The HOW of Performance Management

The HOW of Performance Management

Managing performance is not achieved in isolation; it is a process that begins at recruitment.  The saying you cannot get blood out of stone rings true here.  Below we will briefly outline what that process looks like.

Recruitment

Identify the skills gaps within your organization.  What skills or competencies do you require that you do not currently have on your team, which will allow you to deliver the key objectives of your business, or your strategic plan and goals?

Ask these questions, have I budgeted for this new position?  Can this position pay for itself? Where will this position fit in the current scheme of things?  What is the Salary range of this position, at what level will this position fit on your organizational chart? 

You need to recruit not only for skills, but knowledge, attitudes and or abilities.  What personality traits would best fit into your current environment?  No point in bringing in someone with the right skill sets yet whose attitude is such that all your good people will be walking out the door or be totally demotivated.  “Job Fit” is very important. Except it is your intention to bring in a butcher.

Orientation

It is not uncommon for us to bring the right people into the job but leave them to their own devises.  No orientation, they do not know what is expected of them; they do not know the values that the organization uphold; they are not given any information on the history of the organization; what their level of autonomy is; what the strategic goals of the organization are, neither are they told how their role fits into the bigger picture and the importance of their contribution to goal achievement and organizational outcomes. Orient your new people right, a critical step in performance management. Establish expectations from the outset.

Setting Standards & Goals

What does success look like?  This is how we will measure your performance. These are the key performance indicators (KPI’s) of the job.  From these measures we will know how you are performing versus our expectations of you in the job.  Have that conversation early.

Monitoring and Feedback

The process of monitoring and providing feedback is an important conversation to have regarding how we manage the performance of our team members.  The conversation should contain these elements. This is our system of monitoring.  You will report every week/month/quarter. We will be open in providing feedback on your performance.  If you have any difficulty or require assistance do not be afraid or hesitate to ask.  I am available for discussion whenever you feed a need to do so.   We have an open door policy here.

Conclusion

This four step process will assist any organization in managing the performance of its team members. It is important to know the position you are about to fill, to determine the competencies that you require and recruit on that basis.  This is where productivity begins; it is about a square peg in a square hole not a square peg in a round hole.

The physical environment, the organization culture, the value systems, continuous training, fair and ongoing feedback, operational systems, fair reward and reprimand, tools and equipment that are well maintained to facilitate the work that needs to be done, how we treat our people are all important ingredients that add up in achieving the level of productivity that we all wish for. How does your company/organization stack up?

Give us a call at 453-1924 or contact us via celestial@candw.lc our service offerings can assist you in meeting your needs.  We are committed to engendering a work environment where productivity becomes the norm. 

THE VALUE OF KNOWING YOUR FAMILY MEDICAL HISTORY

A poster seen at the office of my Ophthalmologists set me thinking on how much these words of advice apply to us as Caribbean people.   And I quote, “If you suffer from an eye disease, there’s a chance your children will too. Talk to your family about their risks.”  

Our generation should now be more aware than the generation before us of the importance of family history in the process of medical diagnosis. How many of us know what ailments our grandparents and Aunts and Uncles meet their demise from. In the past these were carefully guarded family secrets that went to the graves with those who suffered from them. Now,  on any visit to a medical practitioner the first question you are asked is about family history because that plays a significant role in what your medical practitioner is thinking, what he or she will be looking for, narrow the possibilities in terms of what to look for and in some cases preventing them from undertaking unnecessary test if the information was readily available.

There are so many medical issues where genetics and family history plays a great part such as eye disease – glaucoma; heart disease - angina, depression, mental illness, cancer, asthma,  allergies,  lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. My message here is,  let us communicate such information to our family members as this knowledge could make a difference in the quality of care that they receive.  We do not go out and purchase illnesses.  Illness is no respecter of persons in fact it can be considered the great equalizer. Regardless of where you come from your family background, economic circumstances, geographic location we are all susceptible to falling ill.  Let us give the next generation a better chance by keeping them informed.  That information would allow them to take preventative action, watch their diets, adjust their lifestyles and in some instances take better care of themselves physically and mentally.  Knowledge is power; let us give them that power. 

Thecla C. Deterville

THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

We often hear it said that “you cannot get blood our or stone”. One of the business processes that lend truth to this saying is – the recruitment process.  For any organization to meet its goals and objectives it must recruit the right talent and devise strategies to further develop and retain that talent, if deemed necessary.

