I happened to come across a very interesting deck of cards a while back, and after finding myself drawn to this website over and over again, I decided to order one. And to my pleasant surprise they arrived within few days in my mailbox, (the real one attached to my fence outside). I knew I was really looking forward for these cards, not because a deck of cards is what I need, but because of the messages on this particular set. Self coaching tips, 52 of them, one for each week of the year.

Take a look at these awesome cards

Look at the 5 of diamonds, “Do I regularly connect with my staff? Do I know how they are doing outside of work? Did he win his match? How was her weekend? Do I know all the birthdays of my staff? Am I showing that I really care?” – One of my personal favorites are the queen of hearts; “Do new team members feel welcome and paid attention to? How can we plan their arrival better in the future?”

Color Overview

Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds not a deck of cards without them. This deck however is divided into four important areas of people management.

Clubs represent tips about growth of staff.

Spades covers appraisals and motivation.

Hearts is about knowledge, planning and organizing.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and as important as diamonds People management.

I really love this deck of cards. There is one drawback, they are paper quality so they might get ragged when used a lot. But if you use them as a leadership tool and pull out one card per week you are in for a treat. The good news, aces are well deserved breaks. When I brought these to work, they created some fun and smiles as well. Buy one for all of your leaders and performance will increase.

You can order this amazing deck of cards from http://selfcoachingcards.eu/ or you can order them from Amazon as well.

This is a guest post by Sean Conrad of Halogen Software.
There are a lot of articles around today arguing both sides of the employee performance appraisal debate. Do they provide value to the employer and the employee? Are they an outdated HR/management practice? Do they do more harm than good? What can we do to make them more effective? Should we abandon them all-together?

I think, as with most things, that the value and impact of employee performance appraisals depend on our reasons for conducting them, and the way in which we conduct them. While our corporate culture will certainly influence both of these, we also have a level of choice and responsibility – both as managers and employees. If we want to, we can use them as an effective coaching tool.

But let’s step back for a minute and look at why we even conduct employee performance appraisals.

Why do we do we conduct performance appraisals?

As with most management questions, there are lots of possible answers:

• To help guide employee performance
• To ensure that employees know what is expected of them
• To give employees feedback on their performance so they can continue to develop and improve
• To communicate the competencies or values that are important to the role and the organization
• To identify employees who are not performing as expected and help them improve their performance
• To identify training and development needs and put plans in place to address them
• Etc.

 Some others might add things like this to the list:

• To compare and rank employees
• To identify low performers and document their poor performance so they can be fired
• To guide compensation/pay increase decisions
• To identify high performers for rewards and/or promotions

At their root, employee performance appraisals are a coaching tool

When I look at the list of reasons why we conduct performance appraisals, it seems to me that these are all (or at least the items in the first list) fundamental goals of employee coaching. So how do we transform employee performance appraisals into an effective coaching tool that helps our employees be their best? 

• Engage employees in the performance appraisal process
• Foster an ongoing, two-way dialogue and relationship between them and their manager

Engage employees in the performance appraisal process

I think that employee performance appraisals often fail to help employees be their best because they’re conducted as “top-down” exercises. The manager gives the employee feedback and ratings, and assigns them goals and development plans. Where is the employee in all of this? What about asking them to provide feedback and ratings on their performance? What about asking them to identify areas where they need/want to develop? What do they think the chief goals of their role should be?

Part of helping someone to be their best is giving them the responsibility to be their best. If you’re the passive recipient of feedback, goals, ratings, development plans, it’s hard to feel engaged with them. By finding ways to let employees actively participate in the performance appraisal process, we increase their engagement with the process and with their performance. Why not have them complete a self-appraisal? Why couldn’t they put together a list of potential training courses/activities to help them develop? Why not ask the employee to draft their goals? And if your manager doesn’t explicitly ask you to, why not take the initiative and do these things yourself?

Foster an ongoing, two-way dialogue and relationship

If employee performance appraisals are a “top down” exercise, directed by the manager, they only represent the manager’s perspective. Yet much of our judgments are based on our perspective or perceptions; and these are often limited or even wrong.

By encouraging a two-way dialogue and relationship between a manager and employee we get a truer perspective on employee performance. Because the employee is engaged and involved in the discussions, managers and employees can get a better, truer understanding of what is driving the employee’s performance and challenges.

And by making employee performance management an ongoing practice rather than a once a year event, we take the judgment out of them, and deal with any performance issues when they’re small and easy to fix. The dialogue should be about how the employee is performing and what can be done by all to improve that, rather than about giving ratings and/or criticism. Managers should be asking employees how they can help support their performance. Employees should be telling managers what they need to succeed. And both should be allowed to be human beings who have strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad days.

This kind of open communication allows employees to seek help or coaching without fear of judgment or consequences. It also puts the manager more in the role of coach than judge. This ongoing dialogue and relationship is a great way to help an employee to be their best.

Conclusion

The value and outcome of your employee performance appraisals depend largely on your reasons for conducting them, and the way in which you conduct them. Are you making the most of this potentially valuable process and using it as one of your main tools for employee coaching?

Sean Conrad is a senior product analyst at Halogen Software, one of the leading providers of performance appraisal software solutions. For more of his insights on performance management, read his posts on the Halogen blog.

Take a look at other guest posts here at Never Mind the Manager. If you want to write for my blog, please do contact me! And yes, do subscribe to my blog as well.

I want you to think about your goals and find out if your goals are learning goals or achievement goals. There is a significant difference in the way these difference goals work.  You should figure out which kind of goals you should apply in order to get the best out of them. I will start by sorting out the two main differences.

Achievement Goals

An AG is a goal where you are supposed to complete something with a specific result. Let’s say you want to get an A on a test, or run 100 meters in less than 14 seconds. Complete 45 calls during one day or Getting to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Even getting that promotion is an achievement goal.

Learning Goals

The most common thing to do to recognize a learning goal, is that you can put “I want to become better at…” in front of the rest of the sentence. I want to become a better soccer player. I want to become better at speaking French. I want to improve my ability to lead. I want to be the best possible chess player. These goals are not limited to time and progress; you will be on track as long as you continue to improve.

Combine for Optimal Power

If you set your ambitions as learning goals, you will be able to supply with achievement goals to keep learning. If you want to become better at speaking a foreign language;

 “I want to become as good as possible at speaking Spanish” – Learning Goal

“I first need to attend a beginners class within the next few months” – Achievement Goal

“I need to practice speaking Spanish as often as possible” – Learning Goal

“I want to visit Spain for a month to improve my language within next summer” – Achievement Goal

“I need to buy an online Spanish class” – Achievement Goal

You will keep adding small achievement goals as you go along to keep improving your learning goals.

How to use this at work?

Identify how you can implement learning goals. “I want to be the best salesperson possible”, “I want to know as much about web design as possible”, “I want to keep learning more about call center strategies”, “I want to be the best possible leader” – These goals does not limit you to your current job. It does not limit you to a certain promotion. It will make a pathway as you keep evolving. My learning goal is: “To be the best possible leader”- I will continue to chase learning opportunities within or outside the company. Where I work is not important. I might need to get more education (Achievement goal) or attend a class (achievement goal) or read books (achievement goal) to support my long life learning goal.

I hope you find this useful when you determine your goals.

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