Sample
Author Archives: Right People Right Roles
The Performance Management Eye Chart — Part V
Looking for new ways to improve your Talent Management and Leadership Alignment? Join Success Profiles and Healthcare Performance Solutionsfor a free Webinar on the “Key Elements of Leadership Performance and Talent Management.” There will be two times to conveniently meet your scheduling needs. Click on the links below to sign up and join us to learn how you we can take your organization the next level.
Tuesday Feb 28th – 12:00 -1:00pm (EST)
Click Here to Register
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/452022386
Thursday Mar 1st – 2:00 – 3:00pm (EST)
Click Here to Register
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/191420178
THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT EYE CHART
Being a leader is difficult work. In some departments it is very difficult work. In others it is moderately so, but all leaders contribute to your organization’s success. Successful organizations make a great effort to match the abilities of its leaders to the difficulty of the role in which they are being placed. Putting the right people in the right roles is one of the most powerful actions an organization can use to guarantee its own success.
The Performance Management Eye Chart (PMEC) is an inclusive, incisive, broad and detailed look at an organization. Objective performance rankings are color-coded in the PMEC. The combination of color-coded ranks and specific performance measurements shows how individual departments contribute to the overall performance both accurately and at a glance.
It is hard to always get leadership alignment right, especially without help from a tool like the PMEC; the first step to getting alignment right is to recognize, then admit, when you have succeeded and when you have not. The very best way to make that recognition is through objective measurement! The second difficult challenge is taking action on the knowledge. Objective measurement gives senior leadership the confidence to take action earlier, when it can make the most difference in charting a better course for the organization’s success.
This means taking early action is an incredibly effective skill, making the Performance Management Eye Chart an extreme value. Especially in tight economic times, it is essential to not shut down performance measurement activities, but to make sure the organization invests in products that deliver out-sized value. The PMEC is the premier performance measurement tool in Healthcare, and is remarkably affordable.
Only through measurement can an organization truly determine how a broad spectrum of departments are performing and contributing to the operation’s bottom line. Through measurement, each department and leader can be held accountable and the organization’s critical leadership talent apportioned where it will do the most good. Without it, we are all, more or less, sophisticated guessers; a great game to play when things are going well and a very uncomfortable place to be when performance starts to deteriorate. You can see it, feel it, but only wonder why things aren’t quite the same anymore . . . .
ODDS OF SUCCESS CHART
What are the 7 typical appointment mistakes that organizations make?
- Appointing a B level person into a complex management role based upon their tenure period or technical competency (clinical/financial expertise). The ability to lead others does not correlate with tenure or technical expertise. Odds of Success = 45%.
- Appointing a lower level “supervisor” into a manager position in a bottom quartile (failing RED) department out of convenience. They are usually unsuccessful because of their lack of management experience (higher level of responsibility); they tend to be part of the status quo culture, and they are less likely to take action on the low performers or make tough decisions. Odds of Success = < 20%.
- Not recognizing that a complex department in the bottom quartile (failing RED) will require a “Turnaround” specialist who is used to making tough decisions quickly. Most B level managers do well in maintenance roles. A “turnaround” is a completely different, very challenging situation where doing what’s right for the department and stakeholders outweighs the personal interests of an individual. Odds of Success for a B level leader = < 20%.
- Waiting too long to act and failing to set hard, measurable target performance expectations with milestone dates on the first-year road-map for a new manager. “As goes the first 90 days, so goes the remainder of the year.” If new managers don’t make the heavy-lifting decisions, especially dealing with negative, disruptive, poor performers, immediately, turning around the department takes longer, is usually more painful, and has a lower overall success rate. Odds of Success = < 20%.
- Not considering leadership talent or ability. Assigning a C or D level leader in any role has low Odds of Success. The average C player has Odds of Success of 30% and a D player has odds of 15%. The overall success rate for a combined C or D level leader is that they have a 25% Odds of Success.
