The Peak Performer - D4

 

The Peak Performer

Back after a gap. Apologies for it. To reconnect the continuity please ensure you go through these earlier articles to get the most out of this one.

 

Skill Will Matrix

Enthusiastic Beginner

Disillusioned Learner

Reluctant Contributor

 

The Enthusiastic Beginner was an employee at D1 - High Will Low Skill. The ideal confluence of behaviors for an Enthusiastic Beginner is High Directive Low Supportive.

The Disillusioned Learner was an employee at D2 – Low Will Low Skill. The ideal confluence of behaviors is High Directive High Supportive.

The Reluctant Contributor was an employee at D3 - Moderate to High Skill and Inconsistent Will and the ideal confluence of behaviors is Low Directive High Supportive

 

We saw that the way to work with a Reluctant Contributor is to show value in this employee through “Involvement” and “Engagement”. Involve him in the team’s decision making and problem-solving process. Show him the trust you have in his abilities and skills.

 

Give him a few responsibilities to groom the skillsets of some of the D2 employees in your team. This is a perfect example of a WIN-WIN-WIN situation, where you impact the will of both D2 & D3. Ensure that you do not try to impact his skillsets as he is already at a moderate to high level in them and Directive behaviors might a deterrent to both performance and motivation.

If these behaviors are administered in the right manner, this employee is going to smoothly transition into the last development level for that particular role.

And you have the “Peak Performer”

Ideally all your employees should get here without moving into D2 or D3… A smooth transition from D1 to D4. Again when you inherit a team, transition your team members from D2/D3 to D4 if you get any pre-existing ones; however all new members that initiate the role with you, must be transitioned from D1 to D4.

This is an employee who has spent a substantial amount of time in the organization and is close to mastering the skills required for the role. Due to the high skillset, the performance is also consistent and rewards and recognition is flowing. Consequently the motivation/ will levels are also high.

So if you plot this employee on the matrix... this is where he would be.

Let us understand the confluence of Leadership behaviors that he requires.

Since he has almost mastered the skill-sets he does not require instruction on the what, how, where, why, when or constant monitoring. In fact, he would go ballistic internally, if you even attempt to do that. So, Directive behaviors to be on extremely Low burner.

 

Also, since he is on high on the will scale as well he does not need high supportive behaviors as well. This is a self-motivated employee, fueled on by his performance and mastery.

This is an employee set to take on higher responsibilities and possibly… your job!!!

And it is your responsibility to ensure that he does, because by now you should made yourself capable enough to perform your boss’s role. And so, the entire chain of employment in the organization moves up together.

So, this employee needs to be given responsibilities and left alone. He needs to be made aware that as a Leader, you trust his skills and experience to get the results from the responsibilities given to him.

Do not meddle with his methods, however be available if he seeks support. And give him support if he seeks it, not Direction!!! Let him bounce his ideas off you and give him the freedom and authority to make the decisions. Also let him know that the responsibilities of negative outcomes would be yours’.

That is going to get him to try new methods and evolve with freedom.

 

So the ideal confluence of behaviors for a Disillusioned Learner is –

 

Low Directive Low Supportive

 

This is also known as the “Delegating” style of Leadership where your objective is to groom your own Replacement!!

 

With that we wind up with the 4 developmental levels and the corresponding Leadership styles to ensure optimum performance of your teams.

Will be back very soon to understand what happens when we administer the wrong Leadership style to the wrong Developmental Level.

 

Please stay patient till then and re-read the previous articles for revision.

 

CIAO!

The Reluctant Contributor - D3

 

The Reluctant Contributor - D3

Continuing forward in the Skill Will Matrix, we'll move to the "Reluctant Contributor” today.
 
We spoke about the "Enthusiastic Beginner" and “Disillusioned Learner” in the last two articles.
 
The Enthusiastic Beginner was an employee at D1 - High Will Low Skill. The ideal confluence of behaviors for an Enthusiastic Beginner is High Directive Low Supportive.

The Disillusioned Learner was an employee at D2 – Low Will Low Skill and the ideal confluence of behaviors is High Directive High Supportive.
 
We saw that the way to develop a Disillusioned Learner is to continue to provide him with clear instructions on his tasks and roles and Monitoring & Feedback as well as to ensure that you build a strong support system around him. 

Ideally he would need to be transitioned to D4 smoothly without letting him move to D3. If he does move to D3, however, it is not as alarming a transition as letting a D1 slip to a D2.