If one needs to employ a driver one of the first requirements has to be that the individual is a certified driver and possesses a valid Driver’s License.  Let us extend this thinking to any other job position or title. You need an inventory clerk, first competency that comes to mind is numeracy, the ability to count, the ability to write, the ability to read, computer literacy.  What about a Customer Service Representative – that person must be customer centric in essence they must like people.  There are people who do not like people and would be very happy sitting in a back office crunching the numbers and producing intricate reports in a timely manner.  It would be ludicrous to recruit such an individual to sit at the front desk and smile at customers, to attend to their every whim and fancy or be polite and answer when they are spoken to, or to get information because that is what the customer requires at the time.  You get the picture.

Why then do we continue to pay scant or little attention to the recruitment process?  The recruitment process can be particularly expensive it not properly executed.  There are costs involved. These could be advertising, the time it takes to short list, to set up interviews, to make calls to persons to be interviewed, the cost of the members of staff participating in the interview, the work involved after the interview, following up on reference checks, ensuring the authenticity of certificates, contacting successful applicants etc.  After you have incurred all these costs then there is the on- the- job training that has to take place.  If the process was not successfully carried out the result will be early dismissal most times before the end of the probationary period.  And the reason for this is that there was not a job fit. The individual did not meet the requirements necessary to perform the job whether it was lack of knowledge, lack of motivation, poor attitude, or general misfit for the job. Poor job fit could result in more subtle costs, these  would be loss of efficiency, possible poor customer service,  loss of business, unnecessary conflict and demotivation of existing staff,  drop in delivery standards, time and money lost from rework, cost of errors,  It all adds up, every reason why closer attention must be paid to the process of recruitment.  There are also implications for your Performance Management going forward.  These are all implications of a poor recruitment and selection process.   A cost most businesses can ill afford but are not aware of because it is not easily quantified.

It is important that we know the objectives of the job.  What do I want the job holder to do? What is the purpose of this job?   To execute this job at its optimum what are the key skills, knowledge and abilities that the individual must possess. In addition to qualification you need to know what behavioural traits, qualities and values that you require. You must in effect know what competencies are required to effectively perform in that job. After you have undertaken this exercise you are then in a position to begin to identify suitable candidates for the job beginning with your application screening process. You know what you need and what you are looking for.   You line of questioning during the interview must be aligned to these competencies that you require. Questions should not be asked just for their own sakes, but to determine whether the individual possesses the competencies required for the job.  That is why it is important that we use behavioral and situational type interview questions compared to the traditional type questions that were ask in the pass.  The traditional questions have their place but primarily for information gathering purposes such as; what are your salary expectations?  If you were to be offered this position how soon are you available for work? 

The logic behind the use of behavioural questions is, how you behaved in the past will predict how you are likely to behave in the future i.e. past performance predicts future performance.  It is also surmised that behavioural and situational questions are more difficult to rehearse and that candidates are more likely to be truthful in responding to that style of questioning.  You are also able to ask the same question in different ways.  It also provides the interviewer with an opportunity to check for inconsistencies and to determine how the candidate would act in a similar situation.

There is the wrong way and the right way to recruit, to conduct an interview for the purpose of recruitment.  From sourcing candidates through to the interview its self and the post interview activities.  We at Celestial Self Development Centre can help you sharpen these skills and guide you into ensuring that you investment of time and money is worth it.  Contact us to participate in one of our scheduled training sessions or to arrange a customized session for your team members.

We can be reached at celestial@candw.lc; or visit our website at www.celestialsdc.com

Emotional Intelligence Invest in it

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

It is indeed sad when amongst the language used by some Managers and Supervisors we still here the words,  "Do you know who I am, I am the boss, do as I say.”  The world including Saint Lucia has moved from the Industrial Age into the Information/Knowledge Worker Age for quite some time now.  That term was first coined by the renowned Peter F Drucker in 1959. Drucker at the time advised “you cannot lead knowledge workers by telling them what to do.  You must treat them with respect and dignity, and provide opportunities that they would not be able to have on their own”.

We are in an age of enlightenment, a time when changes in the economy, in business, are taking place at such a rapid rate where the business environment is so dynamic.  This environment dictates that one person at the helm cannot do it all. It requires that all hands be on deck. It calls for the collective input of all parties in the workplace and the role of the leader is therefore to develop the tools, knowledge, skills and abilities that will enable him or her to inspire excellence in all team members to bring together the collective abilities of the team in the achievement of the shared goals and objectives of the business.

I would be the first to agree that to get to this state you must first recruit right.  This subject I will deal with in more detail in a future article.  As Leaders, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leaders, we must ask ourselves whether we are interested in engaging the whole person, body, mind and spirit or whether we are interested in pushing and pulling a shell of a person who has left their passion, skills, and talent at the entrance to the building –the  door way - on their way to their desk or place of work.

