managing performance is simple but never easy
One of the great shorthands for understanding performance management is "have your people doing excellent things, and catch them doing it". How do you do this in your environment? How do you get the best out of people where you work?
Liam
Not too simplistic at all - it reminds me of what a colleague used to say to me: if you want me to do a good job, give me a good job.
Liam
Dear Hiprimo,
I wrote a couple of comments in your FORUM and I also picked up a lot of interesting ideas from yourself and other colleagues.
I am desperately trying to open the minds of the people in ELT in Uruguay where I now live after 18 years of having been away. I have a website: www.eltservicesla.com currently being re-vamped ( here goes the new address http://www.mvdigraf.com/elt/ although it is not ready yet).
I moderated the LEARNER AUTONOMY FORUM during this last IATEFL session, and I am a member of just about any SIG under the sun to try and help these people see that there is a wide world outside from which they have a lot to learn.
Uruguayans have one very irritating characteristic, which I call "the arrogance of ignorance" i.e. they know it all although they´ve never studied anything or heard anything about it. Since the beginning of the 20th century it it was called the " Switzerland of America" because it was an educated country, with a good welfare system, no racial problems,etc which made it different to the rest of Latin America. Uruguay made fortunes selling beef to beleaguered Europe during the Second World War. Unfoturnately they have not realised, that some years have gone by and things have changed.
I lived in Brazil and Mexico between 1987 and 2004 and when I came back I was really depressed. There is no difference between Mexico and Uruguay at the moment ( maybe that people speak better English)
You must be wondering what is the point of this long introduction.
Basically I would like to would ask you and other people in your team, whether you would agree for me to create an IATEFL page in my website with your postings and ideally with your email addresses so that they can write to you and see that there is a different way outside Uruguay.
Nik said that the only way to do this was to ask each of you individually.
Your postings have this air of freshness and authenticity which will do partched pretentious Uruguayans the world of good.
Please let me know if you agree with the idea.
I would like to put up this posting and another one which I am going to dig up now.
Hope it´s OK with you.
Best
María Sara
I think other important thing. They (teachers) must understant why they have to do this or that work,what it will to their sts or institution they work.
.... and how do we as managers / leaders help with that process of understanding? It really does get to the heart of what we are all about, I suppose?
Liam
I also find a chance to sound my asppreciation to my colleagues both to motivate them and to involve them to do more whenever I see a good practice!
If each team member cares about improving the team's performance, so the individual work should be done!
... and if it is done, how do you capture that formally? I am wondering here what systems you have in place to 'recognise' good or under-performance?
What are your appraisal systems like? do you do classroom observations.... and if so, why?
I agree with Menevis "for performance" every institution should have a well-established appraisal system. But most of the appraisal system fail for fear of people feeing watched and assessed continuosly and those who ofeten fail to meet deadlines become so stressed out that eventually go down with depression.
Well-established appraisals in my view is a good strategy for progressing projects and help those who have difficulties to achieve fast and move on to be good contributors in an organisation and in a team.
Maria de Marks
Hi Liam,
I believe that "for performance" every institution should have a well-established appraisal system. This system should be established by involving all the parts (admin, teachers, investors or owners) of the institution. What I mean is that everybody should accept the system and noone should have any doubts about it. In this way, I believe we can increase the standards of our institution.
Moreover, if we also add developmental aspects in this system, then, we kill two birds in one stone and not only establish an institution with high standards but we can also have teachers improved themselves in a way. Therefore, the staff will be full of people who get used to doing something related to personal development in time and this takes the institution to a higher, more prestigious position and help the quality increase.
Perhaps too simplistic, but it is important for staff to work on projects they love, and for teachers to teach what they love. This does not imply people remain stagnant and cannot ever move out of their comfort zone to try something new. However, if someone is passionate about distance education, or IELTS preparation, or teaching academic writing, at least schedule some of their hours so that they can do what gives them a feeling of achievement and accomplishment. Let them actually use their expertise they spent so much time gaining and perfecting!
All too often, the person who does the timetabling works the puzzle to fit the pieces together without considering people's needs, desires, ambitions and professional goals. The schedule, of course, does need to work for the good of the organization as a whole, and hopefully the staff is somewhat flexible. But, by and large, if you want the best work, give people the things to do that they WANT to spend their energy and time working on, so they will leave at the end of the day feeling good.