The Power of the ELO Model Realized
Over the last few weeks we have explored an employee-led, leader supported, organization enabled (ELO) performance model. Now let’s explore the tale of two organizations and the power behind an ELO performance based model.
We don’t have to go any further back than last week and to an organization that for the last 108 years suffered through one losing baseball season after another. The Chicago Cubs last won the coveted World Series back in 1908. But in 2016 they were looked at in the beginning of the year as a contender for the title and unlike past years they realized a century old dream. So what changed?
The Cubs owners and organization enabled the success. They first brought in Theo Epstein, a 42-year-old baseball executive, as President of Baseball Operations. Prior to the Cubs position, Epstein was youngest General Manager in baseball at the time and led the Boston Red Sox in 2004 to their first World Series title since 1918. So what Theo Epstein brought to the Cubs organization was inspiration, energy and a long-term vision of player and organization development. He inherited a team in 2011 with a record of 71-91 and would bottom out in 2012 with a 61-101 losing record and would finish last in the following two seasons. Then in 2015 his vision started coming together and the goal was realized in 2016. But the Cubs organization enabled a feeling of hope again in the team and the city of Chicago by his hiring.
Theo began a massive rebuild of the organization bringing in a mix of experienced talent with young prospects and a new manager in Joe Maddon with the leadership style and experience required to support a turnaround and a team built like this. Joe Maddon doesn’t manage his players, he supports them. He creates an environment where players stay loose and feel empowered. If something had to be said, he would say it, but as he has been quoted “I’d much rather the peers carry my message” and that leadership style and confidence in his team paid off in game seven when everything was on the line and seemed to be falling apart and the game getting away from them. With only four outs standing between them and winning the World Series, the Cubs let a three-run lead disappear. A miscalculation by Maddon on the capability of the relief pitchers to throw so many pitches the night before and come back in the final game as strong was catching up to him.
After the ninth inning ended and heading into extra innings the skies opened up and the tarps came out on the field and the teams retreated to their clubhouses. Maddon said he walked into the clubhouse and saw his team having a meeting. He went upstairs to check on the weather. The meeting was led by a veteran player, Jason Heyward. That meeting, according to many of the players, is what changed Cubs history. Management didn’t need to call the meeting; it was player (employee) led. In fact, as a manager that supports and doesn’t manage often, Maddon said “I hate meetings, I am not a meetings guy. I love when players have meetings, I hate when I do. So they had their meeting and the big part of it was, we don’t quit. We don’t quit.”
You can attribute what you want to that meeting, but the Cubs came out of the rain delay and put up two runs in the 10th to give them what turned out to be their margin of victory to claim the 2016 World Series trophy.
Now with an organization that enables success by providing clarity, alignment and the resources to win, a manager that supports and develops the leader in every player, and with players embracing and thriving as leaders, the Chicago Cubs have an opportunity to be good for a very long time.
The Chicago Cubs, 2016 World Series Champions, the power of the ELO model.
Next week the power of the ELO but with a completely different outcome.
Reimagining the Performance Model pt. 4
What Does Your Organization and Culture Enable?
Organizational culture and norms become key enablers to performance (both positive and negative).
Look no further than past and current headlines from any news source and see how culture drives performance. Wells Fargo, ENRON, AIG, sports teams and associations like Penn State, Baylor, FIFA and unfortunately thousands of other organizations like these can claim they have cultures of value and can even point to well-worded values and vision statements. But somewhere along the path to success each organization veered and took a different direction that enabled lies, deceit and ultimately failure in so many ways to occur. (More on this in upcoming blogs)
But no legal, well-intentioned organization starts with a culture like these. Most evolve slowly over time, letting certain actions and behaviors that don’t seem too bad in the beginning to become the norm, permeating the entire organization and ending up with people saying “How did this ever happen?”.
In our work with clients we see organizations every day with consistently low to mediocre organizational performance and asking for help to improve it. We then look at the collective past performance reviews of individuals at all levels of the organization we often find that over 90% of the reviews reflect outstanding to exceptional performance. So how can that be? As one client put it, “We don’t pull weeds around here we just replant them!”.
If you have an organization that is often defined by blame, justification and excuses, then look no further than a few well placed, influential individuals in the organization that often lead by fear and intimidation and go looking for blame instead of solutions. You know it only takes one or two individuals with the right influence behaving in the wrong way to poison an entire organization.
However, if an organization truly C.A.R.E’s about delivering the right results in the right way and focuses daily on doing so, the once unimaginable and impossible becomes reality. Organizations need to C.A.R.E more! Providing more Clarity, Alignment, Resources and Enablement are how successful cultures that do it the right way achieve long term, sustainable success.
Look to the U.S Space Agency, N.A.S.A, in the 1960’s. Given a clear vision and mission to reach the moon, with an entire organization and country aligned to achieving that success, and provided with the best and brightest people, resources and technology available to accomplish the unthinkable, John F. Kennedy enabled the impossible to become possible when Neil Armstrong took those first steps on the moon, July 21, 1969.
So we challenge you to look at your culture and the norms that you and the organization are cultivating. Does your organization have the courage to C.A.R.E enough to not just replant weeds but enable success by expecting and developing the leader in everyone, and shifting your leadership model from planning, directly, controlling and managing to inspiring, energizing, facilitating and developing? Culture by design, not default!
To enable employee-led, leader supported performance, an organization must C.A.R.E. Achieve the right results in the right way.
Start today!
Reimagining the Performance Model pt. 3
Leader Support
Stop Managing People – The leadership model for performance is evolving, are you?
Ask anyone if they want to be managed and watch their response. No one wants to be managed. The old management model that has survived since pre-World War ll of planning, directing, controlling, and managing people and activities is evolving.
