Interview with Jenny Seaton aired live on Curtin Radio 100.,1 2 Mar 2016
Why performance development needs a performance upgrade
First published on Local Government Professionals Magazine Issue 4 (2015)
BrandYou show with Jane Anderson
Interview with Jane Anderson's podcast aired live on 22 July 2015
Anneli Blundell talks with Jane about the importance of making the decision to start a business and to have it branded in your own name - self branding.
Managing Your Staff and Team with Confidence
Aired live on Dynamic Business Women podcast by Michele Elmas-Hardy (8 Dec 2015)
In this Podcast Anneli and Michele discuss;
- How to identify what kind of leader are you
- Tips on communicate and manage your virtual team and how to bring it all together
- What you need to know to communicate effectively to your team, and get them on board with your vision
- The secrets and core elements to managing a highly effective team
- How to keep your communication clean and consistent
- Everyone has a different leadership style – which one are you?
- Women in leadership and management roles – what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses?
- How to be confident when you’re full of self-doubt
Managing your staff's performance.
Aired live on Be Media Production - Business Essentials Audio - Programs (April 2016)
How effective is the annual performance review? And is there a better way?
Timely and targeted conversations are much more effective ways to help your staff perform their best, says Anneli Blundell, co-author of ‘Developing Direct Reports’. She takes us through a three-step process on how to handle continuous conversations with your team so they develop their skills throughout the year.
What's Wrong With Annual Performance Reviews?
Aired live by The CEO Institute via www.iidmglobal.com video seminars (21 March 2016)
Are You Pregnant? How To Recover From A Faux Pas
We have all been in that screamingly dreadful position where we have said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.
It might be asking a lady, who is not pregnant, when her baby is due. It might be asking a gentleman if he’s enjoying being a grandpa, only to learn that he is the child’s father.
But how do you fix a terrible first impression? Author and communications expert Anneli Blundell told The Huffington Post Australia there were three golden rules to follow.
Getting to Know Anneli Blundell
I’d always wanted to do something I was really passionate about. I wanted to come to work with a fire in my belly, a passion to serve and a feeling that I had found my place. I knew my strength was in understanding people, building relationships and helping other people do the same. It seemed a natural leap to start my own coaching and consulting practice based on decoding people dynamics for improved performance.
My aim is to help leaders engage, motivate and develop their teams. My valuesare connection, personal responsibility, courage, accountability, play, and passion.
The better you are at giving critical feedback, the faster and deeper your people will develop
First published on Modern Magazine March 2016
Great leaders give critical feedback. They tell it like it is. They are heard. They inspire action. Leaders, who give targeted, real-time feedback— both good and bad—supportand challenge their people to develop.
Giving critical or corrective feedback can invite negative reactions: denial, hurt, blame, and anger are possible responses. Most of us are not eager to upset others, which makes it easy to justify delayed responses or missed feedback opportunities. However, avoiding the tough stuff can have major consequences. Leaders must make the effort. They must confront their own comfort and confidence levels when faced with having hard conversations.
Withholding critical feedback is like asking someone to complete a crossword without providing all the clues. It’s simply not possible.
Sue (not her real name) worked as a Community Support Manager. She moved through several leadership roles in various divisions within five years. Sue was liked as a person but not respected in her role. She sat on decisions, was easily overwhelmed, and was seen as a bottleneck to progress. She did not deliver.
When June was appointed as Division Head, she quickly noticed the issue. June gave Sue the feedback that no one wanted to give. She respectfully yet firmly laid out the situation. Sue was shocked and distressed by her apparent underperformance. Missed feedback opportunities meant Sue was not given the chance to modify her behaviour. After a few months of coaching support, things were looking up. Sue’s projects were on track and she noticed a change in how others treated her. Sue thanked June for her candour and willingness to invest in her growth. Without critical feedback, we don’t know what we don’t know; we become blind to our potential. The better you are at giving critical feedback, the faster and deeper your people will develop. Here’s why:
People need challenge. John Di Martini, an American researcher and best selling author in human behaviour said, ‘People grow at the boundary of support and challenge’. We need just enough challenge to keep us growing and developing and just enough support to feel encouraged and on track. One without the other can lead to boredom and stagnation, or burnout and stress.
People need clarity. We can’t see our behaviours as clearlyas others can. Sometimeswe’re not as good as we think we are (The Dunning-Kruger Effect), and other times our performance deserves more credit (The Worse-Than-Average Effect). Without an outside perspective, we remain blind to our development opportunities and strengths. It’s a leader’s role to provide the clarity we can’t see for ourselves.
People have courage. It turns out that people actually want the bad news that their leaders don’t want to give them. In 2014, Zenger and Folkman surveyed 899 individuals globally about their relationship to feedback. They found that people want corrective feedback, more than praise, if it’s provided in a constructive manner. 72% said their performance would improve if their manager provided corrective feedback.
