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Sam Need is a Research Manager on Root’s Insights team. He has 4 years of experience on the team and has partnered with clients in a variety of industries (construction, retail, hospitality, healthcare, telecom, airline, financial services). He holds an MA from the University of Chicago in social science methodology, focusing in Anthropology, and he is an expert ethnographer.

Sam Neet

Does Uncle Sam Need to Tweet?

Join us as we reveal the best kept secrets of high-performing managers. We’ll highlight the simple success routines, everyday disrupters, and unconventional ways that these managers see themselves and approach their work. We’ll share the best ways your managers can power change for your organization.
Key questions that will be discussed include:

Why does leading with purpose help make managers critical to change?
What do high-performing managers do better than the rest?
How can you transform your managers to promote change for your organization?
 


6 Secrets of High-Performing Managers

In the previous blog, “The Purpose of Performance Management: Redefining Aspiration,” we articulated what goals the performance management approach must accomplish no matter its design. Now, let’s examine how to significantly improve performance management in today’s dynamic, complex work environment.__ There is appetite for performance management reform, but the options can be overwhelming and expensive. CEB has identified the three shifts companies must make to significantly improve performance management that is both scalable and cost-effective: 1) reinventing how performance goals are set, 2) providing ongoing feedback, and 3) recasting performance ratings.  Reinventing Performance Goals Many organizations use cascading goals in an attempt to tie organizational objectives to individual work. But because the cascade is sequential, it’s incredibly time-consuming and the intent of the original goal can get lost. SMART goals are flawed, too. They’re used to ensure all employees make progress against specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound work. But applying a one-size-fits-all rule reduces differentiation among employees and often fails to challenge them. Instead, organizations should have business units and employees set their own goals by “linking up” to the organization’s objectives. This approach avoids having to wait for each level above to complete its cascade and allows for a more direct line of sight between an individual’s goals and the organization’s objectives. Furthermore, keep goals brief, meaningful, sufficiently challenging, and reasonable. Some examples:By X date, launch the webpage advertising the new product.Handle at least X service calls per day, with fewer than Y callbacks for the same problem.Enhance division visibility by publishing an article on X topic by Y date. Providing Ongoing Feedback Many organizations require mid-year performance reviews, hoping that formality will breed accountability. But getting feedback once or twice a year is too infrequent to impact behavior and performance. Additionally, formalized processes are viewed as burdensome and time-consuming and rarely yield performance improvement.  The best companies train managers to provide “teaching-focused” feedback on an ongoing basis. Teaching-focused feedback is delivered informally and provides forward-looking coaching, which gives employees the guidance and structure needed to practice and solidify critical new behaviors in the context of day-to-day work. Here’s an example: “Let’s discuss how the meeting went. What do you think went well? Any lessons learned for the future? What would you do differently next time? I agree, Sam seemed to dominate the conversation—what techniques will you try next time to make things more balanced?” Recasting Performance Ratings CEB research has debunked several key myths associated with performance ratings. First, while many organizations assume that ratings provide the data needed for effective decision making, research shows that there is no correlation between individual performance ratings and business unit performance. The next myth is that employees want to know where they stand relative to peers. But because most employees believe they’re above-average performers, ratings tend to frustrate more than inform. Lastly, employers often assume they must rate every employee’s performance in case of litigation. However, less than five percent of employees in the average organization are poor performers, making extensive documentation for everyone a wasted effort. The question of whether to have performance ratings is complex and requires thoughtful analysis. Ultimately, the problem to solve for is reducing the performance review burden. To do this, the best companies:set challenging but achievable goals, and evaluate the impact of resultsreduce or eliminate documentation for performance that is meeting or exceeding expectations, and eliminate self-assessments altogether as they don’t actually help improve performancechange the annual review from retrospection to a forward-looking career conversation. Formal performance management approaches often undermine the very behaviors that lead to high performance and can pit employees against each other, stifle performance conversations, and even result in manipulation of the system to achieve a particular rating level. Effective performance management provides meaningful, real-time feedback. More importantly, it ensures employees have clear expectations, can solve problems, and are coached to achieve their maximum performance levels. Editor’s note: The next installment of this blog series will discuss how to make and sustain behavior change. You can learn more about high-performance cultures at cebglobal.com.

