#360 review

[graphicstip-blog]

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[kmwoodman]

Develop Better Ideas than Tony Stark in 7 Steps

Ideas are cheap.  Before we begin investing time and resources moving forward with one, it’s free to change or refine it.  Potential is endless in the world of ideas.

Potential is endless in the world of ideas.

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While opportunities abound, not all ideas are good ones.  Just ask Tony Stark.  In the latest Avengers movie, one of his ideas nearly causes the Earth’s destruction.  Oops.

Most of our ideas don’t risk the world as we know it.  However, we could jeopardize a project, customer relationship, or business.

An effective vetting process allows us to identify and mitigate risks during ideation, before they become reality in execution.  Let’s evaluate Tony’s vetting process for the Ultron program to determine what we can do differently in our own ideation.

Self-Evaluation

Tony’s first step is to vet the idea internally. This is something we all do, formally or informally.  We address initial doubts or misgivings, maybe poke at the idea to see if it passes a sniff test.

For many of us, ideas die in this step due to fear of embarrassment, cost, complexity, or other perceived limitations.   However, given the size of his bank account and ego, such fears have no bearing in Tony’s decision-making.  He has no natural internal limits, even on far-fetched ideas.

Since Tony’s an established genius, his internal vetting would be considerable and thorough.  However, we each see things from our own perspective, with our own biases.  Which is why we, and Tony, cannot stop there.

  Peer-Evaluation

The next step is to share the idea with others, putting words to the mental image of our idea.  In verbalizing it, we may immediately find gaps or challenges.  Even when we are internally thorough, the process of translating the idea into words helps solidify or clarify that which was vague or uncertain.

Translating an idea into words helps solidify or clarify that which was vague or uncertain.

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Tony’s sounding board is Bruce Banner, the alter-ego of the Hulk.  Bruce is a fellow scientist and genius, able to quickly grasp Tony’s idea.  He can see the value in the Ultron program, but also huge risks, which he verbalizes.

Tony is quick to refute and diminish Bruce’s concerns.  He sways Bruce and they move forward together.  At this point, Bruce plays his true role, filling in technical gaps and challenges that Tony could not address alone.  They succeed in building Ultron, which quickly becomes a nightmare.

Where did Tony go wrong?  While Tony verbalized his idea, his mistake was in using only one sounding board and who he selected to fill that role.

Tony and Bruce have an affinity as scientists, meaning it is similar to Tony talking to himself.  Bruce offered no new concerns to the ones Tony considered and dismissed as insignificant, relative to the greater good of the Ultron program.

Personalities are the key difference between the two men.  Due to the risks associated with his anger (hello green guy), Bruce does not challenge the way Tony does.  It is relatively easy for Tony to get what he wants, and is another reason why this particular peer review was insufficient.

  360° Review

Tony’s critical gap was the lack of a 360° review in his vetting process.

He is part of a team – the Avengers.  Each of them bring different perspectives to the table, balancing the natural affinity he shares with Bruce, as well as offering personalities that are more difficult to intimidate.

In particular, Tony had a complete miss when he failed to engage Steve Rodgers, his polar opposite.

While Tony wants to help people, he trusts technology and science to do the best job of making their lives safer.  He and Bruce both feel more comfortable around gizmos and gadgets than people.

Steve is a soldier first, here to protect mankind from aliens, technology run amok or even himself.  He is exactly the foil Tony needs to fully vet his idea, ensuring the true risks are voiced and addressed prior to moving forward.

While it is easier to be surrounded by advocates, challengers provide us with the opposing point of view we need to prevent the Earth’s destruction.  Or maybe some less dramatic failure or loss.

Challengers provide us with the opposing point of view we need to prevent disaster.

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  Ideation to Execution

Eventually, the good guys won…after much angst and destruction.  In real life, the impact may be less dramatic, but negative nonetheless.  And we may not emerge victorious.

In order to increase the likelihood that our ideas are feasible, achievable and worth pursuing, there are 7 steps we can all follow:

  Have an idea.  Use that gray matter to come up with something new.  Even “small” ideas can have a big impact, so grab on to those nuggets of inspiration when they happen.

Engage in self-talk.  Consider positives and negatives, potential holes and gaps.  Do not let doubt squash the idea if it appears to have merit.  Is it possible?  Does it have value?  If so, keep going.

Write the idea down.  We frequently need to put pen to paper to make our thoughts coherent.  Does the idea still hold up under visual scrutiny?  Drawing a picture brings a mental image to life and may be more appropriate than words.

Talk to an advocate.  Reach out to a trusted friend or colleague, maybe someone in a similar field or role.  Sharing the idea with a supportive, constructive ear will help address gaps and smooth the rough edges.

Seek out the opinion of challengers.  Advocates make us feel good, but challengers make us think better.  Look for those with different perspectives to identify blind spots and missed risks.  Include someone who knows the customer base, has technical ability we lack, or is an expert in unfamiliar territory.

Make the pitch.  Once the idea is refined, present it to people that can make it happen.  It could be a bank for funding, a manager for resources, or someone that sponsors creative talents.  Just remember, “no” may mean going back to an earlier step for further refinement.  Anything worth doing may take a few iterations to get to “YES.”

Get ‘er done!  Don’t stop now…it’s time to make that idea a reality!

  Tony Stark may be a genius, but even the smartest of us can benefit from vetting our ideas before making them a reality.  What steps do you follow between ideation and execution?  What would you do differently?  I’d love if you could share your thoughts in the comments and keep the conversation going. 

For more information about big ideas and making them happen, check out 1900 Hours in my book: 24 Hours of Life and Leadership, the Marine Corps Way.