Leaders who sit on feedback because they don’t have time, don’t think it matters, orare reluctant to have a hard conversation, stifle the growth of their people. I bet there’s a Sue in every office ready for feedback and waiting to flourish.
Have annual performance management systems reached their use by date?
First published in Modern Magazine Feb 2016
Change in business is moving at warp speed. We are constantly updating systems,
upgrading service offerings, rolling out new products and learning new skills. If we can’t keep up, we get pushed out. Annual performance conversations no longer cut it. Targeted, real-time feedback means we can change, grow, and develop the skills needed to stay in the game.
Performance development needs a performance upgrade
‘Managers who provide regular feedback and opportunities to improve are far more likely toeld high-performing teams than those who retain once-a-year rankings.’ —Deloitte
People need constant and targeted feedback, in real time. That’s how leaders create high performance. Imagine the coach of an elite sporting team giving performance feedback once a year: ‘Ok Ritchie. I really like how you improved your kicking accuracy this season. That second-quarter goal in the third game was amazing. If you could do more of that and pass the ball more often, our results will improve. I’ll sign you up for a collaboration workshop and we’ll see how next season goes’.
Ridiculous concept, isn’t it? Sport is fast. It requires skill, teamwork and individual performance.
What makes us think the game of business is any different? Leaders need to pay attention and give feedback in the moment—not in a year’s time.
State of play for performance reviews
Many large companies remain loyal to annual performance reviews, much to the frustration of those involved. For employees, it can be an administrative formality that ‘ticks the box’ but doesn’t develop or change actual performance; for managers, it’s an administrative burden that interrupts ‘real work’. Research is beginning to empirically support what we intuitively know: annual performance evaluations don’t positively affect performance.
- Feedback interventions, like performance reviews, improve performance 41% of the time and make matters worse 38% of the time .
- 58% of executives believe their current performance management approach drives neither employee engagement nor high performance .
- 70% of respondents to a Deloitte survey stated that they are either ‘currently evaluating’ or have recently ‘reviewed and updated’ their performance management systems .
The annual evaluation is a time consuming, non-value adding,
and possibly destructive process that does not positively improve performance at work. The future of annual performance reviews, as a management tool, is bleak. So what’s the alternative?
The performance conversation trifecta
The simple solution is regular performance conversations. Timely, targeted development conversations that drive engagement both develop performance and produce results. However, simple does not mean easy. Effective performance conversations require the right consistency, style and mindset.
1. Conversation consistency
‘Organisations where employees reviewed their personal goals quarterly—or even more often—were nearly four times more likely to score at the top of the Bersin by Deloitte’s Total Performance Index.’ Developing performance requires feedback that is regular and in real time. You develop a better kick by doing it repeatedly and getting real-time feedback. Regular conversations mean in the moment, unscheduled feedback, when it’s needed most. Establishing a regular conversation cadence gives the brain the attention and repetition needed to create sustainable behaviour change. The greater the gap between action and adjustment, the slower any change takes hold. On-going focus and reinforcement provides optimum conditions for growth and learning.
2. Conversation style
‘High performing individuals, teams and organisations focus on exploiting development opportunities in the workplace because that’s where most of the learning happens.’—Charles Jennings
Leaders need to coach and develop their staff, not just direct and control. A coaching conversation is more than a simple check-in about daily tasks. It includes a broader conversation about career potential, role progression, required skills, and new opportunities. It covers both the skill and the will.
Motivation and engagement, barriers and blockers: these are the topics required to kick organisational goals. The new player on the elite team is ambitious. They want progress; they want to know what’s next, and they want opportunities to get there.
3. Conversation mindset
‘Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.’ —Jack Welch
The leader’s mindset towards performance conversations plays an important role in how effective the conversations are. A leader’s role is to develop their staff. This is not in addition to their regular work: it is their regular work. In fact, some progressive organisations, for example, Hindustan Unilever, the Indian subsidiary of the consumer goods giant, feel so strongly about the competitive advantage this mindset offers, they expect their leaders to spend 30–40% of their time developing their people—hence Unilever’s reputation as a ‘talent factory’ .
It’s not rocket science. Leaders who have not embraced this idea will struggle to make the time to develop their staff. Eventually, their staff will leave in favour of a manager who will make the time. If the leader does not embrace this mindset for themselves, no amount of policy, sophisticated performance systems or culture change programs will to make a difference.
The elite player wants to play for the best team. The team that is continually challenged and growing and called forth into their greatest potential by the coach and leader. They want to be inspired.
A call to action
Leaders can take action today with regular, real time conversations and a mindset that embraces the crucial role leader’s play in developing high performance. There is no need to wait for the cultural tide to turn or for new processes to be developed and sanctioned. As the leader, you’re the coach on theeld. Are you giving your team the performance feedback they need to win?