Fixing FeedbackRewiring the workplace, people’s mindset and productivity

© Georgia Murch, Can We Talk Pty Ltd, Melbourne Australia

White Paper

Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................................................2

The people noise is loud .............................................................................................................4

Time poverty - a growing phenomenon? ...............................................................................6

Matrix structures add to people complexities .......................................................................8

Performance reviews are not working ................................................................................. 10

Moving to the future… before it becomes the past ......................................................... 13

The Feedback Flow program .................................................................................................. 15

Where to from here? ................................................................................................................ 17

About Georgia Murch .............................................................................................................. 18

11

Introduction

Think of the top of the top - global organisations with enormous reach and their commonalities. Without an incredible team of innovators, Apple would not be able to launch the iWatch or the next iPhone. Facebook would not be able to create such a socially engaging and addictive platform. Without remarkable people behind the scenes Virgin Galactic would not be taking people to the moon.

Ideas don’t create themselves nor do they implement themselves. Of course, most projects all have spokespeople and lead directors who

drive the vision, marketing and ‘selling’ as they go, but they have a team behind them. Without that team, there’s nothing to market or sell.

It’s easy to join the dots to say that making the most of your people is your main priority. Focus on your people and the business will flourish. However, employers can easily lose sight of their people, especially in times of economic stress.

In the 90s I joined an entrepreneurial, forward-thinking and fast-growing business, Morgan and Banks. They were the Australasian lead

You may know them as high performing organisations, the best places to work or employers of choice. Whatever you want to call them, all top organisations are similar in that they each recognise the power of cultures that communicate and collaborate effectively. They know that their main competitive edge is not their products or services.

It’s their people. The people behind what they deliver. It’s the people that design and make or break the next strategy. It’s the people that create motivation and drive within the organisation, all the while striving to be the best. It’s the people, people, people! Without them you have nothing. Fail to acknowledge your people and you’re deluding yourself (and doing them a disservice).

22

in executive recruitment services. One of the largest firms of their kind in the world, Morgan and Banks led from the front in terms of innovation and development of a highly engaging workplace and therefore highly-engaged workforce. It was workplace utopia. I was in my early 20s with all enthusiasm and little experience, little did I realise how lucky I was. Whenever I catch up with colleagues from then we always look back nostalgically on that time. We worked our butts off and made good money, we loved what we did and had a ball working with each other. It was like the gold rush days for the corporates.

Geoff Morgan, the Co-Founder, was known for understanding and verbalising the fact that Morgan and Banks’ assets were going up and down the lifts all day… i.e. their people. Andrew Banks, the other Co-Founder constantly drummed into us Peter Druckers’ saying that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’. These guys instinctively knew that the value of their business was their people. And they invested in them heavily; think fun and powerful inductions, pragmatic and engaging professional development/training, leadership skills, mentoring programs and annual all-of-business conferences.

After the business was sold the focus shifted, from people to numbers. The conversations and strategy became about needing to improve, grow, cut back, double. We were not used to this way. We were used to being asked ‘Tell us how we build the capability and motivation of the people. Unsurprisingly, productivity and

profitability also changed… and not for the better. Here was another lesson. Your people are your biggest assets. Focus on them and the business will take care of itself.

An organisation that is gaining more and more attention and success globally right now is Atlassian. Atlassian are a rapidly growing ‘software loving’ business. This year awarded the BRW ‘Best Place to Work’ along with 38 other awards since they started in 2002 including top 20 Fortune Company, Deloitte Best Fast Growing IT, Hewitts Best Employer and the list goes on. Even Dan Pink, author of the New York Times best seller Drive: The Suprising Truth About What Motivates Us, uses Atlassian as an example. He says that Atlassian are an ‘incredibly cool company’ that are focused on motivating their people based on giving them autonomy in working. Dan says too many organisations are making their decisions based on outdated thinking. If we want high performance cultures the solution is not to do more of the wrong things like enticing employees with a sweeter carrot or a bigger stick.

