104 Posts Found

A bank redefined the [middle manager] role. They knew the role had become unwieldy, and as they looked into it they found that just by having a direct report, every people manager had 105 tasks to do. Some of these tasks made sense for a manager: performance reviews and coaching. But there were other things, like simple approvals of credit cards or expense reports, that … [ Read more ]

Authors: Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock, Emily Field | Source: “The future of middle management” | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Ask new employees to keep a diary of observations from each meeting and each day during their early employment period. Then set up a time for them to make a presentation to you, or perhaps you and your leadership team, about what they’ve learned, what didn’t make sense, what they have seen done differently in previous jobs, and so on. This gives the new person … [ Read more ]

Author: Ron Ashkenas | Source: “Is Bad Onboarding Stifling Your New Senior Leaders?” | Original Publication: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Access to social capital is a sticking point for employees… To increase access, business leaders must first understand who has it—and who doesn’t. Advanced analytics can make it easier than it’s ever been to provide that understanding.

One electronics company, for instance, is using HR, facilities, and operations metadata (calendar invitations, email, HR information systems, and so on) and advanced analytics to map knowledge flows and … [ Read more ]

Authors: Bill Schaninger, Brooke Weddle, John Parsons, Taylor Lauricella | Source: “Network effects: How to rebuild social capital and improve corporate performance” | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Acknowledging emotions and understanding how individual factors influence change aversion may be as important as factors inherent to the initiative itself. Yet we find that leaders often miss this critical component. Identify ways to capture how people are feeling and coping before, during, and after a change program. Building the institutional muscle to gain real-time insight into employees’ emotions through pulse checks and manager check-ins … [ Read more ]

Authors: Adriann Negreros, Julia Dhar, Martin Reeves | Source: “How Change Aversion Can Derail a Transformation” | Original Publication: Boston Consulting Group | Subjects: Change Management, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior | Company: Ubiquity Retirement + Savings

Google appears to have discovered a way to pay people for being helpful without making it transactional. The company invites employees to nominate colleagues who have been helpful to receive small cash rewards. By making the rewards a product of peer nomination, Google converts a cash payment into a symbol of appreciation. As a result, people are less likely to see the reward as cheapening … [ Read more ]

Authors: Madan Pillutla, Nirmalya Kumar | Source: “Pay for Performance: When Does It Fail?” | Original Publication: Management and Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior | Company: Google

Social influence is particularly potent in group settings, so teams must proactively manage it in meetings. “There’s a fine line between the wisdom of crowds, where groups make better decisions than individuals, and groupthink, where individuals blindly follow a prevailing opinion,” says Jonah Berger. “Someone suggests doing X, and the next person, who might’ve been thinking of Y, will tend to go with X as … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonah Berger | Source: “The Goldilocks Effect and How to Harness Social Influence” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Sharing bad news—top-down, bottom-up, and across the organization—has a number of salutary effects beyond the obvious benefits of transparency. It can elicit empathy and support, break down barriers, and expand the pool of contributors to problem solving. Energy otherwise spent saving face can be channeled into more constructive use. The net result is not just top-down, bottom-up alignment, but stronger horizontal alignment. As with the … [ Read more ]

Authors: Deborah Lovich, Henning Streubel, Joseph Halverson, Robert Werner | Source: “When Leaders Say They Are Aligned—But Aren’t” | Original Publication: Boston Consulting Group | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Whether they’re stepping into an existing pair of shoes or carving out a brand-new role, new leaders often face a dose of skepticism from the org. “Whether we intend it or not, a lot of people have a wait-and-see approach. We’re excited about them, but is this going to work out? Versus having a vested interest in helping make that person successful,” says Anne Raimondi, … [ Read more ]

Author: Anne Raimondi | Source: “The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2021” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Performance reviews tend to be more heavily weighted to focus downward. (“I’m your manager, and here is what I think of your performance.”) There may be some mechanism for subordinates to provide feedback upward, but it often doesn’t carry the same importance. And that’s how bad bosses often stay in their roles.

