising on the spot. If they do something wrong, you don’t save your feedback for their review—you redirect them right away to get them back on track toward their goal.
  • Finally, when people get the final exam again at the end of the year—their performance review—they will get an A: a great evaluation.

After learning about this philosophy, Garry Ridge implemented “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A” as a major theme in his company. He is so emphatic about this concept that he has been known to fire managers of poor performers rather than the underachievers if he learns the managers did nothing to help the person in question get an A.

When a performance management system is done right, there are no surprises at performance review time. Team members have stayed focused on their goals and know what a good job looks like—because their manager has connected with them throughout the year with day-to-day coaching to ensure they get an A. Now that’s performance management.

Need Relief from COVID Fatigue? Let’s Revisit the PACT Model

/ Ken Blanchard

COVID-19 had been around only a few weeks when I wrote a blog post about a life-balance model that was created by my wife, Margie. When she was studying research about peak periods of happiness in people and also the effect of extreme stress on long-term health, she learned researchers had identified a set of almost identical elements for both groups. She created a simple model—PACT—that addresses both life balance and stress reduction. Margie and I have taught these concepts for many years and we find it helps people manage the day-to-day demands of a busy life as well as unexpected stress-inducing situations.

If you missed reading the blog post I’m referring to, I hope you’ll learn all about the PACT model here. And if you did read that blog post, I want to follow up with you. It’s been nine months and you may be in a very different place today, in many areas of your life, from where you were last April. I’d love to show you how to prevent—or continue to prevent—stress from affecting your body and life negatively.

The PACT Model

The acronym P.A.C.T. represents four elements that can create both happiness and stress resistance in our lives: Perspective, Autonomy, Connectedness, and Tone.

P: Perspective

The first element that can create happiness and stress resistance is perspective—a picture of where you’ve been and where you’re going that sets the context for today. When there’s a major shift in our lives—job loss, death of a loved one, etc., our perspective will drop. And now we know COVID is one of those major shifts. Almost everyone’s life has been affected by COVID in one way or another, and we have all experienced our perspective declining, a little or a lot. Over time, many people have found this low period to be an opportunity for personal growth—but others aren’t there yet.

Viktor Frankl, a World War II concentration camp survivor who wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning, observed during his imprisonment that the people who were able to keep going were the ones who had a purpose they could hang on to—a great love they wanted to return to, work they wanted to finish, a strong spiritual direction, or even a strong desire to help others through their common experience. We can think in terms of personal or professional goals we want to achieve, important projects we don’t need to put off any longer, values we want our lives to reflect, or living each day to the fullest extent possible, even with COVID restrictions.

How about you? Have you regained your perspective or will it take some help? We all went through a lot together in 2020. Perhaps we can accept this difficult situation for what it is while also believing that better times are ahead. And we can step into that reality together, as well.

A: Autonomy

The next element that contributes to high life satisfaction and high resistance to stress is autonomy. Autonomy is a feeling of having control over your own life—a clear sense of your identity, the freedom to make your own choices, seeing your daily activities as moving you toward your long- and short-range goals. I know. Right now this is a long shot, to put it mildly.

Although COVID still has most of us feeling that we are anything but in control of our lives, we always have some autonomy. For instance, we can choose how we react to our current situation.

I’m convinced it’s easier to get through hard times if you also focus on good things that are happening around you. We have the ability to develop our skills—for example, taking a course online or learning how to meditate—to help us control where our thoughts go. And we can choose how to spend our extra time—open a good book, try a new recipe, catch up on movies or a series we haven’t seen, or play a game with the kids.

To me, the most important thing is being intentional about which messages we pay the most attention to. Are you obsessed by news reports that claim things are awful and life will never be the same? Or do you look for the articles that suggest the pandemic is the beginning of a new era of neighbors taking care of one another, parents and children spending more time together than ever before, and people around the globe working together to build a positive future?

How are you doing on autonomy? Are you regularly choosing how you respond to things? Don’t forget the story about the two wolves battling inside you—one evil and one good. Which one wins? The one you feed.

C: Connectedness

The third element is connectedness. People who report high connectedness have positive relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. You can have a highly connected experience taking a walk in nature or watching a sunset because it feels good. You can also feel highly connected having a cup of coffee on a video call with a friend or sitting in bed at night cuddled up to someone you love.

