Posts Tagged ‘Performance Management’ Blog Index

Just over a year ago BusinessWeek published Performance Review Take a Page from Facebook. Jena McGregor, the author, talks about how services like Rypple apply a Facebook-style approach to feedback and performance. While it’s true that Rypple provides a familiar user experience, we believe the idea of using social software to drive employee performance is more than a cosmetic application of feeds, comments, and status updates.

We believe the word “social” isn’t meant to describe a set of common specs or features. Rather, social refers to a set of interactions based on real-life human behavior.

Lesson Learned from Facebook

Facebook allows people to connect with one another by engaging in the behavior of sharing photos and updates with family and friends. Closing in on 500 million of users, Facebook’s success is undeniable. But what did we all do before Facebook existed? Did no one share photos or keep in touch with friends and family? Of course not. They just used other means (e.g. email, snail mail, phone calls, etc). The difference is in how much we shared: the existing tools were cumbersome, difficult to use over distances, and sometimes unfamiliar. As a result, we simply lacked the motivation to use them to the same degree.

Enter Facebook: a service that took an existing human desire to connect with others and made the related behavior easier for more people to do.

What happened? More and more people who otherwise would not have engage in that behavior did and we’re now more connected than ever before.

The way we engage, motivate, and align our teams at work is no different.

From Facebook to Employee Performance

Having worked with hundreds of organizations and learned from thought leaders like Marshall Goldsmith and Ken Blanchard, we consistently see three key behaviors that top leaders engage in to drive performance (I’ll talk about those three behaviors in an upcoming post). Do ALL managers exhibit these behaviors? No… but the good ones do!

So what about the rest? Well, they’re like the snail-mailers from the pre-Facebook era. They have the desire and understand the behaviors, but the tools they currently use (i.e. email, infrequent reviews, surveys, conversations) simply don’t make it easy.

Enter Rypple: a social software service that takes the behaviors of top leaders, and helps more people replicate them in order to drive peak team performance.

The key is making these behaviors easy to engage in. The easier they are to do, the more people will do them. The more people who do them, the more engaged, motivated, and aligned their teams will be.

In the coming months we’ll no doubt see the proliferation of social software principles being applied to business applications but the principle will be the same; help unleash people’s desire to engage in highly productive behaviors, and supercharged business performance will follow!

Photo of facebook by MrTopf. Licensed under CC.

Tags: employee peroformance, facebook, Performance Management, Productivity, Rypple, rypple takes a page from facebook, social software, team performance

Product & Community

60340 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2Fsocial-software-rypple-takes-a-page-from-facebook%2FSocial+Software%3A+Rypple+Takes+a+Page+from+Facebook2010-08-16+13%3A32%3A37David+Priemerhttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D6034

I know they’re stressful and unpleasant but I didn’t know performance reviews are bad for your health!

On the New York Times blog, Tara Parker-Pope tells us about the impact of performance reviews on our health. At first, I was surprised to find an article entitled “Time to Review the Workplace Review?” in the Health section, and not in Business. But now I understand why it’s there.

Parker-Pope presents data from a number of studies suggesting that job satisfaction is way down and unhappy workers are at higher risk for heart problems and depression.

According to some researchers, performance reviews play a big role in making people more stressed and less happy. Parker-Pope interviewed a CEO who stopped doing reviews at his company because of the “emotional havoc” they create. This CEO describes the blurry line between professional and personal at review time: “If [people] get a review saying, ‘You’re not effective at work,’ they would hear, ‘You’re not effective as a person.’ ”. Here are some of the other ways they can impact your health:

• Increased risk of heart attacks. A 15-year study of 12,000 nurses found that nurses struggling with excessive work pressures had twice the risk of a heart attack.
• Increased risk of heart disease. An 11-year study of 6,000 workers found that those who regularly worked more than 10 hours a day had a 60 percent higher risk for heart disease than those who put in 7 hours.
• Increased stress. According to the Conference Board, only 45 percent of workers are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent in 1987.