The aim of management should always be to strive for total employee engagement. We employ people with certain skills and abilities and it is incumbent upon us to ensure that we utilize the competencies of each individual to contribute to the organization achieving it shared goals and objectives.  For these goals to be shared we must get buy-in and we must develop strategies to bring out the best in each individual on our team, in effect to inspire them to do what needs to be done. 

The one size fits all approach is counter productive. We must recognize that as Leaders, Managers or Supervisors we are interacting with different behavioural styles and different personalities. It is therefore important that in addition to the technical skills and know-how that the Manager or Supervisor may possess that the development of people skills is an imperative.  It is about inspired Leadership, to borrow a phrase from Steve Covey.  Regardless of how good you are with strategy, if you do not invest in your people and developing your own people skills you are well on your way to total frustration. Literally knocking your head against a brick wall. 

The level of technical know-how and IQ is important but we must also develop our level of Emotional Intelligence to be effective leaders. Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to identify, assess and control their emotions and the emotions of others. It involves recognizing the meaning of emotions and the ability to reason and problem solve on the basis of the emotions you recognize. 

Although Emotional Intelligence is considered by some to be an inborn characteristic, it has been proven that it can be learnt and strengthened through practice.  The five dimensions of emotional intelligence which we must develop are; 1.  Self-awareness - do you understand yourself, are you aware of your own emotions and how these impact your behavior, your actions and your decision making; 2. Self-Management or Self-Regulation – do you know how to handle your feeling; can you keep calm in stressful situations; can you remain positive under pressure, how flexible are you;  3. Social Skills -  are you able to get along with others regardless of their behavior traits; how good are you at being a team player; can you get along with other regardless of their station in life; can you mix with the pauper as well as the prince; 4. Self-Motivation – Are you able to set your own goals and work towards them; can you persevere regardless of frustrations at home and in the work place; how persistent are you, do you complete tasks; can you determine what needs to be done and just do it;  5 .Empathy -  can you put yourself in someone else’s shoe; how good are you at reading body language – do you understand what you are seeing; can you see thing from another person’s perspective.

At Celestial Self Development Centre we offer a wide range of courses in Leadership and Management. See our website www.celestialsdc.com for our 2014 Training Schedule. Emotional Intelligence, Customer Service and or Customer Experience and Performance Management are amongst our signature courses.  We invite you to give us a call at 453-1924 to determine how we can assist you in developing a dynamic and productive team.

We offer our services in all the OECS Islands. 

Thecla C. Deterville

Managing Director

Celestial Self Development Centre

Sans Souci

P.O. Box 835

Castries, Saint Lucia

Telephone: 758-453-1924

E-mail: celestial@candw.lc

Website: www.celestialsdc.com

MENTORING WALK SAINT LUCIA - March 8, 2014

MENTORING WALK SAINT LUCIA - March 8, 2014

INTRODUCTION

Vital Voices Mentoring Walk 2014 will be held in Saint Lucia for the first time on March 8, 2014.  This initiative is a collaborative effort between Vital Voices Global Partnership and Celestial Self Development Centre. This walk which happens globally will takes place in commemoration of International Women's Day and has been sanctioned by the Department of Gender Relations as part of its activities for International Women’s Day.

On May 27^th to 29^th , 2013 Thecla Deterville, Owner & Managing Director of Celestial Self Development Centre was given an opportunity to moderate a session at the  African Women Trade & Investment Opportunity Conference held in Toronto, Canada. The conference was attended by approximately 300 business women from 12 African Countries and Canada under the theme " The Role of Women in Stimulating the Economy,”.

Later that year she was accepted to participate in a one year long training programme for business women from Latin America and the Caribbean.  23 women from Latin America and 7 from the Caribbean participated.   The Caribbean contingent comprised two from Saint Lucia, one from Guyana, two from Jamaica, one from Haiti, and one from the Dominican Republic. The training is ongoing and applications are now being sought for the 2014-2015 cohot.

Attending these programmes made her realise that there was insufficient collaboration and dialogue amongst business or professional women in her country.  If other women in other regions of the world were getting together to share ideas and experiences why can't we? When she was invited by Vital Voices Global Partnership to be a Flag Bearer for The Mentoring Walk she saw this as an opportunity to begin a much needed conversation between business and professional women and younger women needing to share the experience of their more experienced counterparts.

The objective of Annual Global Mentoring Walk is to convene established women leaders and emerging women leaders to walk together in their community. As they walk, they discuss their professional challenges and successes to establish a mentoring relationship, in which the established leader guides, advises and supports an emerging leader.