One example of an effective model comes from Aron Ain, the CEO of Ultimate … [ Read more ]

Authors: Adam Bryant, Aron Ain | Source: “Do you manage up or down?” | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG)

There’s some debate over the best way to do exit interviews and how valuable they are. But there’s one kind of interview that most organizations fail to do — stay conversations. The concept is simple: Identify your top performers who you hope will stay with you the longest, and ask them why they stay. They may say things like:

• “I have the best manager I’ve ever

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Nate Dvorak, Ryan Pendell | Source: “Culture Wins When You Listen to Your Top Performers” | Original Publication: Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Jean-Denis Grezè has seen time and time again that small gestures can have an outsized impact. “I’m a big believer in incentives that align with the culture and values. A funny one that people don’t realize can be super helpful is creating tokens — objects that you reward for a specific behavior,” he says. “You can create a subculture around a new value. Humans … [ Read more ]

Author: Jean-Denis Grezè | Source: “How to Build a Culture of Ownership and Other Engineering Leadership Tips from Plaid & Dropbox” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: Plaid

“We celebrated mistakes at a management gathering with 1,000 people in the room. A manager would get up and say why the environmentally sensitive light bulb or whatever it was…had failed…Then we’d give them $1,000 or a TV or something, depending on the scale of the thing. The point was to share the learning and get smarter as an organization.” — Jack Welch

Author: Jack Welch | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

Molly Graham does a look back, look forward every month or two, or at the end of a project — whatever milestone that makes the most sense for an employee’s role. She asks them to look back on a project that they just finished and run through these questions:

Look back:

• What did you like about that? What felt good?
• What did you hate about it?

… [ Read more ]

Author: Molly Graham | Source: “6 Counterintuitive Rules for Being a Better Manager — Advice from Lambda School Quip & Facebook” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

But people still leave. Some want to try other things at other companies, or the fit isn’t right, so we have to let them go. It’s the natural cycle of business.

What’s never been natural at companies, though, is how these departures are handled. So at Basecamp we’ve created a ritual for when someone leaves: We tell everyone in the company why. Not just that person’s team, … [ Read more ]

Author: Jason Fried | Source: “The Best Way to Tell Employees When You’ve Fired Someone” | Original Publication: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: Basecamp

Keep highly visible scoreboards, big thermometers (as in a fund-raising campaign), bulletin boards, Intranet sites, voice mail messages and newsletters to update everyone on progress toward key goals or change and improvement targets. Make goals/targets and progress as visible as possible.

Author: Jim Clemmer | Source: “Team Spirit Built from the Top” | Original Publication: The CLEMMER Group | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Studies show that encouraging and supporting staff to get involved in the community is a great way to motivate employees and increase team spirit. But instead of sending folks out on their own to volunteer, take your team out for a day to support a local group. This builds collaboration and a sense of respect and accomplishment.

Author: Jim Jenkins | Source: “Cost-Effective Team Building Exercises” | Original Publication: The CEO Refresher | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Larry Prusak, a former IBM executive who is now scholar in residence at Babson College, notes that some firms are consciously enforcing cooperative social norms. “Firms that encouraged opportunistic behavior and that thought performative ties were just ‘soft stuff’ have not done well,” he says, adding that companies can encourage cooperative behavior in two ways. “First, signals and symbols are important. If a firm promotes … [ Read more ]

Authors: Jack Welch, Larry Prusak | Source: “Do Talk to Strangers: Encouraging Performative Ties to Create Competitive Advantage” | Original Publication: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Jay Desai has FOMU. As a first-time founder and CEO of health technology startup PatientPing, he’s got a healthy fear of messing up. This anxiety especially bubbles to the surface when it has to do with his team — now over 100 employees — and particularly the seven who report directly to him. He’s seen too many immensely talented and productive teams stall because of … [ Read more ]

Author: Jay Desai | Source: “The Indispensable Document for the Modern Manager” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: PatientPing

In the summer of 2011, Facebook announced it would use the social performance platform Rypple (now part of Salesforce.com) for internal reviews and communications.  Rypple allows employees to create and compete in challenges, receive recognition from colleagues, see what others are working on, and find where needed skills may exist within an organization. But Rypple is not a game. It doesn’t even look like a … [ Read more ]

Author: Doug Palmer | Source: “The engagement economy: How gamification is reshaping businesses” | Original Publication: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior | Companies: Facebook, Rypple

Intermittent “extras” are more powerful than constant bonuses that are predictable. Say that a manager wants to reward employees. A good way to do it is with a lottery system. You could set it up so one would have to maintain some level of performance to be eligible for the lottery. The hope of entering the lottery will keep workers going at a higher level … [ Read more ]

Author: Joseph LeDoux | Source: “Management Wisdom From a Neuroscientist” | Original Publication: Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior