rober's blog
is time to close the accounts from 2007. Companies measure their results, evaluate the fulfilment of their annual operative programms, and based on it, fix the objectives. But the performance evaluation doesn´t only take on “what” has been reached, also analyzes “how”. I would like to talk about the second one.
The “how”, is based on values, which are given by responsables and collaborators. The passed year is summarized and commented. Let´s think about a scale from 1 to 10 to measure these values. Based on this, we will find two different ways to do the things.
On one hand the ones who like to evaluate with a 10 to all the team, as a way of avoiding conflicts and not getting too involved. On the other hand the strict ones, evaluating based on observed behaviours along the whole year.
Both ways are very different. My opinion?. Well, 10 is directly connected with the cowardice and the irresponsibility. By giving a 10, we are not doing any favour, and we will be only sending wrong messages which don´t help anyone to improve, promoting just self-satisfaction, comfort, absence of critics, lack of achievements, and, sumarizing, it means that we haven´t spent a single minute during the whole year to analyze our team, which is the best feedback for the team to get better. Or even worse, this situation could be the consequence of being afraid about saying “ugly” things telling just the “beautiful” ones. My question is, would you do the same to educate your kids?. I hope the answer will be not, if not, we all know what the result is.
I´d rather choose the courageous leader, the one who observes, generous to the team, promoting everyday´s improvement, involved in our professional development. These are the leaders of the future, the ones who every company need. Only through them we will make great places to work.
A new policy has been implemented in Google promoting engeneers to spend 20% of their working hours (one day a week) developing self-interest projects. Some of the newest services in Google, like Gmail, Google News, Orkut and AdSense are a consequence of own initiative projects. Marisa Mayer, vice-president for New Products and User Experiences, said that half of the new products come from this 20% of the working hours.
Thinking about this policy, I find it great for being a perfect synthesis between the firms and the Y generation needs. According to José Ramón Pin Arboledas, teacher in the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE), the Y generation enphasize personal over professional life, and looks for a personal career: ”Companies looking for loyal Y generaltion talents, must be opened to both interests”. In the engagements field, Monserrat Ventosa, general director of Great Place to Work Institute in Spain, says: “They don´t understand the effort as a sacrifice, they do it as improvement and self demand, so their compromise and implication are different than the previous generations ones. It doesn´t mean that they are not involved, just that it´s not a sacrifice as it is for the X generation and others before. Still, is true that they show low tolerance to face frustration, which requires more support”.
Reading about these caracteristics that define the Y generation, makes me think about the originality of the 80/20 Rule in Google. They have been able to satisfy the needs of new generations through a policy based on the win-win. The employee feels professional and personally fulfilled, feeling his/her job like something flexible, which make personal and professional interests compatible. At the same time feels involved with the company, compromised based on improvement and demand, and not on sacrifice. On the other hand, the company also gets favoured. According to Fortune, Google is the best company to work in the world, and its value increases in a much higher grade than the averaged revaluation for the world stock markets indicators.
I applaud Google for having adapted the social requirements for the company ones, and for making of it a tool for growing and rentability.
Once upon a time a giant, who usually took rest in a nice peaceful field. But one day a group of kids arrived and started playing and laughing around, disturbing the giant´s nap. Children loved that place and went there everyday, until the desperated giant started thinking what to do to recover his rest place ...
Tired of not to sleep he went and suggested them a deal. “ I love your company, actually I love you to play here, is a privilege for me, and for that reason, I will pay you 3 euros each, everytime you come and play here”. The kids couldn´t believe such a generous attitude and happy took it...get money just for playing? ... how not?. The next day, they spent they whole afternoon playing there and the giant gave them 3 euros each as agreed.