- Low acceptance rate of a new leader/manager by the staff because of an “old school” mindset that tenure in the department is a qualifier or even prerequisite for appointment. Some departments (and people within the departments) are unforgiving when it comes to a manager’s qualifications to lead in the role. The behavioral pattern is to “chew up and spit out” the “substitute teacher” managers as soon as possible. It can be extremely difficult for some people to handle this situation long enough to succeed. Odds of Success = < 33%
- Ignoring Competency Alignment. Sometimes, even the most talent leaders (A players) can be out of alignment technically, business-model wise, behaviorally, or in maturity or experience. The most common situation is insufficient technical competence and/or a business-model deficiency where a competent leader in one department/function cannot be respected as a leader in a totally different area of expertise. They simply won’t know what to do in difficult situations. The other common situation is a poor cultural or behavioral fit, where the culture of the organization is too dominant for the person to adjust to or the maturity level of the leader is too low to adapt to what will be most effective. Odds of Success = < 33%.
The Performance Management Eye Chart is the ultimate tool for measuring the performance of every department in your organization and putting it on one intelligible, accessible page. It is based on multiple sources, giving it stability and accuracy. It is actionable, and it is the first step towards aligning talented leaders into your organization’s most difficult roles.
Get one for yourself! Give us a call about what the PMEC can mean for your organization. . . We love to talk about you!
The Performance Management Eye Chart — Part IV
What Does Being In “Over Your Head” Look Like?
(pssst . . . it’s the columns on the left)
The “Peter Principle”, nepotism, favoritism, grandfathering, tenure, ‘Good Ol’ Boy” Network, buddy system, and on and on . . . We have a lot of terms for promoting and carrying leaders that are not performing to expectations. Very few of them are compliments. In most cases, this practice reflects a weakness in business leadership
Several common appointment mistakes produce sub-optimized performance when leaders and managers are put into situations where they are literally in “over their heads.” The easiest way to describe this “over-leveraged” condition is that the department’s complexity, or degree of difficulty, exceeds the threshold level where the manager has better than a 50% chance of success.
For a C level talent or ability, this is virtually any management position (regardless of complexity) because their odds of success are only 40% at best, even in the lowest-complexity positions. The decision to appoint C level leadership ability to low-complexity departments should be made only when the obstacles and barriers are easily managed or when the person has some previous experience in managing the day-to-day operations. If the manager begins to struggle or fail, the reasons are usually very apparent: they are in over their heads.
How about those B’s?
As noted by Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan in their 2003 Harvard Business Review Article, Let’s Hear it for B Players, B level managers are solid, consistent performers who are competent, experienced, consistent, and loyal. The average organization has between 50% and 60% of their executives, directors, and managers at the B level of leadership ability. These managers make up the backbone of any organization. For a B level leadership talent, the ability to manage low – and medium -complexity situations produces favorable results 75% and 60% of the time, respectively (see Odds of Success diagram below).
The only time that B level leaders and managers have low odds of success, when they often are in over their heads, is when they are appointed to complex assignments or departments. It is here that the odds of success dip below the 50% level to 45%. It’s not that they cannot be successful, it’s just less likely. If the decision is made to appoint a B level talent to this level of complexity, they really need to be “over-achievers” or at the B+ level to succeed at all costs or a steep price.
- They define success differently, not in purely financially or status terms.
- While they work hard at work, they prioritize “life-work” balance and prefer to work 50 hours per week instead of 70 to 80 or more.
- They are usually excellent team players and avoid the spotlight of self promotion.
- They may have been A level performers at one time and have dialed back their career focus, often due to other priorities or “throttling” down to semi-retirement.
- They have longer tenures in organizations because they are less likely to leap from job to job in order to fast-track or advance their careers.
- They carry a significant amount of an organization’s intellectual capital due to their experience and tenure.
The Performance Management Eye Chart (PMEC) is a visual tool that compares leadership effectiveness and cultural engagement at glance. Leaders can instantly see which departments have healthy cultures of excellence and which ones are facing difficulties. With a unique style of presenting information in a way that allows both detailed focus and overall vision, the Eye Charts synthesize and present meaning, allowing you to see the complete performance picture.
The truth is, in any organization, it is a smart, disciplined mix of leadership talent that matches the complexity and challenge of each department that best leads to success. A Level Leaders should be placed in the most challenging roles, but trying to hire only A Level Leaders is expensive, difficult, and creates teamwork problems. It did not work for Enron and it will not work for anyone else. B leaders are excellent in the right place, and C Employees make worthy contributions to organizations every day.
Put the right people in the right roles by starting that process with the Performance Management Eye Chart, which will quantify and illustrate the impact that leadership has on overall performance and the existing culture in your organization, one leader and one department a time.
The Leadership and Management On-Boarding Road-map — Part II
Assuring Success in the First 100 Days of Appointment
Part II
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
MAKING THE 100 DAY LEADERSHIP ON-BOARDING ROAD-MAP WORK FOR YOU
The 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map to Success is a structured approach to leadership and management on-boarding that addresses a common dilemma in Healthcare today. With the increasing financial, job complexity and business model challenges that healthcare will face as the industry navigates the changes within the Affordable Care Act, it is imperative that the leadership and management appointment rate success be higher than 60%. Best practice organizations that have a structured approach to talent management have success rates that exceed 75%. This gives them a significant competitive advantage
Success Profiles’ leadership and management “on-boarding” process provides the structured road-map and game plan blueprint for all “New” leaders and managers to follow. The overall process incorporates a combination of diagnostic tools, leadership assessments, goal prioritization steps, milestone timelines, action-planning functions, coaching plans, and performance metric determination and resource needs.
We invite you to learn about our 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map to Success during an easy-to-attend Webinar on Tuesday, 14 Feb at 12 Noon EST and again on Thursday, 16 Feb at 2PM EST. To attend, simply contact any of our staff, or use one of the links below to register. This webinar will also be used as refresher training for those who have already had the initial training.
Join the 14 Feb Webinar by clicking here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/133173714
Join the 16 Feb Webinar by clicking here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/248614466
If these times are full or inconvenient, please contact us at Success Profiles or me directly at bshimel@successprofiles.com. I will work with you personally to schedule another time for you.
Example of the 100 day Leadership and Management Game Plan
Who needs this Road-map?
New Leaders.
Who is a New Leader?
A leader is “New” if they are:
- New to the organization or campus (from the outside).
- New to the position (manager, director, VP or executive).
- New to the function (department or service line).
- New to the responsibility (e.g., going from managing 3 departments to 5).
- New to all four.
People First!
- The “New”leader/manager must work to establish positive, trusting relationships with all the leaders in their network and the staff in their respective departments.
- When they connect with the people within their span of responsibility, everything they do going forward will be easier – if they don’t, everything will be harder.
- An agreement on how to make a first impression to build trust with superiors, peers, direct reports and staff. The “cultural fit” game plan to win respect and support.
- An understanding, agreement and “cascade alignment” of the performance expectations established by the organization, the senior leaders and immediate supervisor.
The new leader’s supervisor must establish The Coaching Relationship: A person that has an existing relationship with their respective coach (immediate supervisor) has a real advantage in achieving a more successful on-boarding process. People who have worked together usually have an understanding and appreciation of a person’s behavioral style, practice discipline habits and tendencies. Our research has shown that when people at or above the Director level of leadership struggle or fail, the majority of the time it’s related to their ineffective behavioral style. The on-boarding game plan provides the structure, timetable and scripted discussion topics for people to more effectively work together as a team to solve their most difficult challenges.
The coaching process also takes into account the status of the “New” leader/manager. The most difficult scenario is where the organization has selected a leader from “the outside” who is not only new to the organization but new to the position, new to the function and new to their responsibility. In this case, the establishment of trust, respect, and an appreciation of communication style is critical for leaders and managers to work through making the most difficult decisions. There is a special section contained within the coaching plan to explore and assess a leader and manager’s preferred behavioral style.
Learn the process, teach the process. A huge attribute of 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding is its Transferability: The methodology designed into the leadership and management on-boarding process is relatively easy for any organization to adopt. There is no special software to install, firewall security concerns and there are on-demand tutorials to assist people with every aspect of the process. The entire suite of leadership performance and talent management tools are interconnected and game plan development applications are linked within the Microsoft Office program of Excel.
Leadership and management on-boarding and coaching is not a competency that should be outsourced to a consulting or service firm. It is much more of a “high touch” vs. a “high tech” process where relationships and personal interactions take priority over the diagnostic assessments, game plan forms and assessment tools.
The benefits of this process are:
- Assuring proper alignment for every leader and manager for their relative odds of success before their appointment, which helps avoid managers becoming immediately “over-leveraged” (getting in over their heads).
- Increasing the consistency of road-map and blueprint game plans for everyone “New” (either appointed into a leadership role and/or for those that are existing leaders that are taking on increased responsibilities).
- Game plan alignment with mutual developed expectations, performance targets, priorities and resources needed, where all challenges are openly discussed and options for solutions are explored.
- Providing the structured timetable and planning tools for meetings and coaching sessions at the critical milestones within the first 100 days.
- Enhancing the coaching relationship so that significant issues and challenges can be openly discussed in a safe and trusting environment.
- Connects to leadership/professional development content and resources (articles, video clips, and individual assessments)
- Connects to integrated performance measurement scorecards, performance management systems, individual behavioral style assessments, personalized coaching plans, and succession planning road-maps.
“Prescription without Diagnosis is considered Malpractice.”
The 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map adds purpose, structure, and human concern to the first days of every new leader’s role in your organization. It can truly
Assure Success in the First 100 Days of Appointment.
If possible, please join us for the webinar, if not visit us on-line at http://www.RightPeopleRightRoles.com.
Give us a call! We love to talk about you.
The 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map
Assuring Success in the First 100 Days of Appointment
Part I of II
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
Success Profiles introduces an effective tool to improve success in Healthcare organizations. We have worked with Healthcare leaders to develop a structured approach to leadership and management on-boarding that addresses a common dilemma in Healthcare today. Overall success rates for people appointed into a new leadership or management role in Healthcare is approximately 60%. The number for those people that are new to their respective organization and role is even lower.
The Need: With the increasing financial, job complexity and business model challenges that healthcare will face as the industry navigates the changes within the Affordable Care Act, it is imperative that the leadership and management appointment rate success be higher than 60%. Best practice organizations that have a structured approach to talent management have success rates that exceed 75%. This gives them a significant competitive advantage
We invite you to learn about our 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map to Success during an easy-to-attend Webinar on Tuesday, 14 Feb at 12 Noon EST and again on Thursday, 16 Feb at 2PM EST. To attend, simply contact any of our staff, or use one of the links below to register. This webinar will also be used as refresher training for those who have already had the initial training.
Join the 14 Feb Webinar by clicking here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/133173714
Join the 16 Feb Webinar by clicking here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/248614466
If these times are full or inconvenient, please contact us at Success Profiles or me directly at bshimel@successprofiles.com. I will work with you personally to schedule another time for you.
Help your Executives be more Effective
Healthcare executives (VP’s) can spend around 70% of their time managing the bottom quartile-performing departments. Most, if not all, of those appointments could have been avoided if the organization had the practice discipline to avoid over-leveraging their leaders/managers and if the organization had a consistent formal approach to on-boarding new leaders to more assure their success.
Success Profiles’ leadership and management “on-boarding” process provides the structured road-map and game plan blueprint for all “New” leaders and managers to follow. The overall process incorporates a combination of diagnostic tools, leadership assessments, goal prioritization steps, milestone timelines, action-planning functions, coaching plans, and performance metric determination and resource needs.
“As goes the decisions that leaders make and the success they achieve in their first 100 days, so goes their performance over the long term.”
Example of large format version of the 100 day Leadership and Management Game Plan
The Critical Milestones @ 10, 30, 30, 30 (100) Days: The process, assessments and game plan development allow for the automatic scheduling and review of progress along the timeline of the first 100 days. The initial assessment phase and preliminary game plan development includes the first 10 working days (2 weeks), followed by an update after the next 30 days, 60 days and 90 days. A final game plan is created at the 100 day milestone for guidance over the remaining 9 months of the first 12 months of the appointment. If the assignment or increase in responsibility includes a “turn-around” of a low performing department/function, coaching sessions can be scheduled more frequently (at one and two week intervals or as needed). People may elect to use the on-boarding process, diagnostic tools, game plan development and coaching functions every year at the beginning of their annual planning and budget planning cycles.
“The likelihood of a new manager executing on a successful game plan is directly proportionate to the mutual development of a formal plan and on the consistent/periodic follow up coaching sessions within the first 100 days.”