As we shift performance management to a more effective and engaging employee-led performance model, leaders with people responsibility must shift and evolve their leadership style and develop competencies to better support, guide and develop the leader in everyone.
The new leadership model now shifts to actions and behaviors that inspire, energize, facilitate and develop both organization and people performance. This leader shift encourages leaders to inspire people with vision and purpose. Create energy with involvement and acknowledgement. Cultivate a culture of personal and team leadership, accountability and an environment where change can thrive.
People leaders should develop an environment where performance is accelerated through regular performance connections and not managed and reviewed only at the mid and end of the year. With these performance connections, leaders can develop the leader in everyone and ensure organizational and role clarity and alignment at every level.
Leader Support, Where to Start –
· Evolve your personal leadership style, don’t get stuck managing in the past
· Inspire with vision and ensure clarity and alignment
· Share and develop accountability, bridge the natural gap of accountability
· Develop the leader in everyone
· Facilitate employee-led, not leader managed performance
Inspire people by giving them a reason to believe. Create energy by saying ‘Thank you’ and ‘I appreciate you’. Facilitate growth by asking, not telling, and develop top tier performers and performance by cultivating leaders, not managing people and activities. It is leadership reimagined!
Next week – Organization Enabled – Create a culture by design not default. The stakes are too high not to.
Reimagining the Performance Model pt. 2
Employee-Led Performance – Developing leaders from the board room to the break room and everywhere in between
We introduced the ELO performance model in our last blog which truly transforms traditional performance management into ongoing performance development and enablement.
In traditional performance management models, much of the role and responsibility for ensuring performance results, conducting performance feedback, developing accountability and providing effective change management resides with formal people leaders in the organization. In addition, training focused on developing core leadership skills, activities and behaviors is generally reserved for these formal leaders.
This legacy performance model unfortunately limits true performance ownership, and by reserving leadership skill development for a select few, we limit the immense potential and impact of having everyone no matter what their title or position lead from where they are.
Employee-Led performance is the key to shifting performance results from management driven to employee owned, supported by formal leaders and enabled by the organization. As a foundation, it is important for an organization to create a baseline of expected leadership skills, activities and behaviors that everyone from senior leadership to entry level individual contributors understand, value, exhibit and are held accountable to. This creates a foundation of common leadership expectations and a “language” of leadership that defines your organization.
Of course, roles and responsibilities are different, and the level of leadership impact will change as you move up the organization, but developing a core set of leadership competencies in everyone is critical to tapping into, and leveraging the value of every employee leading where they are.
Where to Start –
Create awareness and set an expectation that everyone is a leader
Provide baseline leadership development, starting with 4-5 core leadership competencies that provide a competitive differentiation for your organization
Support developing the leader in everyone with coaching and training
Reward and recognize employee-led success
Continue to add to and build upon the core leadership competencies.
Expect everyone to lead, give them the tools and training to lead, support them like leaders, and they will lead!
Next week – Leader Support – Evolving the leadership model to meet the leadership challenges of the future.
Reimagining the Performance Model
Performance Management – Love or hate it, it’s time for a change!
Ask anyone if they like the traditional performance management process and most will let you know through their body language and facial expression, NO! However those that have benefitted from an effective performance management process LOVE IT!
Certainly everyone loves the intent of performance management; clear expectations and role definitions set, coupled with the right resources, training, consistent and fair feedback all leading to a path for individual, team and organizational performance success and development.
Sounds so easy. However, the actual impact of a typical performance management process often results in too many mid and end of year performance review “surprises”, and unclear expectations and roles that overlap or are in competition with one another. The feedback is infrequent and forced at the end of the year to ensure we check the box that all reviews have been completed and signed. In addition, the performance feedback often is swayed by what we call the “recency factor”, whatever performance, good or bad, that is the most recent in history is what often times dominates the remarks and ratings during the review.
So, what SHOULD be one of the most important processes in delivering both bottom line results and enhancing both employee commitment and engagement becomes a necessary “to do” for everyone at the end of the year. This ends up wasting millions of employee hours in performing “check the box” activities that, face it, few really embrace to their fullest potential.
So whether you love it or hate it, it’s time for the reimagining of performance management!
We will introduce a new model for performance in this four part blog series, Reimaging the Performance Model.
Part One – The ELO model for performance defined
Part Two – Employee-Led Performance
Part Three – Leader Supported Development
Part Four – Organization Enabled Success
ELO – Employee-led, Leader Supported, Organization Enabled Performance Introduced:
Imagine your organization as a place where traditional performance management becomes performance enablement! Where every person in your organization, from the most senior executives to entry levels proactively own and manage their career development and where once or twice a year performance reviews, which often become those performance “surprises” we mentioned earlier, are now weekly or bi-weekly performance connections owned and directed by the employees, not the manager, and are focused on actions and activities that develop skills and behaviors rather than just reviewing and rating them.
Imagine every employee from top to bottom, displaying both team and individual role model leadership behavior and accountability, using technology to connect and enhance relationships rather than just adding more “communication” to everyone’s inboxes.
Imagine your organization as a place where the skills of collaboration, agile decision making, and the focus on delivering results, not excuses, are learned and cultivated and over time becoming natural and expected from everyone – where functional silos cease to exist!
Over the next few weeks, we will outline a path to long term, sustained performance model success that can, and will, provide a true ‘people’ competitive advantage with everyone in the organization enhancing both their personal and team accountability, embracing and leading change, and owning and managing their own performance and development. In addition, we will provide a cultural blueprint that enables performance success by ensuring clarity, alignment and accountability at all levels supported by formal people leaders exhibiting new leadership competencies that develops the leader in everyone.
Employee-led, leader supported and organization enabled performance. The performance model reimagined.
Next week: Employee-led Performance – Developing the leader in everyone!