The second day the kids were playing again, but that day, at the end of the game, the giant told them that 3 euros was a bit too much for him, he would be able to pay only 2 euros. Some of them didn´t like the idea but still, found it fair. The day after, the same thing happened, but the were offered only 1 euro. The kids, after long discussions, still found it interesting. The fourth day, the giant sit with them and told the group that, unfortunately he had not enough money and he couldn´t any longer pay them for playing there. At that point, the group got so disapointed that decided not to play there anymore. The giant recovered his place and could rest there again.
Moral: Kids liked to play there, and when the giant put a price to it, to play there, moved into a second place. The main goal then, was the money.
Things which move us can change if we forget the reason why we do them, and in that operation the loss is usually higher than the profits. Let´s always be clear on our motivations keeping them on mind when making decissions.
there is an automatic association between Walt Disney and fairy tales, where everything is beautiful, like in a wonders world. Sometimes, analyzing people´s motivation at work, it comes to my mind.
A good friend of mine usually says “motivation is an equation with lots of unknowns”. In each case, those unknows will be solved with different factors: salary, training, conciliation, career development, our boss, our colleagues, ... and an endless number of variables which mostly depend on individual evaluations. Once these conditions have been fulfilled we feel satisfied, but this satifaction will have an expiring date. When it arrives the human mind will start ignoring them and overestimating the ones that are not filled, even the ones that before were meaningless. Slowly these conditions will stand out from the rest and we will behave less implicated, less motivated, believing that the company owes us something else. A positive view is turning into something negative.
On that point, is were I apply my theory of the “Walt Disney effect”. We were living a situation where most of the unknowns in the equation were filled, and suddenly we are living in “hell”.
We have been overcame by boredom, comformism, apathy, burocracy, ...We have became bourgeois, unpleasant, indifferent ... And now, what? Will we remember our origin or just keep thinking that we are in “hell”?. It´s a personal choice. Up to you!!!. Choose the right one!!!.
Let´s think about a daily situation. We are driving and suddenly we do some manoeuvre which annoys another driver. Inmediatly, he/she blows the horn and insults us. We have two possible reactions: replying in the same way, insulting and believing that it´s the other driver´s fault. His/her answer is not going to be kind… and the vicious circle begins, both drivers start an endless argument. We will only get a huge anger, stress and nerves. The second reaction would be assuming that our behaviour wasn´t appropriate and kindly excusing it. Most likely, the reaction of the driver will be playing down its importance and both will try to find the best solution.
Often, we´ll meet people asking themselves: Why do things never run well for me? Why can´t I develope my career?...and their answer usually is “…I´m so unlucky” or “…people are so foolish that they cannot see how much I can contribute”. Looking for similarities with the situation from the first paragraph is easy to identify the first reaction with the kind of person mentioned above.
For multiple reasons, things not always happen as we want or expect from the begining. In this situation demotivation, discouragement and low performance appear. We start feeling we are offered an unfair treatment, which will drive us to the vicious circle again. We are part of a ring where our low profile will impede our boss to find on us what they expect to, our contribution to the day by day, and it curbs our professional growth. To face it, we reply with more dejection until the situation becomes unbearable and the relationship is broken. Very often in this case, we blame at the others.
The other way to do the things is not believing that everything we do is right, that we never get wrong, or that the company doesn´t appreciate us enough. We must distrust ourselves, our behaviours, our job, and find the way to improve everyday. If still, our contribution is not taken into consideration and our career development is being curbed we have to analyse why and repare it. In this scenario the change comes from inside. We should give many reasons to led the others into trusting us. And if after this, the things are not in favour, we must keep the optimism not letting the discouragement beat our capacity and show the symptoms of the ´destruction´circle. Nobody will say that we haven´t worked hard, fighted and over all, we will be sure everything in our hand was done.
In this way will happen the second option shown in the example at the beggining of this article, and things will follow the right way. We will see that if we make a mistake we can rectify, that we can learn from mistakes and that `difficult´ moments many times depend of us.
Summarazing, I would reconmend everyone to think if we are in or out the vicious circle of behaviours.
