2017 Willow Creek GLS -- Marcus Buckingham -- Reinventing Performance Management

(Here at the 2017 Willow Creek GLS to get leadership tips for Operation Christmas Child)

I’m here as a researcher. I’m a strengths space researchers.  If you want to learn about great leaders study great leaders.  You discover most research studies failure and then inverts it.  In order to learn about joy we study depression.  To learn about happy marriage we study divorce. 

Not bad is different than good or great. 

All unhappy marriages have one thing in common: people argue a lot.  When you study happy marriage and count the number of fights it’s the same as in unhappy marriages.  The difference is what goes on in the space between the fights. 

You learn nothing about excellence by studying failure.  You have to study excellence to learn it. 

Most companies don’t know what teams exist or who is on them.

Your job as a leader is to build more teams like your best team. 

How do we build more teams like our best team?

--Ask the people on the highest-performing teams questions about their team and ask the low-performing and look for the differences. 

8 Pivotal Questions:

I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company

At work I clearly understand what is expected of me

I have a chance to use my strengths everyday at work

In my team I am surrounded by people who share my values

I know I will be recognized for excellent work

My teammates have my back

In my work I am challenged to grow

I have great confidence in my company’s future

“We” questions and “Me” questions

People want TWO things

--Make me feel about something bigger than me

--Make me feel special or unique

Facebook oriented to speed.  You can see it in the physical plant. Everything screams ‘temporary’

Apple’s building, on the other hand, is pristine. 

None of the above questions ask them to rate the team leader; they are asked to rate their own experience because human beings are notoriously bad raters of other human beings.  Most performance reviews are bogus—we talk about people and their potentials in a talent review and rate on different competencies. 

--Multisource feedback study;  4,492 Ratees; 25,000 Raters; 500,000 Ratings—trying to find explanation for ratings.  The large orange chunk on the pie chart (more than 50%) which explains why you rate = idiosyncratic rater effects and it doesn’t change from person to person.  My pattern for rating will be the same for each person I rate. 

--They tried to get rid of this effect by changing the system but as a result of this the effect of idiosyncratic rater effects went up to 61%. 

--more studies still yield the same data and more articles have been published about getting rid of performance reviews

--Numbers are being “sneaked back in” though because we need to invest differentially.  Most ratings have been based on BAD data and we need to develop GOOD data. 

--To fix performance reviews allow persons to do ratings based on their own experience. 

TWO of the questions trump the other six:  I have a chance to use my strengths everyday at work and At work, I clearly understand what is expected of me. 

How do we do this when goals become obsolete quickly? 

There is a silver bullet—one technique the best leaders do—

**Frequent Strength-based Check-Ins about near-term future work (weekly with each employer—what are your priorities and how can I help?)

A year is 52 sprints so touch base every week. 

We don’t want feedback; we want attention.  We want coaching attention.

--The perfect span of control is the number of people you can touch base with every week. 

--If you are too busy—stop everything else you are doing and just do this. 

Raise your hands if you’ve ever been in love. Go back to that feeling for a second—doesn’t it feel great. You can’t wait to be with that person and you feel like you’re most creative when you’re in love.  You have resilience.  What an amazing thing love is.  Wouldn’t it be great if the purpose of work is to discover what you love?  I have two children and hope they can discover work that they love.  How do you find that which you love? 

Research Road Trip = Love + Work – trying to find how people discover work they love.  God blessed us with such unique gifts and work is one way we can use what we love.