Real communication is a product of trust, yet most of the performance review and evaluation systems used in organisations today create mistrust, rues Ken Blanchard in ‘The Heart of a Leader’ (www.jaicobooks.com). The problem is with the ‘normal distribution mentality’ that insists there must always be winners and losers, the author finds.
“That has never made sense to me. No organisation makes a habit of hiring losers! You either hire winners (people you already know are good performers) or potential winners (people you think can become good performers). So why would you ever sort your people out into a normal distribution?”
Blanchard, therefore, tells managers that their job is to bring out the employees’ magnificence. Find ways to convince your people that you see them all as either winners or potential winners and that you mean them no harm, he urges. “When you do, you will find that communication within your organisation is greatly enhanced.” For, real communication happens when people feel safe.
Empower your people but don’t forget the need for boundaries, instructs another chapter in the book. “If you cut them loose without any direction, they will get lost and revert back to their old unempowered habits.”
A river without banks is a large puddle, reads a poster-able thought in the chapter. Like the banks of a river, boundaries have the ability to channel energy in the right direction, Blanchard analogises. “If you take away the boundaries, your people will lose their momentum and direction.”
People in organisations need to develop a fascination for what doesn’t work, he says. A simple observation, in this context, is to look around in your company when a mistake is made: ‘What’s the first question asked? ‘What can we learn?’ or ‘Who is to blame?’.”
The tendency in most organisations is to admonish people for mistakes, and then drive them to cover up errors and hide mistakes. That way, you only move from crisis to crisis, hardly stopping to see what went wrong, the author laments.
“This leads to denial and causes us to look away from errors, rather than toward them – kind of like a golfer who hits a bad drive and doesn’t want to watch as it heads for the woods. A few forward-thinking companies have learned to celebrate mistakes as opportunities for learning.”
Ready takeaways.
