Sadly in too many organizations it seems it is more important to not “embarrass or call out”poor performance than it is to encourage great competence and subsequent success. This starts with the leadership. Great leaders are: caring , competent and have a strong character. An overt system is not easy on those who choose to underperform but it is an excellent motivator to those who want to improve and be recognized for doing well.
Public and social sharing of individual growth and progress is an old idea that absolutely deserves a revisit. The upside is huge—'keeping up' with peers can fuel a culture of up-skilling, opening doors for internal growth, advancement, and business success. Engaged, strong contributors and value creators for the business will likely welcome this approach, which will boost retention—your best people won’t want to leave. It’s a cultural element that has to be baked in, and yes, some companies may need a hard reset to make this work. Sure, there will be pushback from those who feel that transparency equals pressure or bullying, but that's not a reason to avoid it. Thanks for shedding light on this—so many old practices deserve a second look in today’s world.
A skill chart for more white collar jobs is an interesting idea. I wonder how you might present skill charts in a virtual or remote setting. It does seem to be effective using peer pressure to motivate team members to strive to become better. I like the idea of leadership in this case creating the system to allow some intrinsic and a little bit of extrinsic motivate from the whole team. It could be used too to help team members understand where they stand with their peers, are they in the top percentage, or are they lagging. We have thought about doing this at my company with tracking and measuring results and productivity, but have not invested in these systems yet.
I find the idea of an organizationally published skills list very interesting on multiple levels, but I see it not working for nearly the same number of levels. Unions, generally speaking oppose meritocracy as does many if not most governmental agencies. The minimum is good enough mind set.
I would love to see organizations and the people in them, strive to better both, but the question is how do we do it in this soften, litigious nation we live in? Hard choices would have to be made. I would love the opportunity to be a team member at such an organization.
That's the stuff of real leadership there, Steve... taking meaningful action for your own team, to make them better, even when you know it might be criticized by society.
I keep getting amazed at how "old school" we keep finding ourselves reverting to, despite our so-called progress. The fundamentals remain the same; there are really no new fundamentals. I would believe that in a system where values are defined and adhered, without reverting to cult-like tendencies, behaviour like sycophancy would be at a minimum. The idea would be kaizen, constant and never ending progress. It is also not about benchmarking against others, but incrementally getting better than yesteryou.
Eeeek! A corporate leader board? I thought they were just the think of Wall Street movies. I hope we don't see these popping up on whiteboards in the public and charitable sectors!
Sadly in too many organizations it seems it is more important to not “embarrass or call out”poor performance than it is to encourage great competence and subsequent success. This starts with the leadership. Great leaders are: caring , competent and have a strong character. An overt system is not easy on those who choose to underperform but it is an excellent motivator to those who want to improve and be recognized for doing well.
Public and social sharing of individual growth and progress is an old idea that absolutely deserves a revisit. The upside is huge—'keeping up' with peers can fuel a culture of up-skilling, opening doors for internal growth, advancement, and business success. Engaged, strong contributors and value creators for the business will likely welcome this approach, which will boost retention—your best people won’t want to leave. It’s a cultural element that has to be baked in, and yes, some companies may need a hard reset to make this work. Sure, there will be pushback from those who feel that transparency equals pressure or bullying, but that's not a reason to avoid it. Thanks for shedding light on this—so many old practices deserve a second look in today’s world.
A skill chart for more white collar jobs is an interesting idea. I wonder how you might present skill charts in a virtual or remote setting. It does seem to be effective using peer pressure to motivate team members to strive to become better. I like the idea of leadership in this case creating the system to allow some intrinsic and a little bit of extrinsic motivate from the whole team. It could be used too to help team members understand where they stand with their peers, are they in the top percentage, or are they lagging. We have thought about doing this at my company with tracking and measuring results and productivity, but have not invested in these systems yet.
I find the idea of an organizationally published skills list very interesting on multiple levels, but I see it not working for nearly the same number of levels. Unions, generally speaking oppose meritocracy as does many if not most governmental agencies. The minimum is good enough mind set.
I would love to see organizations and the people in them, strive to better both, but the question is how do we do it in this soften, litigious nation we live in? Hard choices would have to be made. I would love the opportunity to be a team member at such an organization.
That's the stuff of real leadership there, Steve... taking meaningful action for your own team, to make them better, even when you know it might be criticized by society.
I too, would love to be on such a team.
I keep getting amazed at how "old school" we keep finding ourselves reverting to, despite our so-called progress. The fundamentals remain the same; there are really no new fundamentals. I would believe that in a system where values are defined and adhered, without reverting to cult-like tendencies, behaviour like sycophancy would be at a minimum. The idea would be kaizen, constant and never ending progress. It is also not about benchmarking against others, but incrementally getting better than yesteryou.
Eeeek! A corporate leader board? I thought they were just the think of Wall Street movies. I hope we don't see these popping up on whiteboards in the public and charitable sectors!