Yikes! But I’m not surprised. Through the intellectual, emotional and even physical energy we exert in pursuit of success, we’re putting a lot on the table – and making ourselves vulnerable. To be criticized for something we’ve put so much time and energy into is demoralizing, to say the least.

Probing and insightful questions from a good manager are tough to bear, but they’re helpful. When managers cross the line and make it too critical, they risk making their feedback personal. Bundle it all into one review, once a year, and you can see how things can quickly get out of hand.

Parker-Pope cites UCLA professor Samuel A. Culbert’s book Get Rid of the Performance Review, in which Culbert suggests that: “There is a very bad set of values that are embedded in the air because of performance reviews.” Culbert argues that: “Annual reviews not only create a high level of stress for workers…but end up making everybody — bosses and subordinates — less effective at their jobs.”

Culbert told Parker-Pope that he’s heard from: “countless workers who say their work life was ruined by an unfair review.”

One solution is to replace the annual review with more frequent conversations. Parker-Pope spoke with Dr. Gary Namie, Director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, who suggests that  performance reviews “should be replaced by daily ongoing contact with managers who know the work and who can become coaches.”

I love it! One of the reasons I haven’t had so many performance reviews is that I’ve been fortunate enough to work in environments where frequent conversations between managers and employees happened naturally. Until reading Parker-Pope’s article, it never occurred to me quite how fortunate I’ve been.

Stress ball photo by Amy McTigue. Licensed under CC.

Tags: gary namie, get rid of the performance review, happy at work, health, heart attacks, heart disease, new york times, Performance Management, Performance Reviews, samuel culbert, stress, tara parker-pope, work, workplace bullying institute

Business Development

62610 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2Fperformance-reviews-are-bad-for-your-health%2FPerformance+reviews+are+bad+for+your+health2010-06-30+18%3A22%3A57Jesse+Goldmanhttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D6261

We’re thrilled to be featured on the Dachis Group blog. Here’s a little excerpt from my post:

Top performers need to learn quickly to advance their careers. It’s no longer acceptable to wait for our next performance review, often months away, to get critical insights on how we can improve. Managers often forget about important advice and it’s usually too late to do anything concrete about what we do hear!

We need constructive feedback and coaching much more frequently to excel in today’s fast-paced business environments. A quick comment or simple kudo, such as Nice job!, can be just as valuable as more thorough advice on what we can do to improve.

Read the rest of Go Social, Get Results on the Dachis Group blog.

Tags: Dachis Group, Feedback, managers, Performance Management, performance review

Business Development

46460 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2Fgo-social-get-results%2FGo+Social%2C+Get+Results2010-01-21+19%3A04%3A22Jesse+Goldmanhttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2F%3Fp%3D4646

Have you defined your businesses’ objectives and goals for 2010? If you haven’t, you’re not alone:

In the survey of more than 2,100 working people conducted by YouGov, only 24 per cent said that their employer had clearly articulated their 2010 objectives to the workforce, while a third (32 per cent) even doubted there was a plan for their business at all.

First step of performance management: make sure your employees clearly understand the direction of the business. How can an employee be productive if she doesn’t know where to focus her efforts? Clearly defined company goals increases motivation and engagement. Having motivated and engaged employees will increase the performance of your business.

If employer actions raise engagement by just 10 per cent, they could typically increase profits by up to £1,500 per employee per year.

How do you keep your employees engaged? Do you know the company goals and objectives for 2010? Check out Employers fail to communicate business plans to learn more.

Tags: Business objectives, employees, engagement, performance, Performance Management, profit, Rypple, YouGov

Community Marketing

40851 commenthttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2Fblog%2Fdefine-your-objectives-for-2010%2FDefine+your+Objectives+for+20102010-01-04+16%3A45%3A43Nathaniel+Rottenberghttp%3A%2F%2Frypple.com%2F%3Fp%3D4085