With a dogged focus on their values in everything they do with their employees, customers and brand it’s no wonder Atlassian have highly engaged people and a very successful business with unprecedented growth in a flat economy. They invest heavily in their people. It’s their edge and the results speak for themselves.

People matter. A lot.

3

When I say ‘we’ I don’t mean us or them. I mean you. You the leader. You the manager. You the colleague. You the person who sees the issue. Because if you see there is something to be done then you need to do it. We are always waiting for someone else to take the lead, someone else to have that conversation, someone else to set the tone. No wonder it doesn’t happen. As Ghandi says; ‘We need to be the change we want to see’. It’s just as true in life in, and outside, of work.

Managers need to lead. Managers need to manage. Managing is more about the people noise than anything else.Peter Drucker tells us that most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done. Managers either create the people noise themselves or they don’t

turn it off when they need to. They don’t lead.

Often the issues that demand most of our time are the people ones. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?• You are trying to prepare your weekly report

and John pops in to discuss an issue he has with the Project Leaders style and how it is affecting the team.

• You are delivering a strategy that will improve the productivity of the business but Tom does not want to work with Mary to deliver it. She’s just too difficult.

• You are leading Sam’s performance review and giving him feedback on his consistently late delivery. You go into a battle about who needs to take responsibility as he said Jennifer keeps holding him back.

• You want to implement a new system that will provide a smoother approach when working with clients, but half of the team is divided as they will be more dependent on IT and they don’t enjoy working with that area of the business.

The people noise is loud

We need to get the best from our people so our business can thrive. So we get it right?! Right! Then why is it that some of the biggest problems we have in organisations are our people? People, as our greatest treasure, can also become our greatest liability. It’s the ‘people noise’ in an organisation that can become so loud sometimes that it makes it hard to progress with implementing the strategies. People noise is like white noise… it’s always on in the background until we turn it off.

4

The lyrics sung by Guy Sebastin spring to mind; ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’

People noise is our constant whether we recognize it or not. The success of a great strategy and it’s implementation teeters on how well people work together. Harnessing this power as not just a manager but a ‘doer’ and reducing the people noise makes the process of working together easier and dare I say more enjoyable.

The eighth consecutive study on engagement conducted by research company Gallup tells us that the cost of disengaged employees is deemed as critical to a company’s performance. The statistics are highly compelling. Some examples of a highly engaged workforce where people enjoy coming to work and working with each other shows that there is;1. 65% lower turnover

2. 37% lower absenteeism

3. 48% fewer safety incidents

We’re not only talking about satisfaction. These are large numbers on a poll conducted with over 50,000 businesses in over 34 countries.

It is clear that decreasing the people issues to create a highly engaged workforce makes a difference. So, we have three options in dealing with the people noise; 1. Deal with it poorly. Create even more issues in

the wake of our ‘solving’ the problems. Solving them poorly or incompletely and damaging trust and respect in the process through inappropriate or aggressive communication.

2. Ignore them in the hope they will go away. We call these Broken Glass Managers. Those Managers that step over the broken glass in the middle of the room in the hope that someone else will clean up the mess. Don’t be a Broken Glass Manager - get out the dust pan and shovel!

3. Deal with the people noise as they arise. Nip them in the bud so the spot fires of peoples’ issues don’t become bushfires that become overwhelming or impossible to address.

Most Managers pick option two and end up sweeping the glass shards under under the carpet. The next group take option one and ‘attack’ the issue or deal with it poorly, only to see that the

change is ineffectual and often makes things worse. It is the remarkable managers that boldly tackle option three. They handle the complexities as they arise with candour and kindness and end up getting things done and being the leader that people want to work for.

5

The past 10 years have given us a plethora of functional, fun and powerful electronic tools at our disposal. Many of them started out aiming to make our personal and working lives easier. There are electronic scheduling systems, handheld devices and the ability to communicate to anyone, anywhere at any time. Yet we still struggle to stay organised and focused. It’s most likely due to the fact that we have more information than ever before to wade through.

Productivity expert and thought leader, Dermot

Crowley says “We need more than just new technology to stay organised in the modern workplace. We need new mindsets, new systems and new skills.”

