Manager by Design 2011 Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 2)
As we close out the year, here are the top series of articles published by Manager by Design in 2011. See part 1 here.
Team Strategy Documents
Think of managing a team as a set of deliverables
Teams should have a team strategy document. Here’s an example.
How to create a team strategy document—use the team
How to use your team strategy document externally
How to use the team strategy document to help you manage your team
Creating a system that encourages good management
An obsession with talent could be a sign of a lack of obsession with the system
Tenets of Management Design: Managers are created not found
Tenet of management design: If you don’t have a system, it’s probably being done over email
All-team meetings (and why they’re hard to do well)
Do your all-team meetings make your team cringe?
Reasons many employees dread all-team meetings
Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
The annual review reveals more about the manager’s performance than the employee’s performance
Let’s look at what a well-conducted annual review looks like
Five more markers and examples of what a good annual review looks like
Annual reviews are awesome artifacts that can be used to improve management skills
“You don’t take feedback well” – and its ramifications
Telling someone they “don’t take feedback well” doesn’t count as performance feedback
Three more reasons “You don’t take feedback well” is risky performance feedback
A Performance Feedback/Performance Management Flowchart
Becoming a manager – and the havoc it wreaks on one’s identity in the workplace
Becoming a manager is a subversion of self-identity
Without management design, the new manager relies on base instincts
The new manager is an amateur at doing managerial tasks
Giving performance feedback is breaks the illusion of greatness of a manager
Why managers don’t give performance feedback – it hurts the ego
Manager by Design 2011 Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 1)
As we close out the year, here are the top series of articles published by Manager by Design in 2011. Enjoy and thanks to all who support the Manager by Design blog!
Areas where providing feedback is most useful
What inputs should a manager provide performance feedback on?
When to provide performance feedback using direct observation: Practice sessions
When to provide performance feedback using direct observation: On the job
Areas of focus in providing performance feedback based on direct observation: Tangible artifacts
What managers can do about “intangible human-based artifacts”
Giving feedback based on indirect sources (and how difficult this really is)
Three reasons why giving performance feedback based on indirect information doesn’t work
Bonus! Six more reasons why giving performance feedback based on indirect information is risky
Tips for how managers should use indirect sources of information about employees
What to do when you receive a customer complaint about your employee’s performance
Using strategy sessions with employees (as opposed to just “feedback”)
Manager of Manager providing feedback to and about employees (and the difficulty it brings)
What a manager can do if the big boss puts a tag on an employee
More reasons the big boss’s feedback on an employee is useless
On the inherent absurdity of stack ranking and the angst it produces in employees
An obsession with talent could be a sign of a lack of obsession with the system
How to maximize the value of peer feedback
Why peer feedback from surveys doesn’t qualify as feedback
Examples of how peer feedback from surveys is misused by managers
How to use peer feedback from surveys for good (it’s not easy) Part 1
How to use peer feedback from surveys for good (it’s not easy) – Part 2
Some pros and cons of peer feedback directly given by peers
An opportunity to increase the amount of performance feedback on your team
Tips for how a manager can improve direct peer feedback
Bonus! Three more tips for how manager can improve direct peer feedback
How managers receive (or don’t receive) feedback on managing
Managers giving managers feedback on managing: How well is this done?
Management Design: How managers receive performance feedback compared to other jobs
Entry level jobs receive a lot of performance feedback: What about managers?
How about managers ask for feedback from their employees?
Specific phrases and examples for how to ask for feedback from your employees
One more option for providing feedback to manager: 3rd Party Assessment and Coaching
How do employees give feedback to their manager?
How to give feedback to your manager: Some possible openings
Top 10 Manager by Design Articles of 2011
The Manager by Design Blog celebrates its 2-year anniversary today!
Let’s count down the top 10 most popular articles of 2011!
10. Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
7. Tips for how a manager can improve direct peer feedback
6. More reasons the big boss’s feedback on an employee is useless
4. How to create a team strategy document—use the team
3. Why peer feedback from surveys doesn’t qualify as feedback
2. Some pros and cons of peer feedback directly given by peers
1. Examples of how peer feedback from surveys is misused by managers
Thanks to all who have supported the Manager by Design blog. Keep reading the Manager by Design blog for great tips on people and team management, as well as deep thinking and analysis on how organizations can structurally improve how managers perform!
Related articles:
Manager by Design celebrates its one-year anniversary! Here are our top 10 articles so far!
Manager by Design 2010 Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 1)
Manager by Design Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 2)
Why managers don’t give performance feedback – it hurts the ego
I’ve recently taken a philosophical turn in the Manager by Designsm blog. I’ve been drawing from Lacanian psychoanalysis to explore the concept of a manager ego. The short version is this:
- Managers lose their identities when they become managers
- However, they became managers based on their ability and expertise, which is their former identity
- They can no longer perform those former actions, and must perform new managerial actions
- These managerial actions, while based on the notion of personal greatness, are, by definition, new the manager and amateurishly performed.
- The first time such an amateurish action (like giving performance feedback to an employee) is performed, it shatters the notion that the manager is expert, effective and useful.
This step 5 I’m calling the “Mirror Stage” of being a manager. It’s the moment that, despite all sorts of evidence that the manager is terrific (hence the promotion to manager), there is the stunning evidence that the manager’s management technique is ineffective.
Here’s a likely – and concrete – scenario: A manager has to give performance feedback to the employee. The manager goes in with the expectation that the employee will agree, understand and implement everything the manager says. But this is nigh impossible. The employee could provide his own, different perspective on the situation, may not understand what the manager is trying to get across, or may not implement exactly what the manager had in mind. And that’s when an employee reacts well to the feedback!
What if the employee actively resists the feedback? The employee argues with the manager, says the facts are incorrect, and even says that the manager is wrong. There may even be an emotional reaction on the part of the employee. This is shattering to the manager’s ego, because this simple act of giving performance feedback didn’t go well (in the managers’ mind), despite the manager having a) authority b) expertise c) a greater general talent level than the employee.
In short, the act of giving performance feedback breaks the ego of the manager and provides a rather sudden and obvious moment where it is indisputably proven that the manager is not 100% effective at managing. So now there is now a problem associated with the act of managing.