Same Ingredients, Different Recipe: Innovating on Performance Goals, Feedback, and Ratings

The most recent LXCI reports that two-thirds of learning executives predict a rise in the creation of new learning content in 2015. This data begs the question: Where can you find expert guidance that is tailored to your needs? More importantly, where will you seek guidance when you or your team is asked to create a different type of training, or have an immediate need to grasp the ins and outs of complex training technologies? The good news: Popular solutions await inside the ATD Press Spring 2015 Catalog(PDF). Take a look at all-time bestsellers that trainers like you have turned to for practical advice—and even some ready-made solutions.   Do you need a framework for developing the best learning experiences? Try Leaving ADDIE for SAM ( sample chapter). A must-read for learning professionals, this book helps practitioners create better, faster learning solutions. Also check out Leaving ADDIE for SAM Field Guide ( sample chapter).Do you need help understanding and using the ASTD Competency Model? Use the ASTD Competency Study ( sample chapter).Are you looking for “tried and true” workshop materials, from activities to assessments? Learn about the new ATD Workshop Series, which currently includes Communication Skills Training ( sample content), Leadership Training ( sample content), and Coaching Training ( sample content).Are you ready to organize your way to efficiency with project management templates? Try the Templates for Managing Training Projects ( sample content) editable PDF of forms on for size.Do you need a comprehensive tutorial covering every aspect of web-based video development? Delve into Rapid Video Development for Trainers ( sample content).Indeed, many professionals in the talent development industry are asking the same questions: What tools are going to help me make the most impact? What content is most valuable to other trainers and learning professionals right now? Answers and solutions are all in the new ATD Press catalog. Look for your copy in the mail or start leafing through the digital catalog now. Be sure to browse reader favorites that are becoming the new staples of industry, and preview notable releases. Happy Reading!

What Should I Read Next? 8 Books That Tackle Crucial Training Topics

Book explains new model that addresses the question of how L&D professionals can better design for modern learning.

New Model Helps L&D Professionals Meet the Needs of Modern Learners

Bending the Curve by Meeting the Needs of Modern Learners

Learning methodologies are cheat sheets. The ADDIE methodology (analyze, design, development, implement, evaluate) was developed by Florida State University for the U.S. Army as a repeatable and standard set of tasks to create training. At the time of its creation, similar methodologies emerged in other areas. For example Tom DeMarco, Ed Yourdon, and Larry Constantine were developing SSADM (structured systems analysis and design methodology) for data processing's growing complexity. In all cases, methodologies allow teams to follow a repeatable series of steps, adjusted for the context of their project, to drive speed and quality. These methodologies were called Top Down and later Waterfall, and that's where the problems began to emerge. David Parnas (U.S. Naval research), in “A Rational Design Process: How and Why to Fake It,” writes: "Many of the \[system's\] details only become known to us as we progress in the \[system's\] implementation. Some of the things that we learn invalidate our design and we must backtrack." Top Down doesn't backtrack easily. It's more start over than backtrack, and no one wanted to do that. Imagine painting a family portrait and then having to add another person to it. The IT industry tried to mitigate Parnas' reality by creating RAD (rapid application development). Requirements were gathered and upfront focus groups with critical stakeholders and iterative prototyping were used to drive design and development. This solved most of the backtrack problem, but many IT teams struggled with prototyping that would never end. They called this death spirals.  SAM (Successive Approximation Model), created by Allen Interactions, has emerged as an alternative to ADDIE, especially when doing e-learning solutions to drive performance improvement. The kickoff focus group is called Savvy Start, and the risk of death spirals has been mitigated through three design and three development iterations. Allen Interactions's philosophy maps the purpose of this methodology toward driving performance. The current iteration of methodology is “Agile.” This approach challenges not only the accountability of roles and ownership of deliverables, but also flies in the face of current multitasking project work. The primary difference in this approach is that smaller chunks are completely finished through locked-down teams in a fixed period of time (sprints). This is not prototyping—the deliverables are complete, useable components. In my opinion, true Agile is difficult to implement in typical corporate organizations and cultures without creating a new and independent organization. The chief energy officer of Torrance Learning, Megan Torrance, has been successful in using Agile approaches to deliver e-learning to their customers through LLAMA (lot like Agile methods approach), their unique approach to agile. So, there you have it: a brief breakdown of the methodology wars. It’s up to you to decide which works best for your design plans. For a deeper dive into the various learning methodologies, join me for the next online workshop, Essentials of Learning Design Methodologies: ADDIE, SAM, Agile, and More.

Methodology Wars: ADDIE vs. SAM vs. AGILE

A Systems Approach to Needs Assessment

This advanced course gives you everything you need to master a performance consulting approach in your work and make a bigger impact. Enroll now! 

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