Low connectedness is when you feel like you aren’t an integral part of your environment—whether it be at home, at work, or in your community. Because of COVID, many folks have been physically isolated longer than ever before in their lives. Social get-togethers are rare or nonexistent. Work teams meet virtually. Loved ones living in different locations have to visit each other through Zoom or video calls instead of in person. And I don’t know about you, but I really miss hugging people!

Staying connected doesn’t have to be difficult, though. Maintaining your relationships can enhance the feeling of overall well-being and balance. Keeping in touch with colleagues at work, even through email or text, can improve morale and performance on both sides. Spend the first few minutes of work Zoom meetings taking stock of how everyone is doing—some teams even include regular visits from dogs, cats, kids, or babies! And while spending more time at home with your family at first seemed to be a major work disruption, many have settled into a nice routine and discovered a stronger feeling of family unity than they had before.

How are you doing on Connectedness? If you feel isolated and reaching out to people doesn’t come natural to you, jump out of your comfort zone and just call that friend you haven’t heard from in a while. I do this a lot—and most of the time people are happy to hear from me. You know why? Because they are feeling isolated, too.

T: Tone

The fourth element in the PACT model is tone. This is how you feel about yourself physically. It includes the way you present yourself, your health and energy level, and your sense of fitness—even the way you’re dressed. People with high tone generally have a high energy level, average weight, and good nutrition, and are comfortable with their physical appearance.

For people who have been working from home all these months, it’s pretty easy to stay in pajamas until noon or be careless about how much we eat. Some people who used to go to the gym don’t bother to work out at home. But I also know folks who have made huge improvements in their health because they have been at home.

How about you? How is your tone? Are you the relaxed type who has become a bit of a hermit and rarely wears anything but sweats or ventures outside? Or are you a disciplined kind of person who wakes up at your normal time, showers and combs your hair, and wears stylish work clothes each day because you want to look your best for those Zoom meetings? Maybe you’re in between, like most of us. It’s all okay—but remember, if you clean yourself up a bit, it may help you feel better.

Note: If your perspective, autonomy, and connectedness aren’t as high as you would like these days, focus on your tone. When you take a walk, you can work on perspective. When you make healthy choices, you’ll feel better and realize you are in control of your health. People who feel good about themselves are more likely to reach out to others—and that helps with connectedness. So you see, starting with tone helps the other three stress-reducing elements in the PACT model fall into place.

Following the PACT model during this upside-down season, especially if you personalize the steps to your own preferences, will help you. When you allow perspective, autonomy, connectedness, and tone into your daily life, happiness will show up more often, stress will naturally lose its grip, and you will find yourself enjoying life again. Take care and stay safe! Have an im-PACT-ful day!

Developing Action Plans

/ Ken Blanchard

When a person is in the earliest stage of learning a new task or working toward a new goal, even though they may be excited about starting the work, they typically lack knowledge on how and where to begin. An effective SLII® leader knows that this individual requires a Directive leadership style. One of the specific directive leadership behaviors for supporting someone at this stage of development is developing an action plan for the direct report to follow.

As I’ve suggested in previous posts, other directive SLII® micro skills include leadership behaviors such as setting SMART goals, showing and telling how, establishing timelines, identifying priorities, and clarifying roles. These are actions that shape and control what, how, and when things are done. SLII® leaders call on these directive skills when direct reports are in the first stages of learning a new task or working on a goal—when their competence is relatively low and they need specific direction.

Developing an action plan follows the assigning of a goal or a task. When a direct report is low or very low on competence regarding the goal or task, they need to know more than just how to do it—they also need to know that their leader will be there for them if they need help. To that end, as an SLII® leader, you will ensure the person understands the goal or task and what a good job looks like. You will then lay out a step-by-step plan showing how the work is to be accomplished. In other words, you will not only pass out the test, you will teach them the answers!

Without a clear plan, there is no real focus. And without focus, your direct report might be working hard—but not smart. It’s as if you are forcing them to move forward with a blindfold on. They won’t be able to see the big picture. Ultimately, this will create extra work in the long run for both of you.

