Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Mr. Howard Khoo, CEO and Executive Director of the Hing Yiap Group of Companies, a public listed company in the business of lifestyle fashion and F&B. The title of his talk was " Shuffling Family, Work & Play".
Among the many points shared by him on how he balances family, work and play, one particular message stood out very prominently. He owed his successes to the family values which have shaped the lives of his family members over the generations. He shared with the participants of how the values of sharing, caring, diligence, respect, tolerance, patience and risk taking were inculcated among the young and younger ones by his grandmother, parents, uncles and aunts through their respective beliefs, words, deeds and actions. Likewise, his children are now being exposed to and instilled with the same set of family values by his own unique way of incorporating these values while on business cum holiday trips and participating in sports activities.
We have witnessed and still witnessing how decades old corporate giants had fallen like bowling pins and consigned to the corporate scrapbooks. Many experts have put forwarded several plausible reasons for these modern day corporate failures. The absence of integrity and the presence of unsatiated monetary greed and unethical business practices have been singled out to be the principal causes.
If the researchers were to go back into the genesis of each of these fallen giants, they would have uncover the corporate principles, values and business practices of these organizations laid down by their respective founding fathers based on their own family values. It is not wrong to say that family values form the bedrock of corporate values. However, when these organizations grew by leaps and bounds over the years, professional managers were hired to lead and run the businesses with the founding family members taking a back seat.
As these professional managers were rewarded based on the level of corporate performance, they would have thrown caution to the wind and took extreme risks in the pursuit of corporate and also personal successes. Along the way, someone somehow lost his/her moral compass and whatever espoused corporate values stay at lip-service level with no inkling of the original intention of those values.
To me, this undesirable situation can be avoided if the affected corporations had put in place a set of values-based core competencies to be demonstrated by all levels of employee at all times.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Competency + Attitude = Extraordinary Performance
In a special seminar last Saturday, I had the benefit of listening to Ms Helen Seibt, founder of the IDC Group of Companies (www.idc-training.com) which is involved in a wide range of businesses covering training, engineering, plant technology, bio-degradable products and flora and fauna. During her talk entitled "Attitude is Everything", she shared with the participants on how she overcome all odds and barriers to transform IDC to what is it today.
Eleven years ago, when she first set up IDC as a language training centre, her business income was not enough even to cover the monthly rentals. The Asian financial crisis in 1997 had caused the East Asian economies to go into a recession. However, seeing the strong determination to succeed of a young enterprising businesswoman, the shoplot owner allowed her to be in arrears. This opportunity enabled her to continue until business conditions improved later on. Today, IDC occupies two adjoining business units in the Amcorp Trade Centre in the city of Petaling Jaya. The lesson learned here is that "It's not about the choice you made but the chance you take!"
Helen is an avid backpacker and despite her busy business schedule, she could still find time to go off alone to somewhere to learn and experience life. Her toughest expedition was when she embarked on a journey to Tibet and then to the Mount Everest Base Camp. Without any specialized training nor any idea of how difficult the journey would be like, she managed to reach her destination within 10 days. The lesson learnt here is that "Attitude conquers altitude".
Where does Helen get her strong desire to achieve and the determination to succeed in both her personal and professional life? The secret of her success lies in the application of techniques pioneered by Success Motivation International, USA (SMI) which she learned through the SMI's programs of "Dynamics of Successful Management" and "Attitude is Everything". With Helen as an ardent believer and practitioner of SMI techniques, therefore it is no wonder that IDC holds the sole rights to represent SMI and markets its programs in Malaysia.
In competency management, Helen possesses the core competencies of achievement-orientation, continuous learning, and goal-orientation. A person who has knowledge and skills is not enough as that person is only technically competent to do a job. For the same person to perform excellently and achieves extraordinary things, that person has to also have the right positive attitude and behaviors too.
In short, Competency + Attitude = Extraordinary Performance.
Eleven years ago, when she first set up IDC as a language training centre, her business income was not enough even to cover the monthly rentals. The Asian financial crisis in 1997 had caused the East Asian economies to go into a recession. However, seeing the strong determination to succeed of a young enterprising businesswoman, the shoplot owner allowed her to be in arrears. This opportunity enabled her to continue until business conditions improved later on. Today, IDC occupies two adjoining business units in the Amcorp Trade Centre in the city of Petaling Jaya. The lesson learned here is that "It's not about the choice you made but the chance you take!"
Helen is an avid backpacker and despite her busy business schedule, she could still find time to go off alone to somewhere to learn and experience life. Her toughest expedition was when she embarked on a journey to Tibet and then to the Mount Everest Base Camp. Without any specialized training nor any idea of how difficult the journey would be like, she managed to reach her destination within 10 days. The lesson learnt here is that "Attitude conquers altitude".
Where does Helen get her strong desire to achieve and the determination to succeed in both her personal and professional life? The secret of her success lies in the application of techniques pioneered by Success Motivation International, USA (SMI) which she learned through the SMI's programs of "Dynamics of Successful Management" and "Attitude is Everything". With Helen as an ardent believer and practitioner of SMI techniques, therefore it is no wonder that IDC holds the sole rights to represent SMI and markets its programs in Malaysia.
In competency management, Helen possesses the core competencies of achievement-orientation, continuous learning, and goal-orientation. A person who has knowledge and skills is not enough as that person is only technically competent to do a job. For the same person to perform excellently and achieves extraordinary things, that person has to also have the right positive attitude and behaviors too.
In short, Competency + Attitude = Extraordinary Performance.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Dealing With Under-performing Employees
In every organization, we can identify three categories of employees based on their level of work performance. The first category consists of the A players or star performers and they represent a minority group making up to 5% of the total staff strength. The second group which forms the bulk is the B players or core players. Research has shown that about 90% of employees fall into this group. The remaining 5% of the employees are the C players or the under-performers who aren’t meeting their established goals.