Dermot believes a large part of the problem is that we are using 21st century technologies, but still using 20th century methodologies.

Dermot says the main reasons we are so time poor in this modern era are;1. We have too many meetings especially at

the senior manager level. It is not unusual for the modern manager to spend 80% of their core hours in meetings. Of course this leaves little time to get to emails, solve issues, develop strategy and do the thinking to deliver the right outcomes. It’s often the weekends or late nights that are taken up getting to the other needs. We are not creating enough time to stop, think and plan.

2. We are drowning in the sheer volume of emails. Six years ago the average executive would have 60 emails per day to deal with. Now we are looking at an average of 300 plus per day. The amount of email noise has created an unprecedented communications focus. These emails are a combination of Ccs,

Time poverty - a growing phenomenon?

Time poverty refers to not having enough time to do all the things you want or need to do. Not everyone faces the same demands on their time or has the same access to free time. Indeed, not everyone manages time in the same manner. Like a shortage of income, lack of time is another disadvantage for individuals and organisations.1. Societally, we have never been busier. There is more to do, higher expectations to deliver it perfectly

and greater distraction with devices and social media than we’ve ever had to encounter. We have increased competition in all aspects of products and services, ongoing family commitments, financial pressures in a challenged economy and many are facing technology overload. No wonder we feel time poor.

6

information only, marketing products and services, blogs, personal memos and event requests, just to name a few. No wonder important emails are sometimes hard to find.

3. Technology is disabling our productivity. Whilst technology has made doing business and connecting with others dramatically easier it has also created a sense of urgency that is crippling how we work. We can communicate with anyone at any time. Whilst this is generally seen as hugely advantageous, it has also created a sense that everything is urgent and important. This is not the case. Sometimes we just need to rewire our minds and to re-energise our working style.

4. We procrastinate. We need to relearn the art of planning what to do and committing to action. We put things off in the hope that they will go away or sort themselves out. It’s no surprise they don’t and they become much bigger than initially planned and much more time intensive; especially the tough conversations and feedback moments.

We need to learn to confront the issues as soon as we see them. How many conversations with people, friends, colleagues, family become more serious than they need to be because you don’t ‘nip them in the bud’ in the early days? That is, when you first noticed the issue or problem and/or when something felt not quite right.

The scenarios vary widely; being spoken to rudely, observing someone arrive too late, missing a deadline, an inappropriate outfit being worn, the second Monday being taken as a

‘sick’ day or your manager again cancelling your weekly catch up and the list goes on.

It can be anything that may seem small, at the time. You might decide it’s not worth worrying about so you let it go because you ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’; or you are too nervous to approach the person as it is only once or twice it has happened; or you deny it will become something bigger; or you just don’t want the conflict. There are plenty of reasons as to why we don’t have the conversations but the point is, there is a downside to sticking your proverbial head in the sand.

Ignoring these issues can be the difference between a spot fire and a raging bush fire. The longer we leave them the greater the costs to the business and ourselves. When we see a spot fire we grab some water and put it out right? We know that fire is dangerous and it could turn ugly pretty quickly. This is the same for when we don’t nip those conversations in the bud.

This year McKinsey put out a white paper called ‘Bad to Great: The path to scaling up excellence’. They cited that the most important factor in obtaining leadership excellence was their ability to ‘Nip It In The Bud’. Yep… Number 1! Leaders who are focused on improving behavior improve organizational performance. Eliminating the negative is the first step in the process. Destructive behaviour— be it selfishness, nastiness, fear, laziness or dishonesty—packs a far bigger punch than constructive behaviour. Furthermore, it damages the bottom line.

In his ‘Advice to a Young Tradesman’, Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Remember that TIME is Money.” We need to treat dealing with issues as an effective use of time and avoid becoming corporate fire fighters instead, claiming time poverty as our excuse.

