September 2008
Email: gcohen@co2partners.com
Dear Just-In Readers;
In Driven, two eminent Harvard professors, Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, identify four core human drives:
- The drive to acquire stems from the basic human instinct to survive. It can be seen in our efforts to gather food, status, and power.
- The drive to bond is based on our need to connect with others for reproduction, social interaction, sharing/trading, and protection from predators.
- The drive to learn allows us to accumulate and transmit knowledge from generation to generation. This is where we develop our beliefs about how the world works or ought to work-ideologies, in other words (something that distinguishes humans from animals).
- The fourth drive, to defend, protects us from environmental risks by encouraging us toward fight or flight. In many ways, it takes into account all the other drives since we are called to defend not only our bodies, but our possessions, power, relationships, knowledge, and ideologies.
While these four drives often work synergistically, one or more can dominate. And, as with values, our drives can come into conflict. If there is limited food after a shipwreck, for instance, would your drive to bond with survivors impel you to share the food, or would your drive to acquire and survive supersede it?
Naturally, our drives are connected to our beliefs, emotions, and physical responses: the ways, in other words, that we experience and process the world. In the heat of battle, for example, the drive to defend kicks in. Because our lives are in danger, we react physiologically and emotionally. Our belief system works at a much slower pace, but it, too, is present. During less stressful times, our beliefs help construct pathways for our emotions and physical responses. As a result, the actions we take are a product of all three: beliefs, emotions, and physical responses. When the battle is over, we may modify our beliefs slightly to incorporate our new experiences. If one or more of your drives dominates, chances are that your beliefs, emotions, and physical responses are unbalanced, too.
Work on balancing all four drives. To be balanced doesn't mean that each drive has an equal and corresponding number of experiences. These drives have an innate desire to be met, however. If you're ignoring one, it bears some investigation and, perhaps, a realignment of your priorities. In the process, you will need to reassess your beliefs, emotions, and physical responses. If you decide you need to bond more, for instance, you might need to alter the way you physically respond to others. In general, give more time and consideration to what drives you and how you experience and process the world. The more you're aware of your tendencies, the more likely you are to avoid unnecessary conflict and engage in rich, meaningful interactions. Encourage this sort of reflective activity from your coworkers, too. Otherwise the adjustment will mostly have to come from you!
How Do You Deal With an Underperforming Employee?
By: Mike Leary
Organizations always have underperforming employees, always. Managers know that some employees are better than others. Dealing with people who in some way are not producing to the expectations of the supervisor can seem like a Sisyphean task. The stress caused in the manager by the inability to get the subordinate to perform to a degree required by the manager is usually due to the fact that a perfect match between a supervisor and his subordinates is impossible. There is frequently a gap between what a manager wants and what the employee delivers.
So how is a manager to deal with the employee who is not producing to the level expected? First must come the recognition that, in the words of Shakespeare, the fault may not lie in our stars but in ourselves. A manager might expect too much. Keep in mind that God did not give all humans the same physical or mental capacity. We expect others to be like us. We want subordinates to be efficient, hard-working, dedicated, smart and productive, just as we are. But those are not always the qualities we see in them. No two of us are from the same mold and none will perform in a work situation exactly as someone else would, and most of us do not suffer fools gladly. All of which means that the manager must be sure that he is not asking too much from the employee that he gages as an underperformer.
True underperformers can be classified in four ways based on the reason for their inadequate performance:
- the unqualified
- the under-challenged
- the misplaced
- the disgruntled
Recognize that these classifications are not mutually exclusive. Any one underperformer may fall into more than one class, but dealing with them separately enables us to determine appropriate courses of action.
The Unqualified
Some people underperform because they do not have the basic skills to perform the duties of the position. People are occasionally get into such positions in several ways. There are times when a manager fails to hire the right employee for the job. At other times the person is transferred or promoted to a position beyond his capabilities. Also, there are times when the job description is changed without recognition by management that some of those assigned to that job function do not have the ability to carry on the new duties.
Irrespective of how the unqualified employee got into the job, the manager must deal with it. There are three ways to approach this situation:
Retraining should always be the first choice. If you can spend a little time and some money to teach the person how to do the job, you will save and employee, you will save some money and you will save the reputation of your organization as a caring employer.
If the person simply does not have the basic skills upon which to build through training, explore the possibility of relocating him to another job in the organization that meets his skill level. In a small organization with limited positions it might be difficult to locate such an alternative. Removal is the termination of the employee. Use removal sparingly. While there are situations where underperformers should be discharged from an organization, a manager should explore the other alternatives before using this drastic step. Frequent termination of those employees who present a challenge to management will result in the organization acquiring a reputation as not a good place to work.
I want to receive Leadership Thoughts
Please remove my name
|