The Game Plan Development: For a leadership/management on-boarding plan to have high probability of success, there are several elements that must be mutually agreed upon by the newly appointed leader/manager and their immediate supervisor/coach.
- An agreement on how to make a first impression to build trust with superiors, peers, direct reports and staff. The “cultural fit” game plan to win respect and support.
- The “New”leader/manager must work to establish positive, trusting relationships with all the leaders in their network and the staff in their respective departments.
- When they connect with the people within their span of responsibility, everything they do going forward will be easier – if they don’t, everything will be harder.
- An understanding, agreement and “cascade alignment” of the performance expectations established by the organization, the senior leaders and immediate supervisor (hard metrics).
- An understanding and agreement with the leadership effectiveness and cultural – engagement expectations established by HR (the PMEC and TMEC soft metrics).
- An accurate and objective diagnosis of the “as is” state of performance when the new leadership/management assumes responsibility (from high performing to “a turnaround”).
- A mutually agreed upon list of priorities and action items (think who first, then what).
- A realistic timeline to achieve the desired performance outcomes.
- The authority to make day to day decisions.
- The resources to be successful (capital, staffing, tools/equipment, physical space etc.)
- The ability to establish the “direct report” leaders reporting up to the new leader/manager.
- The ability to make staffing decisions with disruptive employees that could be negative, pessimistic and unwilling to change/adapt to the new standards that are established.
- The flexibility to change and adjust the game plan based upon potential changing conditions, dynamics and assumptions.
- A protocol of how the newly appointed leader/manager and their respective coach (immediate supervisor) are going to disagree so that they can work through crucial conversation
- The “New”leader/manager must work to establish positive, trusting relationships with all the leaders in their network and the staff in their respective departments.
The 100 Day Leadership On-Boarding Road-map adds purpose, structure, and human concern to the first days of every new leader’s role in your organization. It can truly
Assure Success in the First 100 Days of Appointment.
If possible, please join us for the webinar, if not visit us on-line at http://www.RightPeopleRightRoles.com, or give us a call! We love to talk about making you more successful.
The Performance Management Eye Chart — Part III
The Ineluctable Impact of Leadership and Cultural Engagement
Today’s obscure but incredible word is ineluctable. To define, something which is ineluctable is something which cannot be avoided, changed, or resisted: inevitable. To use it in a sentence: “Given the business practices of past management, disappointing results proved ineluctable.” Or this sentence: “Once the Hospital’s leadership adopted the Eye Chart Tools and followed through with the recommended courses of action, success was ineluctable!”
Good leadership affects every aspect of operations, including the patient experience, employee morale, and financial results. Top-performing HealthCare organizations work hard to get it, get more of it, and improve that which they do have.
A study by Success Profiles in July, 2010, examined the leadership performance and cultural engagement index scores of 104 healthcare systems throughout the United States. Continue reading
The Performance Management Eye Chart — Part II
Opposites Attract . . . but only if each opposite values what the other opposite has to offer. In fact, I think we find it rare for opposite qualities to exist together in a way that is lasting and benefits from the pairing. It can be even harder when we force two things together we find attractive but ending up acting like the same poles on a magnet, repulsing each other as hard as they can. Sure, we will always have chocolate and peanut butter, but in the serious world of Healthcare operations, it is hard to find opposite things combine in a way that improves the result; and when we do it is hard to keep them together. For example, every time we try to objectively measure performance in our organization and present it in a meaningful way, we seem to have to choose. Do we want detail or a wide field of view? Do we want to see everything at once, or do we want to see the numbers, in specific detail? Yes, we want both. How can we get both?
The Performance Management Eye Chart quantifies and illustrates the impact that leadership has on overall performance and the existing culture, one leader and one department a time, and puts the results together in one place. One can instantly observe the capability and performance of Continue reading
The Performance Management Eye Chart — Part I
Assessing leadership performance is similar to swimming:
You cannot assess competency with a written test.
Our key premise is that the most effective and fastest way to improve performance throughout an organization is to improve the effectiveness of leadership, one leader and one department at a time. Meanwhile, it seems the key premise of some leaders is: “Improve who? Improve me? Why me?” Continue reading