Success is never about your claim to scare resources. It’s always about your resourcefulness. Tony Robbins

7

The purpose of these structures was to optimise productivity through working in centralised or decentralised structures. It has also become necessary with the modern challenges of virtual teams, multiple projects across cross-functional and global platforms. It is about delivering fast and responding to customers efficiently. Things are getting more and more complex.

For this to work you need the right structures and systems plus a different way of managing and leading. Jay Galbriath says in ‘Designing Matrix Organizations That

Actually Work’; “Organisation structures do not fail, but management fails at implementing them successfully.” Communication

and cooperation is one of the key components of their success. Unfortunately it is managers or employers that are taught not how to work well in this environment nor equipped to communicate and collaborate effectively.It’s a bit like the execution at one of the busiest airports in the world – Heathrow. Processes and systems are as essential and communication is its equal partner. Without both it would be a disaster.

Whether you refer to one of the leaders in the space such as Jay Galbraith or Kevan Hall, most of the academic research into the success of matrix structures is not around the design but about the skills and behaviours needed to lead in these environments. Most of the disadvantages are about the way people work together – not the structure.The main challenges organisations find working in matrixes are;

Matrix structures add to people complexities

As organisations grow so too do their complexities. For most organisations this leads to implementing matrix based structures where we have people working on multiple projects across business lines often with multiple managers and dotted reporting lines.

About 30 years ago this structure became popular and organisations like IBM, HP, Citibank, Nestle and Xerox led the way. Today, it’s not just for the big businesses. Many SMEs are embracing this style of management.

8

1. They allow further internal complexities across the silos. As we now have ‘information’ silos it can increase the bureaucracy through more meetings and slower decision making with too many stakeholders involved. This also creates more potential opportunities for internal conflict and results in the figurative ‘too many cooks stirring the broth’.

2. Having multiple managers creates confusion. There are blurred lines for the

employees and the managers. Without enough communication it becomes hard to know what your priorities are as everything appears to be important. Who is your direct supervisor? Which project is the priority? When managers and teams are being pushed and pulled and it becomes a battle of the fittest and sometimes the loudest.

3. Getting control of your team to deliver is difficult especially when you don’t have face to face or even established relationships. Managers need to learn how to build trust in these situations in order to get things done.

4. It can be difficult to know the real erformance of individuals. With dual managers it becomes difficult for one manager to gather all the feedback to deliver the most accurate and constructive feedback about performance.

This last point leads well into the next problem. The one that organisations are aware of but it is not often discussed or acknowledged.

9

So why aren’t they the tool for performance and development we need them to be? There are several reasons but these are the main ones that we have observed over the past 20 years of leading and consulting to businesses.

1. The feedback is stale or hidden. Most people want to avoid the tough conversations so they tend to store it up until the dreaded performance review. Many employers I’ve spoken to dislike performance reviews as much as their employees do. They become our excuse to not discuss things in the moment. Or we could deliver it but hide it in s*&t the sandwich. Or worse still, mumble it haplessly in the hope that the full impact is uncovered from under the rock.

Performance reviews are not working

Wow! I’m so excited about my performance review. Said no one… ever. Well not too many, anyway.

For most, performance reviews are becoming as exciting as a trip to the dentist – costly and painful and as effective as a pair of sunglasses for a blind man, considering improving performance is the aim.

But don’t just take my word for it. Just look at this linked research from Bloomsberg, The Wall Street Journal or Kevin Kruse, author of ‘Employee Engagement; All experts in the game of performance management’.

10

2. They are full of ‘surprises’ and not the good kind. People tend to avoid tough conversations. Most people are naturally conflict averse. However, what this means is that the initial issue presenting as a small problem can become an elephant in the room (spot fire can grow into a bushfire) by the time the review comes around and it may come as a complete surprise to the recipient. This causes all sorts of flow on issues with trust and respect and has quite a negative impact overall.

3. There is little room for

the ‘real truth’. The real truth is a combination of what one person knows coupled with the other. It is two perspectives that create the actual truth of a situation. The review process does not typically allow this as it is time poor and ‘tell’ orientated. We tend to see more ‘yoursations’ by the managers rather than conversations by both parties. The numbers and results are typically decided prior to the review so where is the ‘real truth’ in the process?