The Global Mentoring Walk is an opportunity to highlight the importance of women’s leadership, and to accelerate the impact of women leaders through mentoring.  Mentoring is an activity that empowers women to succeed, both on a local and global scale.

During a Vital Voices training session held in Nicaragua in October last year Thecla Deterville  is quoted as saying, " Our challenges are the same our passion is unstoppable and our desire to pay it forward unsurpassed.” Another Vital Voices Fellow and Flag Bearer from Uganda is quoted as saying" If she walks alone, she will go very fast but if she takes others with her, she will go very far." These two quotes epitomises the spirit and purpose of this Mentoring Walk.

Vital Voices Global Partnership has as its tag line "Invest in women. Improve the world”. This is a call to action, let us invest in each other and build our country. Come join the conversation it began years ago and has been allowed to fade away let us rekindle it, continuing the conversation is long overdue. Feel free to send in your suggestions to Celestial Self Development Centre at celestial@candw.lc to see how together we can keep this flame alive.

For more information on Vital Voices Global Partnership and their other initiatives check their website at www.vitalvoices.org.

Thecla C. Deterville

February 19, 2014

THE CELESTIAL IDENTITY STORY THE IMPORTANCE OF CORPORATE IDENTITY



Sometime during 2012 whilst driving down the Vide Boutielle Highway, I was the most shocked person to see a sign indicating the name of a new business place named CELLESTIAL. Obviously this piqued my curiosity and I immediately made a call to my family members of the legal fraternity who indicated that they would undertake the necessary searches and advise me accordingly. During that time needless to say I had to answer a number of queries e.g. had I moved from my current location at Sans Souci? Had I expanded my business? Had I changed my line of business? As above the word CELLESTIAL was information that indicated that the business was a Regional Communications business, engaged in the production of tablets and cell phones for the local and regional markets.




Some of the callers expressed concern about me not taking what they thought was necessary action as  to their thinking the name was too close to mine and my business had been established before this new  entity. Suffice to say that the research showed that there had been no infringement on my right though my company was legally registered, under the name Celestial Self Development Corporation with a trading name Celestial Self Development Centre. The subtle difference is that the other company is spelt with two LL’s.




 The drama continues. At the recently held Chamber Awards evening I was approached by one of the team members indicating that I was due to be interviewed on the red carpet. She escorted me to the place only to be told when I got there that as a Judge I was not being interviewed. It was only during the ceremony that it dawned on me that since CELLESTIAL was one of the finalists under the Prime Ministers award for Innovative idea the individual thought it was my company. The owner of CELLESTIAL Mr. Benson approached me and said that his staff had insisted that he came across and introduced himself to his name sake. We had a very pleasant conversation and exchanged business cards. He mentioned that he had on three occasions have people wait in his office on the premise that they wanted to see him only to realize that who they thought they were meeting with was me.




The most interesting part of this which helps me highlight the point about the importance of identity was when a call came to my office asking to share how I had been able to get a grant for M$1.2 from Compete Caribbean.  I want to state categorically that Celestial Self Development Centre has not been the recipient of any Grand Funds from any funding agency since its inception in 2008.  I expect that the saga of mistaken identity will continue. It also helps us to appreciate that the name Celestial is associated with our business and we will continue to ensure that we recognize the value of our corporate identity.




Our office continues to receive calls for this company, we receive request for donations of tablets, we receive thank you letters, we even received a request to set up a similar business in Dominica from a Government Department.  We also receive invoices. I had the experience of purchasing paper in person when I got to my office I realized that the invoice prepared for me was written to Cellestial and not to Celestial SDC. My staff have been given a script on how to respond to calls meant for Cellestial.  We continue to clarify the nature of our business.




I have received word that there is some contentious issues connected with Cellestial, in light of the above the case of Mistaken Identity continues as enquiries are being made asking if this refers to Celestial Self Development Centre.  I want to state categorically that my company Celestial Self Development Corporation is duly registered and engaged in business as  Business Consultants and Soft Skills Trainers.  We have a wide client base in both the Private and Public Sectors, we have undertaken consultancies on behalf of Regional and International organizations. We are located at Sans Souci and our services do not involve manufacturing of any type.



Please be advised that Cellestial - Regional Communication Limited, and Celestial Self Development Company are NOT one and the same.  There is no relationship or connection between the two companies one is a manufacturer the other which is owned and operated by Thecla C. Deterville provides services as Business Consultants and Soft Skills Trainers and Facilitators.