THE 70 PERCENT RULE

Shame on us communicators and advertisers and content developers (ad nauseum).

Our learning and development colleagues know this principle of knowledge acquisition by heart:  10 percent relies on actual training, 20 percent, from others.  And the 70 percent?  From on-the-job experiences.

Recently, the experiential part of learning has been ramped up. 

Thanks in no small part to start-ups and tech businesses, blackboard-painted walls and tables on wheels act as inspiration and experience vehicles. 

Software developers, eager to understand why clients do what they do and what they want, hold what’s been called ‘participatory market research.’ 

And august institutions such as Harvard regularly conduct hands-on courses, from a prison studies project learning about criminal justice (in tandem) with prison inmates to re-engineering medical devises with doctors close at hand.

Why don’t we practice first-hand learning?  In other words, when there’s an issue that demands not just awareness but also the action to do something, communicators and colleagues need to seriously consider increasing the do-it-yourselves and how-tos. 

Take performance management, for instance.  A number of today’s more progressive organizations are killing the old ranking system and mid and year-end talks, replacing both with ongoing dialogues between boss and individual, team and individual.  At the same time, our high-tech reliance means many employees aren’t accustomed to conversations, with many preferring text, Instagram, Twitter, and email over traditional face to face.

The solution?  Show them how to talk, to handle difficult encounters, and to really listen and hear and learn.  It’s as much our goal as it is our L&D colleagues.

A WORLD WITHOUT ...

A tucked-away article at the bottom of a Wall Street Journal mid-section raised our hair (or is it hackles?).

Quite simply, reporters investigated companies who’d either done away with or never had a human resources function.  Obviously, the article came in with mixed reviews, either citing CEOs who wanted to force personnel (argh!) issues to the middle or those who were mandated, legally and otherwise, to establish a bona fide HR department, with a credentialed executive.

Why the freak-out?  Because if it happens to this type of staff position, it could occur to any non-line function.  At any time.  For any reason. 

Specifically, our objections to the “out with HR” policy:

• Leadership is asking middle managers to do way too much.  Imagine juggling 401(K) education with a fire drill for retaining a client.
• Between listening to customers and listening to employees, there’s a whole universe of technical information to master.  Software can’t always handle it.  Nor can the general manager.
• Mediating among conflicting viewpoints takes some real training – and practice.  Name us the managers in your cadre who can do it well.  [Not just do it.]
• Ever get 100 percent compliance in the performance management cycle?  We thought not …

We heard you (and point taken):  It’s difficult to merchandise a ‘soft’ skill, a ‘soft’ capability like people management and communications and graphic design.  Everybody fancies him/herself a people manager, an editor or advertiser or communicator. 

On the other hand, it’s imperative that we as the sitting professionals master the art of showing tangible results and how we add value to the enterprise – no matter where we sit and what we do.  Without that, we’re toast.

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING YOU

It’s performance evaluation season for many of our clients.

And our hearts are heavy.

Ever since World War II, when the German military pioneered the use of 360° ratings to measure performance, 360s (substitute “multi-rater feedback,” among other nicknames) have risen in popularity among the Fortune 500s as an employee evaluation and/or development tool.  Such instruments usually ask members of an employee’s immediate work circle to provide performance input – not just tap the individual’s manager.

There’s a problem with that. 

In fact, there are several.  Goals, for one.  As HR researchers point out, there is a real difference between a 360 used for career pathing discussions versus pay and promotion decisions.  [Most in the business admit that the tool is best used for development conversations.] 

Other gurus emphasize the “lurking variables”:  number of raters, number of years raters have known the employee, scale of responses, how raters were selected, training for raters and participants, accountability, instrument quality, HR systems integration, among other factors.  All impact the validity of the feedback.

True, there are pros and cons of any course of action, whether it’s an assessment delivered by Human Resources or Supply Chain or Communications or Marketing.  Yet few tools have the potential, as 360s do, to be destructive and to damage morale.  To hurt people. 

We’ve witnessed high-achieving talent be completely devastated by the feedback – and soon thereafter, leave the company for a spot where s/he will be appreciated.  We’ve dealt with situations where, after evaluations were given, passive-aggressive behaviors are rampant … and, yes, voluntary or involuntary terminations follow.  Bottom line, the tools intended to improve corporate performance do the complete opposite. 

What executives and managers fail to remember is that work is all about the people who do it.  When you minimize a fellow human being, even unwittingly and (we would hope) with all good intentions, you knock yourself down a peg.

Our hearts are heavy.