4. They highlight our crap. Whilst some organisations and managers have cottoned on to the power

of building on strengths, unfortunately the majority still focus on an individual’s skills gap as the main conversation. We only need to look at the work of Martin Seligman, a world leader in positive psychology to understand that to focus on our weaknesses creates little chance of development and change. They need to be discussed but not in the spotlight. These should be dealt with during the year.

5. They are too focused on scoring and box ticking. Managers need to grade you 1 to 5 and we know that rarely will get a 5 as this will mean they have to increase salary or give a big bonus. So whilst we might be doing well we don’t want a budget crisis so the scores don’t truly reflect performance. Don’t they say ‘comparison is the killer of joy’? Well here is a great example. How do you compare you to the next person? You can’t and you shouldn’t. Individuals are unique and have their own talents, so a box ticking scale is rendered pointless.

6. They are way too time demanding. Most managers have many performance reviews to prepare for and as a result it becomes about getting the job done rather than delivering in the best way possible. For many it can build a little resentment in the process. The reward for all the effort of invested time often doesn’t have a significant correlation when an employee is even further deterred from delivering good work.

7. They are stiff and boring. Do you remember the feeling of going to your first school dance? How

‘I do not believe you can do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow’.

Nelson Jackson

11

awkward it was in your first formal outfit, seeing your date look as uncomfortable as you but trying to pretend you are all just fine. Our reviews can be similar where they become overly formal for any real discussions to take place.

The habit of having valuable conversations so people can be championed and supported to improve is a good thing. There is just little evidence that the formal performance review process achieves this. In fact, most data is to the contrary. Quality guru W. Edwards Deming was clearly against them. He critiqued the review process saying it “nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and politics.”

Adobe, who produce software including Photoshop, Acrobat, Creative Cloud, and the Digital Marketing Suite were bold enough to make this change in 2012 where they got rid of formal appraisals and creating regular ‘pulse checks’. This affected 11,000 employees and they report the shift in engagement, culture and productivity as considerable. Abode calculated that annual reviews required 80,000 hours of time from the 2000 managers each year, the equivalent of 40 full-time employees. After all that effort, internal surveys revealed that employees felt less inspired and motivated afterwards—and turnover increased.

There’s a great reason right there to do an about face if ever there was one.

12

In the late 1980s the problem was that not all employees were rewarded nor motivated by their financial performance alone. Many were driven by the learning and development of their skills. From here performance management started moving into more frequent monitoring and reviews with a focus on ‘Regular Feedback’ outside the formal review process. Note – please see “Journey of performance management” diagram over page. As organisations put more regular conversations into the mix there became a notable improvement in productivity and employee engagement when the conversations were handled well.

We are now seeing an emerging trend in

the high performing organisations where all employees, not just the leaders, are being taught to not only give great feedback but also receive information with equal candor and grace. This is when organisations are in their ‘Feedback Flow’.The concept of ‘flow’ proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a well known Hungarian psychology professor, is described as being

Moving to the future… before it becomes the past

The concept of ‘Performance Management’ was introduced about 60 years ago as a means to determine the wages of an employee based on their performance. It was used to drive behaviors to generate specific outcomes. When employees were solely driven by financial rewards this tended to work well.

13

when your motivation meets your capability. In this space where you are driven to achieve (motivation) and your skills are at the right level (capability), you are in your ‘flow’. This state creates a high energy and alignment with the tasks you are doing. It’s where action and awareness meet. It’s the peak of focused concentration and causes a loss of negative self-reflection. Flow is good. Really good.

Creating a ‘Feedback Flow’ is how high performing organisations get things done and create happy, fully engaged employees and customers. It is where we reverse the push of giving feedback to the pull of receiving it and alter internal systems to be more in real time.

So why don’t organisations and leaders implement this powerful culture of feedback? There are three main reasons holding them back;1. Organisations don’t muster the courage to

invest in their people and culture. They are

stuck in the 40s and they just don’t get it. As a result, these are not the high performing companies.

