Objective Subjectivity

 (Image source) So we've moved away from moderation in performance appraisal in our organization. Over the years moderation seemed the best though not always perfect way to grade performance of people. It made sense to rank people with relative performance levels. There was a bell curve to be followed forcing supervisors to push people in defined performance bands. However, the most difficult part was to push people in lowest performance bands. It was imperative that we identify the top performers and the worst performers. Not every supervisor was able to…

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Firing is Easy

We mostly hear how hard it is to give negative feedback and fire people. I have been wondering about this. Yes giving negative feedback is hard and firing people is harder. However come to think of it, actually this is a easiest thing. We are all critical of others and so giving negative feedback comes naturally. We more often than not, find it easier to find mistakes rather than appreciate what's going on well. And if a subordinate isn't working out, firing is an easy way out. The work pressures…

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Would You Fire Your Best Performer?

Sanjay is a great team leader aspiring to be a manager. He has shown good results in the projects he has handled. He has shown willingness to go the extra mile in the tasks assigned. He has been constantly told he is a great performer and the company would not like to lose a great team leader. Regular feedback and company awards have made him proud and self confident. However he has had some issues in his ability to handle larger projects and teams. His view of the industry is…

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5 Reasons Why You are Not Being Promoted

I came across Dan McCarthy’s blog recently. Dan is a practitioner in the field of leadership development for over 20 years and is currently the Manager of Leadership and Management Development at a Fortune "Great Place to Work", "Training Top 125", and "High Impact Learning" (HILO 80) company. He has a great blog on leadership that I would encourage you to subscribe to. Dan wrote a great post Head’s Up – You are About to be Promoted or Fired where he shares why you might get promoted or fired. I…

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Case Study: First Amongst Equals

In my second case study, we look at a situation when one of the peers is expected to take on the leadership position amongst the team. Looking forward to your responses to learn what we can do in situations like these.   A meeting alert window popped up on Ajay’s computer reminding him of his meeting with Sangeeta, his boss. He clicked the snooze button and continued making last minutes changes to the spreadsheet he was working on. He was compiling performance data for his team that would be discussed…

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The Case of Unreliable Genius

I am starting a case study series. I present a case and hope that we can learn from each other’s responses.   Sanjay walked into Priya office agitated. Without waiting for Priya to get off the phone completely he started, “Boss, Nitin hasn’t come to office again today, and he is not taking any calls either. How can I complete the project like this?” Priya tried to calm him down. “Slow down. What happened?” “You know how Nitin is. He wasn’t in office most of last week and today again…

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Academic Results vs. Workplace performance

Is there a correlation between academic results and workplace performance? Any research or pointers to this subject?I am faced with a situation to try and solve the talent acquisition challenge for large IT organizations in India. One of the challenges is that for hiring fresh graduates, large IT organization work with a certain cut off marks (60%) in graduation. However I believe that this cut off is hampering their ability to tap into a large pool of talent who might do the job equally well. I would interested in hearing…

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