New Business Ideas 4 U

Posts Tagged ‘Coaching’

So what about ‘special treatment’ for “A” jobs and “A” jobholders?

Firstly, consider pay. If a job is a strategic “A” job, then it is recognized as being of critical importance for the company. It is logical that if an “A” job is unfilled, the company will suffer, therefore it is crucial that the importance of the job is reflected in the pay for it. And since it is very possible that the “A” job is not a managerial job, and then it may be that the jobholder is paid more than his/her manager. I personally can see nothing wrong with that.

There has been precedent forever. In the military for example, the platoon sergeant – now there’s an “A” job for you – probably earns more that the second lieutenant who is his/her platoon commander. When I first entered the business world, I worked for an oil company. At the company’s major international port of entry for bulk fuel, the depot superintendent was the most highly paid staff member, but the next four places in the salary stakes were held by senior unionized fuel tanker drivers. Getting a driver supervisor internally was impossible. The selected driver would lose so much pay!

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I have been asked to explain a little more about the ‘average’ approach from the book Performance Intelligence at Work that we talked about in the last posting. So here is an supplementary posting for you to consider.

I am a FreeCell addict. I am fascinated by the game and I play it more than I should, I guess. Since I am a performance measurement nut, one of the features I like about the game – part of the Windows basic package, for those who haven’t come across it – is that it keeps score. After each game – win or lose – you can check your cumulative score. This allows you to calculate your average – how you are performing at the moment in Dr Julie’s terms. I have played many thousands of games over the years, so what I do is play a series of 100 games, enter my percentage wins for that 100 games, then start again. The reason I do this is simple. After a number of games have been played, the winning or losing of one game has a minuscule  effect on my overall average. Even a run of 50 wins – which I achieve sometimes – has a tiny effect on a database of 5000, but is significant in a series of 100. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi again. Here is a second idea from the book Performance Intelligence at Work by Dr Julie Bell, and Robin Pou ( McGraw-Hill, 2009). It made me think, and I am sure it will do the same for you.

How do you feel when you are termed ‘average’? Many people – including me – bristle a bit at the term, because we feel that we are above average – even outstanding! But the way Dr Julie – as she likes to be called – explains ‘average’ makes good sense. She defines average as ‘the place where you perform on a consistent basis today’.

If we are totally honest with ourselves we do not perform at an outstanding level all the time. We certainly don’t perform perfectly, since perfection is not standard practice among mortals. Dr Julie suggests that we shouldn’t even strive for perfection, because we are setting ourselves up for failure, and that doesn’t seem like a sensible thing for us to do. Rather we should assess our day-to-day performance as average, and rate ourselves on a scale similar to the one below.

There are several important implications from thinking this way:

According to the scale, there is considerable room for improvement. Now that’s a positive!

The average we are talking about is a personal average. It is your present level of performance.

The average is a moving target. The more you perform above your present average – the more you succeed, according to the diagram – the  higher your average becomes.

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I have recently read a book called Performance Intelligence at Work by Julie Bell and Robin Pou (McGraw Hill, 2009). It is a small book, both , literally – since it is published in A5 size rather than the ‘standard’ book size – and because it comprises only 167 pages. Yet it contains some very valuable ideas, which I would like to share with you in the next couple postings.

Dr Julie Bell – she likes to be called Dr Julie – is a sports psychologist and coach turned business coach. She is not the first such, nor will she be the last, I am sure. Her case is rather interesting since she entered the world of business sort of by accident. One of her athletes was appointed as CEO of a recently-taken over company and suggested that she should join him and became a coach to his management team.  Both he and she felt that there was a lot of carry over between the world of sport and the world of business.

The idea I want to share today is one of the key ideas that runs right through the book. It is the importance of mind. In both sport and business.

New Zealand recently won a spot in the Football World Cup in South Africa 2010. Yippee! (I’m a kiwi remember!). NZ came out for the second half carrying a one goal lead. Imagine the dismay, then, when their opponents, Bahrain, were awarded a penalty early in the second half. The apprehension turned to relief when the penalty kick was saved by the NZ goalkeeper. Frankly it was not a well-taken penalty. Read the rest of this entry »