To paraphrase a well-known adage, when you take the time to plan the work, your team member will be better able to work the plan. An effective action plan allows the direct report to be proactive at making continuous progress toward the end goal instead of being reactive when issues come up along the way that slow them down. They will save time, be more focused, and avoid many pitfalls along the way. Most important, they will feel supported by their leader. And after all, what is your goal as an SLII® leader? To help your people achieve their goals.

I’m not done with SLII® micro skills yet! Watch this space—there are more to come!

Helping People to Develop Problem Solving Skills

/ Ken Blanchard

In my last blog post, I wrote about Setting SMART Goals, a Directive behavior. In this post we’ll talk about Facilitating Self-Reliant Problem Solving, a Supportive behavior.

To refresh your memory, Supportive leadership behaviors are things you do that develop mutual trust and respect with your team member, resulting in increased motivation and confidence.

If you want the people you’re leading to be strong and resilient, you have to teach them how to solve their own problems. This can be one of the hardest challenges for leaders, because most of us have risen to our positions by being great problem-solvers. We’re good at identifying problems, coming up with solutions, and making improvements. However, those very strengths can be weaknesses when it comes to developing resilient team members.

Resist the urge to rescue team members by providing them the answers to problems. Instead, ask them open-ended questions to lead them through the process of solving the problem on their own. Follow these steps:

  • Ask them to define the problem in one sentence.
  • Help them brainstorm options of addressing the problem.
  • Ask them to list the pros and cons of these various courses of actions.
  • Cheer them on as they work toward solving the problem.

Many leaders shun this approach because initially, it requires an investment of time and energy. If you hear yourself thinking, “Forget it—it will be easier and faster to do it myself,” you’ll know what I’m talking about. I guarantee that the time you spend helping people develop problem-solving competence will save you time in the future by building bench strength on your team. Once you encourage people to tackle tough problems, you’ll be amazed by the creative solutions they’ll find.

An example my coauthors and I wrote about in Leading at a Higher Level concerned the management team of a large organization that was struggling with a severe traffic problem on the road leading to its location. The road crossed four miles of protected wetlands, so it could not be widened without significantly impacting the environment. Each morning, the traffic leading to the site was backing up the entire four-mile length of the road, adding an hour to commuting time. The resulting delay and aggravation caused a significant drop in productivity.

Three years earlier, the management team had hired traffic consultants to solve the problem. The consultants’ attempts to a devise solution failed miserably. As a last resort, management decided to assemble a team of their own employees to brainstorm solutions. The employees met twice a week for a month, at which time they provided some practical recommendations.

The simplicity of the employees’ recommendations surprised management. For example, they suggested that trucks be prohibited from making deliveries to the site between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Since there were many deliveries to the site at this time, putting this suggestion into practice immediately removed some of the slowest, most cumbersome traffic clogging the road. That and a few other recommendations resulted in an almost instantaneous improvement in the traffic flow.

This story brings home one of the key benefits of practicing the SLII® Supportive skill of Facilitating Self-Reliant Problem Solving: tapping into the creativity and talent of your team members. As I’ve often said, the people who report to you aren’t just hired hands—they have brains, too!

Google co-founder Larry Page once famously hung up copies of documents showing the dismal financial performance of the AdWords search engine (now known as Google Ads). Across the top of the documents he wrote, “THESE ADS SUCK.” It was only a matter of days before team members tackled the problem and improved the service, which now generates the bulk of Google’s $162 billion earnings.

While I might not use Larry Page’s leadership communication style, I appreciate the way he facilitated self-reliant problem solving by pointing to the problem and allowing his team to discover a solution. Now, if he’d told his employees, “you suck” instead of “these ads suck,” that would be a different story!

So far we’ve covered two Supportive and one Directive micro skills of an SLII® leader. Over the next few weeks I’ll be exploring more of these micro skills, so stay tuned!

Be an Agile Leader

/ Ken Blanchard

In business today, there’s a growing trend toward agile leadership: a focus on fast decision making, short-term goals, and the empowerment of individuals. What began as a leadership approach confined to IT departments—business units that must respond quickly to rapidly changing technology—has become a way of life for leaders generally.