2. For those that value and encourage feedback it is still not translating into enough actions or the actions are often damaging. People’s intent is good but intent is not seen or measured. We are still avoiding or poorly handling conversations with each other, either in the moment or in our formal catch-ups. No matter how much training we receive.

3. People think the change will be too hard and too disruptive. To create a cultural shift it does require effort. But to the contrary. It is taking out a layer that takes considerable time with little or no results. Remove the processes and systems that hinder performance improvement and then the time focused on improving it will balance it out.

So what’s stopping you?

HighProfit

LowProfit

PerformanceManagement

RegularFeedback

FeedbackFlow

Time High performanceorganisation

Low performanceorganisation

Pro

ductivity

14

Journey of performance management

There are three components that allow this program to cause significant shifts in your organization; 1. Teach 2. Implement and; 3. AssessWhen we do all three we create a frequency of accountability that feeds itself so giving and receiving becomes an inevitable part of the way you do business. You and the organization are in your ‘flow’.

The Feedback Flow program

Fixing Feedback is about creating a cultural cadence. It’s more than feedback loops. It’s about creating a self-sustaining flow that feeds itself and becomes effortless. The onus is on both parties. One to deliver the feedback, in real time, in the moment or close to. The other to receive it well, in the moment. The outcomes of this will;

15

Eliminate dependence on

performance management

systems

Significantly improve greater productivity as

time management improves

Create a culture of accountability and commitment

Reduce the “people noise”

And allow individuals to

own their own development

When we set up all three components the results are sustainable and will become habitual. We will measure the productivity and financial rewards to see the difference.

16

RegularConversations

Performance Management

Hopeful Feedback

Teach Implement

Assess

Feedback Flow

‘Teach’ is about educating leaders and employees around how to receive and give feedback. It creates awareness for participants to understand their communication style and the impact it has on themselves and others. It teaches the skills and tools to have and receive feedback and allows for practice for the learning to become tangible.

‘Implement’ ensures that what you learn does not fall into the category of good but forgotten. It allows for mentoring outside the workshops. Ensures commitment through the drive of processes and systems for the new skills to be used. It creates an underlying renewed motivation to keep the new initiatives in place so they become part of the culture.

‘Assess’ means that we don’t forget why we are doing this and improve regularly. It allows us to measure the impact of the new landscape, report back to the organisation so they can see the difference. As a result we are able to improve what is working and amplify the change.

Where to from here?

Contact GeorgiaE: georgia@canwetalk.net.auW: www.canwetalk.netM: +61 402 252 791

To learn more about how you as an individual or an organisation implement and drive a ‘Feedback Flow’ culture talk to Georgia Murch.

Georgia regularly provides insights into the what, why and how of what we need be aware of to become remarkable communicators and leaders. Register for more information at - http://canwetalk.net/talk-to-us/

17

About Georgia Murch

Georgia has over 20 years of experience working with public and private organisations of all shapes and sizes, in Australia and overseas.

Georgia is obsessed with the power of great communication and collaboration to create outstanding cultures. She sees the profound impact it has on the success of businesses. As an former accountant, she understands the importance of delivering programs that impact the bottom line. Through emboldening your people to have outcome driven conversations and to lead with ease all of the time, Georgia helps businesses, and individuals, become highly productive and reduce the ‘noise’ that the people issues bring.She’s an expert in helping others master the art of conversations that maintain trust and respect. She’s like a turbo charged, pragmatic arm of your HR team. She helps organisations navigate through the pace of change smoothly; allows people to get on with being clever; helps companies hold on to the brightest sparks and devote their time to things that matter.

18

She has worked in consulting, designing and facilitating leadership; cultural change and customer focused programs. She has managed the people stuff, business development and marketing. Through experience she understands the complexity of managing a business, leading change and truly appreciates the diversity and challenge of complex workforces. Georgia has worn many hats and solved many problems… it’s what lights her up. She now works with savvy, fast-paced organisations and leaders to help create remarkable communicators… so remarkable that people can’t stop talking about them and things just get done.