Manager by Design 2011 Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 2)

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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

Here’s a goal for managers: Create a system that doesn’t rely on finding top performers — you’ll get more top performers this way

An obsession with talent could be a sign of a lack of obsession with the system

Tenets of Management Design: A role in management is not an extension of performance as an individual contributor

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

The annual review reveals more about the manager’s performance than the employee’s performance (part 1)

The annual review reveals more about the manager’s performance than the employee’s performance (part 2)

The annual review reveals more about the manager’s performance than the employee’s performance (part 3)

The annual review reveals more about the manager’s performance than the employee’s performance (part 4)

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)

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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”)

How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 1)

How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 2)

How to use strategy sessions as a way to manage indirect sources of info about your employees (part 3)

Manager of Manager providing feedback to and about employees (and the difficulty it brings)

What to do when your boss gives feedback on your employee? That’s a tough one, so let’s try to unwind this mess.

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?

How to improve management design: Look at examples of high-profile careers that receive a lot of performance feedback

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

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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

9. If you really want to evaluate performance across individuals, here are some things that need to be in place

8. How to be collaborative rather than combative with your employees – and make annual reviews go SOOO much better

7. Tips for how a manager can improve direct peer feedback

6. More reasons the big boss’s feedback on an employee is useless

5. What to do when your boss gives feedback on your employee? That’s a tough one, so let’s try to unwind this mess.

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

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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:

  1. Managers lose their identities when they become managers
  2. However, they became managers based on their ability and expertise, which is their former identity
  3. They can no longer perform those former actions, and must perform new managerial actions
  4. These managerial actions, while based on the notion of personal greatness, are, by definition, new the manager and amateurishly performed.
  5. 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.

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