Executive Performance -- Who's to Blame for Incompetent Managers?

Written by Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler


A recent article inrepparttar Wall Street Journal raisedrepparttar 135292 question: Who’s to blame for inept managers?

The answer, of course, isrepparttar 135293 superiors who hire or promote them -- but not because they intentionally select or retain poor performers. Every leader knows that his or her own success depends on puttingrepparttar 135294 right people inrepparttar 135295 right positions. It’s easy to blame a manager’s poor performance on his or her boss, but more often than not, managerial incompetence isn’t obvious to superiors. Instead, fault lies withrepparttar 135296 systems used for evaluation andrepparttar 135297 alternatives available for dealing with performance failure.

Despite their widespread popularity, standard 360 evaluations and psychometric tests are poor substitutes for informed, thorough evaluation. Standardized assessments and tests are promoted as rapid, economical alternatives for determining competence and assessing performance. Consultants and salespeople alike tout them for their objectivity and accuracy.

In reality,repparttar 135298 typical 360 evaluation is far from objective. How can a group of very different people, with very different relationships torepparttar 135299 subject and very different priorities, be expected to evaluate an individual professionally and objectively?

Additionally, reliance on these measures can cause you to miss crucial information about how senior executives and managers think and how they relate to others on a day-to-day basis — factors that can make or break your organization’s ability to perform. While 360s can appear relatively cheap and quick to implement, a poor evaluation system can have very expensive repercussions.

The second problem isrepparttar 135300 alternatives available for floundering executives. “Cutting poor performers loose” is a lose-lose proposition as a first-line response. Ifrepparttar 135301 alternative is firing, superiors may be reluctant to acknowledge a problem and even colleagues and subordinates might shrink from responsibility for destroying a career. When alternatives, such as a different position or behavioral coaching are available, problems are much more likely to be identified early on.

Allan Kempert Discovered That Truly All You Gotta Do Is Ask.

Written by Chuck Yorke


A year or so ago, I met Allan Kempert. Allan wasrepparttar Quality Assurance Supervisor for a metal stamping company in Ontario, and just completed Norman Bodek’s book, The Idea Generator, Quick and Easy Kaizen. As Allan explains, he couldn’t putrepparttar 134938 book down because it was such a simple approach and he knew that it was going to empowerrepparttar 134939 employees at his place of employment. In fact, Allan had tears in his eyes a few times while readingrepparttar 134940 book because he realized that he had come across a jewel. He spoke torepparttar 134941 people in his department and explained howrepparttar 134942 program worked. He convinced them that it would be beneficial torepparttar 134943 company to start a pilot program within their department.

Upon completion ofrepparttar 134944 book, Allan set up an appointment with me and proceeded to convincerepparttar 134945 President and Vice-President of his company that they needed to accompany him to see how another company had implementedrepparttar 134946 process. Allan’s theory is, “learn fromrepparttar 134947 mistakes of others because we don’t have allrepparttar 134948 time inrepparttar 134949 world to make them ourselves.”

Each department inrepparttar 134950 company had a leader inrepparttar 134951 program; a team of 12 people was assembled to look at problems with traditional suggestion programs, causes and solutions. The solutions were based on Quick & Easy Kaizen and conversations between Allan and me. Allan would implement an idea system, where people implement their own ideas. This is a distinction he makes from a suggestion system, where ideas are usually submitted to a committee who either transfers it to a department to review or killsrepparttar 134952 idea. Everyone inrepparttar 134953 company was trained torepparttar 134954 new IDEAS program. In fact,repparttar 134955 training involved encouraging people to put forward IDEAS duringrepparttar 134956 training session. This resulted in over 100 Ideas from 104 employees byrepparttar 134957 end of training.

The team conducted an effectiveness review. They developed questions and asked participants inrepparttar 134958 program as well as non-participants questions pertaining torepparttar 134959 program. This helped to improverepparttar 134960 program. What really stood out torepparttar 134961 team is that by asking people to make their jobs easier, which wasrepparttar 134962 main focus atrepparttar 134963 onset ofrepparttar 134964 program, people commented that they felt empowered, listened to, like someone cared, happy about coming to work etc. The team also noted thatrepparttar 134965 IDEAS coming in were related to not only making people’s jobs easier but were also related to safety, set-up, 5S and cost savings. Allan likes to point to a statement that explains this. Mahatma Gandhi stated, "take care ofrepparttar 134966 MEANS andrepparttar 134967 ENDS will take care of themselves".

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