Today, it’s not just IT departments that have to be on their toes—everybody in an organization must adapt quickly to change. People are recognizing that yesterday’s hierarchical structures and top-down management styles simply don’t allow for the flexibility and innovation required to compete in today’s fast-paced business environments.

That’s why the term agile leadership has expanded to include general leadership skills like acting on a shared vision, creating empowered teams, leading change, and sharing decision-making.

 

Agile Leadership at the Manager Level

Just as top-down management no longer works at the organizational level, it no longer works one-on-one, either. Agile leaders practice side-by-side leadership, partnering with their direct reports to provide the direction and support they need for their level of development on any given task.

Agile leaders are servant leaders, because they recognize that there are two aspects of servant leadership: vision and implementation. Creating a shared vision is the leadership part of servant leadership; helping people implement that vision is the servant part of servant leadership.

For many years, The Ken Blanchard Companies has been teaching SLII®, a servant leadership model that is based on the belief that leadership style should be tailored to the situation. This kind of flexibility is a key principle of agile organizations.

To become agile, SLII® leaders, managers must master three skills: goal setting, diagnosis, and matching. Goal setting involves aligning on what needs to be done, and when. SLII® managers make sure people know what they are being asked to do and what good performance looks like. Diagnosis involves determining a direct report’s development level—their competence and commitment to accomplish the goal. Matching involves aligning leadership style to a direct report’s development level. The goal of the SLII® leader is to develop direct reports so they can perform at a high level on goals without supervision.

Agile leaders trained in SLII® provide direction and support in the proper amounts to help fill in what direct reports can’t provide for themselves. When someone is new to a task, this means providing specific direction; when someone gets discouraged, it means providing coaching. As the person gains competence in the task, the leader pulls back on the amount of direction they provide as they support the person’s continued development. And when the person demonstrates self-reliance on the goal or task, the leader moves to a delegating style, giving direct reports the autonomy characteristic of people in agile organizations.

An agile leader can comfortably use a variety of leadership styles. As a leader’s direct report moves from one development level to the next on any given task, the leader’s management style changes accordingly. When leaders can comfortably use a variety of leadership styles, they have mastered the flexibility required by agile organizations.

 

A Real World Example

Let’s see how an agile leader can use SLII® to develop the empowered individuals needed in agile organizations.

Suppose you hire a 22-year-old salesperson with little actual sales experience. She has a high commitment to becoming good at sales and is curious, hopeful, and excited. Someone at this level is an enthusiastic beginner. A directing leadership style is appropriate at this stage. You need to teach your new hire everything about the sales process—from making a sales call to closing the sale—and lay out a step-by-step plan for her self-development, teaching her what experienced salespeople do and letting her practice in low risk sales situations.

Now, suppose your new hire has had a few weeks of sales training. She understands the basics of selling but is finding it more difficult than she expected. She’s not quite as excited as she was before and looks discouraged at times. At this stage, your salesperson is a disillusioned learner. What’s needed now is a coaching leadership style, which is high on both direction and support. You continue to direct and closely monitor her sales efforts, and you also engage her in two-way conversations. You provide a lot of praise and support at this stage because you want to build her confidence, restore her commitment, and encourage her initiative.

In time the young woman learns the day-to-day responsibilities of her position and has acquired some good sales skills. She still has some self-doubt and questions whether she can sell well without your help. At this stage, she is a capable but cautious performer. This is where a supporting leadership style is called for. Since her selling skills are good, she doesn’t need direction. She needs you to listen to her concerns and suggestions, and be there to support her. Encourage and praise, but rarely direct her efforts. Help her reach her own sales solutions by asking questions and encouraging risk-taking.

Eventually, your former new salesperson becomes a key player on your team. Not only has she mastered her sales tasks and skills, she’s also working successfully with some of your most challenging clients. She anticipates problems, is ready with solutions, works successfully on her own, and inspires others. At this stage, she is a self-reliant achiever. At this level of development, a delegating leadership style is best. Turn over responsibility for day-to-day decision making and problem solving; empower her and allow her to act independently. Challenge her to continue to grow and cheer her on to even higher levels of success.

Using the servant leadership skills of SLII®, leaders develop employees who are more proactive, engaged, and ultimately, self-reliant—in short, ready to meet the needs of the agile organization.