Develop Better Ideas than Tony Stark in 7 Steps was originally published on Kristin M Woodman

[elevatorupcompany]

Growth, Beginning At ONE

Scaling up a company isn’t something you can do overnight. What if you first empower your current employees and help them grow, before you bring on more people? A couple weeks ago, I pulled every employee at Elevator Up aside for an approximate 1 hour meeting. We called them 1 on 1’s or 1:1’s. Everyone gets busy with their daily tasks and sometimes just need a chance to talk about their work, environment, goals, etc. Even if its just a few moments to “vent”.

How?

I took everyone off-site so they would feel comfortable talking about the topics laid out and also to avoid distractions. I first explained everything that would be discussed in our meeting to make sure they knew what to expect. It put most people at ease to understand the outline and objectives. The ultimate goals include; to help teammates become more mature and confident practitioners and to help everyone become an evangelist in their area of expertise for the team. Simply put, encouraging growth.

Outline

Go over what is to be covered

Ask how things are going. Is there anything you want to talk about?

Discuss Elevator Up’s Core Values – how are you and the team doing in each area?

Ask them to think about their goals and growth in the company. Let them know that we’d discuss this down the road in further detail. For now, just review and think about.

Begin to think about your quarterly goals / some objectives you want to tackle.

What are some things you would like to see Elevator Up do? Or do better? How can we improve as a company?

Lets go over a few new procedures / guidelines

Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?

So, how did it go?

Great! It was an eye-opening experience and was very well-received from all employees. After all the 1:1’s, I put a report together for Aaron, to discuss some of the findings. We discovered some goals that people wanted to accomplish, where we needed to work on our Core Values and almost everyone wants to have more trust or empowerment.

Next Steps

We will be introducing OKR’s and 360 degree Reviews at Elevator Up. What are OKR’s? Well, its something introduced and implemented at a lil company you might have heard of…Google. Objective and Key Results. The basic idea is that you come up with an Objective that you want to achieve and what are 3-5 Key Results that would need to be completed to get there. 360 degree Reviews are an opportunity to hear from everyone. You will get feedback anonymously from every coworker you associate with and from your manager. You can also invite clients / customers to offer feedback. You even get to do the whole report on yourself. That way you can see where you ACTUALLY fall and how you work with others. The reason we are doing this is to help encourage growth in our employees. Growth to encourage completion of a goal. Growth to educate how to work better with others. Growth to discover strengths and help manage weaknesses. I’m so excited to be a part of these next steps and am looking forward to unfolding a new focus on becoming a stronger company. Together.

Stay Tuned for my next blog post on 360’s and OKR’s!!

[surveyinitiative]

[moviefilmblog-blog]

360!

360! (15) Dir. Fernando Meirelles. Starring Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Ben Foster.

Movie! Film! Blog!s parents always told it that if it had nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all.

360 gets 7 stars.

SB

[performancereviewwasteland]

You heard the man. SCRAP IT! 

[marksbirch]

Thoughts on Performance Reviews

  Recently, Fred Wilson posted his thoughts on the 360 review process.  Much of this was prompted by an earlier post about assessing CEO performance from Albert Wenger.  I definitely suggest you read those posts if you are interested in thoughts on performance reviews and want a real business perspective as opposed to an HR perspective.

I can appreciate their thoughts on and support of 360 reviews as a useful management and performance tool.  Simply put, the 360 review is a process where managers review employees and employees in turn review their managers.  In theory, it provides a fairer and more transparent review process.  It also makes everyone accountable to each other, the effect being that abuses, discrimination and other negative organizational practices can be curtailed.

I was puzzled however by the question of scaling the process.  It was not a question of about scaling 360 reviews, but rather scaling the newer entrants into the field of performance management solutions that focus on managing and fostering real-time feedback.  What greatly annoyed me however was that in a usually open and thoughtful forum, the bias was not to question the efficacy of a 50 year old plus management practice, but to summarily dismiss a novel and innovative take that is greatly improving the way we assess and manage organization.  Below is my response that I originally posted on Fred’s post (with slight edits):

The 360 review process is what does not scale.  I have worked at startups the size of 3 people to Oracle with over 85,000. Plus I have worked with clients to implement performance management systems across hundreds of thousands of staff.  In every case, the results have been disappointing.  It is the dirty little secret of the HR technology industry and something that HR executives refuse to speak out publicly.

The process is deeply flawed because it does not take into account current research in neuroscience and psychology that has shown how memories both degrade and morph to adjust to our natural biases over time (see this short list of memory biases).  What this means in practice is that our ability to review someone becomes highly colored by our biases built over time.  The longer the cycles between reviews, the more our review of someone will be based on our views rather than the actual performance of the employee or manager in the case of the 360. The second issue is with culture and the purpose of reviews.  If the culture of a company does not have an acceptance of failure and learning, then the 360 (or any other review process) becomes an elaborate farce.  The more crippling effect is that it affects behavior in that people naturally adjust to the expectations of the review rather than the expectations of the job at hand.  What is meant to be a way to improve employee performance ends up being a ritualistic checkmark in the employee file for assigning bonuses or determining lay-offs. I firmly believe that processes and technologies that support real-time feedback and recognition such as Rypple are the future.  These processes align better to the ways that our minds operate, are easier to implement and can improve employee engagement as the process is imminently fairer, continuous and immediately actionable.  The more significant benefit however is that it allows organizations to actually deliver on the promise of reviews, which is to improve employee and organizational performance.  I believe this can also be used effectively in start-ups especially given the overhead involved in establishing a fair and transparent 360 review process.  Real-time feedback that is recorded can be reviewed at given intervals to provide a clearer picture of performance and areas of improvement.  That is the real future of performance management and organizational effectiveness.