Under-performing employees are not unqualified or incapable people. Today's A or B players can become tomorrow's C players. The causes of under-performance may be due to a lack of competencies, mis-match into a job role, ineffective management, lack of commitment and/or poor communications, or purely personal problems.
Let's take a look at the case of Johari, a senior researcher in a premier R&D institute. Johari holds a PhD in economics from a well known foreign university and worked as a lecturer in a local university. He was then headhunted to join the policy research unit of his present employer. As a senior researcher, his new job required him to develop a knowledge-based economic model for purposes of national development planning. During the first two years, he worked very hard and put in a lot of time and effort to emerge as a star performer.
However, things changed in his third year of service. Due to frequent changes in strategic directions, his organization went through a series of restructuring and reorganization. The policy research unit where Johari worked in was disbanded and its staff redeployed to other departments within the organization. Johari himself was first assigned to the Corporate Strategic Planning but subsequently, he was posted to two other departments i.e. Market Development and Product Commercialisation respectively within a span of 3 years.
During these times, Johari's work performance suffered and deteriorated year after year. Johari found himself trapped in a vicious cycle of decreasing morale, low motivation and non-performance. From a star performer, Johari became a C player shunned by almost all department heads and colleagues. Management was on the verge of a decision to terminate his service with the organization.
Meanwhile, the Corporate HR Division introduced a new performance management initiative known as the Employee Performance Improvement Program(EPIP). The EPIP aims to offer those non-performing employees a second chance to improve their work performance with the guidance of an external performance coach within a mutually agreed time duration. Johari was one of those non-performers recommended and he also agreed to be put under the EPIP.
The first two months were very challenging indeed for both Johari and his performance coach. However, once trust was established, Johari opened up and shared his problems, both personal and professional with his coach. Having understood exactly the causes of Johari's poor performance over the years, a specially designed work program with specific goals, deliverables and timelines were drawn up by his coach with agreement from top management.
After 3 months, there was a marked improvement in Johari's performance. His morale and motivation were up. The last I heard about Johari was that he is now back in the mainstream of things. Obviously, he has resurrected his career from a C player to become a B player and begins to contribute positively to his organization in a different capacity. It will take some time for him to become an A player again. In most situations, not many C players are as fortunate as Johari.
Dealing with under-performing employees is a tough challenge for the direct superior of the under-performer. Apart from having to deal with several team issues, they have to handle the difficulties in achieving performance targets and yet at the same time, thinking of how to retain the A players. Most managers or supervisors often take the easy way out by firing the C players with dire consequences to the organization with damages taking the form of future recruitment costs, termination benefits, or prolonged industrial court cases and hefty compensations.
Most of the times, what is really needed is just an external person to converse and coach the under-performing employees. However, at other times, when the organization has no choice but to let the under-performer go, then do so in a manner that allows the person to keep his/her dignity.
Under-performing employees are not unqualified or incapable people. Today's A or B players can become tomorrow's C players. The causes of under-performance may be due to a lack of competencies, mis-match into a job role, ineffective management, lack of commitment and/or poor communications, or purely personal problems.
Let's take a look at the case of Johari, a senior researcher in a premier R&D institute. Johari holds a PhD in economics from a well known foreign university and worked as a lecturer in a local university. He was then headhunted to join the policy research unit of his present employer. As a senior researcher, his new job required him to develop a knowledge-based economic model for purposes of national development planning. During the first two years, he worked very hard and put in a lot of time and effort to emerge as a star performer.
However, things changed in his third year of service. Due to frequent changes in strategic directions, his organization went through a series of restructuring and reorganization. The policy research unit where Johari worked in was disbanded and its staff redeployed to other departments within the organization. Johari himself was first assigned to the Corporate Strategic Planning but subsequently, he was posted to two other departments i.e. Market Development and Product Commercialisation respectively within a span of 3 years.
During these times, Johari's work performance suffered and deteriorated year after year. Johari found himself trapped in a vicious cycle of decreasing morale, low motivation and non-performance. From a star performer, Johari became a C player shunned by almost all department heads and colleagues. Management was on the verge of a decision to terminate his service with the organization.
Meanwhile, the Corporate HR Division introduced a new performance management initiative known as the Employee Performance Improvement Program(EPIP). The EPIP aims to offer those non-performing employees a second chance to improve their work performance with the guidance of an external performance coach within a mutually agreed time duration. Johari was one of those non-performers recommended and he also agreed to be put under the EPIP.
The first two months were very challenging indeed for both Johari and his performance coach. However, once trust was established, Johari opened up and shared his problems, both personal and professional with his coach. Having understood exactly the causes of Johari's poor performance over the years, a specially designed work program with specific goals, deliverables and timelines were drawn up by his coach with agreement from top management.
After 3 months, there was a marked improvement in Johari's performance. His morale and motivation were up. The last I heard about Johari was that he is now back in the mainstream of things. Obviously, he has resurrected his career from a C player to become a B player and begins to contribute positively to his organization in a different capacity. It will take some time for him to become an A player again. In most situations, not many C players are as fortunate as Johari.
Dealing with under-performing employees is a tough challenge for the direct superior of the under-performer. Apart from having to deal with several team issues, they have to handle the difficulties in achieving performance targets and yet at the same time, thinking of how to retain the A players. Most managers or supervisors often take the easy way out by firing the C players with dire consequences to the organization with damages taking the form of future recruitment costs, termination benefits, or prolonged industrial court cases and hefty compensations.
Most of the times, what is really needed is just an external person to converse and coach the under-performing employees. However, at other times, when the organization has no choice but to let the under-performer go, then do so in a manner that allows the person to keep his/her dignity.
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