Written by Talkers are no good doers.
William Shakespeare, “Henry VI”
Monthly archives for December, 2011
Evaluating people potential – Objectives and tools
We covered in a previous article which is the starting point for evaluating people potential. Now we will focus on which are the objectives and tools that can be used.
Why is it important to assess people potential:
- Again first of all because people are your first asset and deserve to be assessed to know “where the bet should be placed” with less risk possible
- Second point is because knowing the break down between people potential and actual situation helps you in tailoring the best approach for their development
- Third point is because if you have a clear map and path you can manage more easily future tasks and position changes in order to maximize results.
To go through a good potential assessment, please take in mind that is a step different and even more complex from performance evaluation:
- both are “evaluations”, but one focuses on current performance, the other (potential) is focused in forecasting a potential state.
- performance is aiming at short term, while potential is aiming at long term, also for rewarding purposes
Stated this objectives, is it clear to understand that tools (in a broad sense) play an important role.
So which are the best tools to be used during the assessment?
Here are my tips:
- Be prepared on person history, both personal and inside the company. This screening must be done before meeting the person
- Opt for direct manager interviews, stating clearly the objective of the meeting or plan homogeneous assessment groups
- Use tests where possible to assess knowledge and potential against a sample of homogeneous people, but remember that tests give you only a point of view, not all the story
- Take time to prepare group assessments (a typical ratio in my experience is 10:1 the first number being the preparation days for each day of assessment. Also this estimate assumes that you have done this before and that you know how to structure the assessment days and where to get material, otherwise you can double the effort)
- Take time to prepare one to one assessments (again a rule of thumb is to take half a day for each interview)
- Don’t improvise
Next time we will focus on expected output and dimensions to be covered
Fools
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Euripides
Subtlety
Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.
Anonymous
Evaluating people potential – The starting point
Let’s start from an assumption: people are your best asset in any case, since you as a manager rely on their expertise and performance to achieve your result.
So, among manager tasks, choosing right people and identifying those with best attitudes is a key task both for their and your career.
What is performance evaluation? More or less simply is assessing you people in order to identify those with better skills and attitudes. Said in a more “professional” way is an assessment of people potential in terms of attitudes, skills, knowledge, flexibility to determine their ability to deal with more complex and different tasks.
Assessing people can start from different points, but main source is your direct observation. Of course is a complex matter if your team is big or your role gives you a line of managers, but you can bypass this limitation through a structured process: the more you can get similar informations, the more you will have a consistent situation to work on.
Some tips follow:
- People and work change and so does potential: an important think to know is that you’re assessing a person potential on the specific situation he’s in. Potential is not something “absolute” nor fixed
- Grab as much information you can from:
- Resumes
- Knowledge
- recent performance evaluations
- Goals
Next time we will talk about objectives for Potential Evaluation and tools
Writing tips
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Mark Twain
Guideline for Systems Programming
Never test for an error condition you don’t know how to handle.
Steinbach
Create an effective Powerpoint presentation
In consulting and companies presentation software like Microsoft Powerpoint is a crucial tool most of the times abused.
Creating an effective presentation is a complex task that should be approached with intelligence and method
Some tips:
- Start in advance and be prepared: presenting is a difficult task by itself if you’re not used to so avoid not knowing the things you’re going to speak about. Take your time to prepare yourself on what you are going to say
- Take your time to prepare the slide set, imagining first the storyboard on paper and then start putting them on PC. To do this, simply use a piece of paper divide into 6 parts and start writing the “flow”
- Explode an “agenda” of presentation starting from the storyboard and use this as a guide
- Avoid the “do and think at same time” approach: is not effective and doesn’t help you to focus on key messages
- Think of focused messages: the less the slides, the more attention you’ll get and the more you will look comfortable with your speech.
- Get consistent data to support your key messages. This means taking time to analyze, but is not wasted time, since helps in anticipating questions and getting confident with arguments
- Check your spelling and grammar using the spell checking tool
- Data are important, but clear statements are better: get messages first and have data to support them
- If you need to present numbers, try to stick them in a graphic way
- Adapt language to forecasted audience: one size, again, doesn’t fit all
- Use titles to summarize slide content: ideally from the “action title” at the top you should be avle to get the key message
- Be consistent with style: avoid too much colors and use same bullets and punctuation everywhere
- Create graphs with a consistent flavor: prepare a worksheet on your favorite program and make there graphs with same colors and look
- Always reference data either at the end of the slide or in the presentation
Proofreading
The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.
Speer
Questions for managers
Sixth Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
Spark
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