If specific behavior sets are not administered to him though, he is naturally going to move to D3. (if he does not move on or is not sacked) Let us understand how.
If the employee at D2 spends more time in the organization without any of the above two eventualities happening, he is going to obviously learn more about his roles and tasks. This would lead to his skills to move to moderate to above average levels. Still not high though; because most of his learning has been through trail & error and experimentation.
 
Let me remind you once again, that this is if he has a “manager” without an understanding of the behaviors required.

Due to his above average skill-sets his performance is now going to comparatively improve. But there would be a lot of inconsistency. He would be uncertain as to exactly what he is doing right to be able to extract the right kind of actions and behaviors that lead to favorable results. This is primarily due the lack of proper guidance from his superior.
 
This would result in him still having below average will levels due to the fact that rewards and recognition will come to him; however they’ll be as inconsistent as his performance.
 
So if you plot this employee on the matrix... this is where he would be.

His Skill levels are moderate to high; however his Will levels be inconsistent due to the lack of support that he has received resulting in inconsistent performance.
 
Once again, if the manager is a “Leader” with a firm understanding of “Situational Leadership” the employee would never have reached D3. But this would again be a case of ‘inherited employees’
 
Let us understand the confluence of Leadership behaviors that he requires. Since he is above average in his skills sets he does not require instructions on the what, how, where, why, when or constant monitoring. In fact that is going to tick him off immensely. So Directive behaviors to be on Low!
 
Since his Will levels are inconsistent, however he would need higher supportive behaviors. Now, it is interesting and important to note that the kind of supportive behaviors exhibited with a D3 would be different from those given to a D2.

Here’s when you need to start showing value in this employee through “Involvement” and “Engagement”. Involve him in the team’s decision making and problem solving process. Show him the trust you have in his abilities and skills.

 
Also, going back to the Disillusioned Learner is where the D3 may be able to play a very important role, as I had mentioned in my last post. Since his skill-sets are above average, give him a few responsibilities to groom the skill-sets of some of the D2 employees in your team. This is a perfect example of a WIN-WIN-WIN situation, where you impact the will of both D2 & D3.
 
So the ideal confluence of behaviors for a Disillusioned Learner is –
 

Low Directive High Supportive

 

This is also known as the “Supporting” style of Leadership and should be maintained to improve his skill and will levels to attempt to gradually move him into D4 or Peak Performer.
 
The Danger here is that, while you wouldn’t want to sack these employees, they would definitely be looking for other options of employment. So be careful!
 
The loss to the existing Leader is a potential Leader and his “replacement and path for growth”.
 
That’s it for now. Will "suit up" again for the “Peak Performer” soon.
 
Ciao!!

The Disillusioned Learner - D2

 

D2 -The Disillusioned Learner

Continuing forward in the Skill Will Matrix, we'll move to the "Disillusioned Learner" today.

We spoke about the "Enthusiastic Beginner" in the last article. This was an employee at D1 - High Will Low Skill.

This phase lasts for a couple of months where he stays self-motivated and tries to learn skills he needs to, in order to do his role. However, if the right kinds of Leadership behaviors are not administered to him he is going to be negatively affected.

The ideal confluence of behaviors for an Enthusiastic Beginner is High Directive Low Supportive. But generally leaders tend to err in exhibiting the right kind of behaviors.

The designated managers do not focus too much on this employee and leave him to his own journey, choosing to focus on the performers in the team. 

So if you plot this employee on the matrix... this is where he would be.

His Skill levels are still low; however his Will levels have also deteriorated due to the lack of clarity and direction on the part of the Manager.

If the manager is a “Leader” with a firm understanding of “Situational Leadership” the employee would never have reached D2. However, a lot of times you might “inherit” teams with existing D2 employees present within. And it is your responsibility as their current Leader to work on them.

Again based on the levels at which he is in the two parameters, let us understand what confluence of Leadership he requires.

Since he is low on both parameters, he would require both High Directive & High Supportive Behaviors. i.e. Task oriented & Relationship oriented.

So you would continue to provide him with clear instructions on his tasks and roles and Monitoring & Feedback.

You would also need to ensure that you build a strong support system around him. 

Show that you care! Show that he is valued and an important part of the team. A good way of doing that is also involving other team members in enriching his experience.

This will also aid in enriching the other team members’ experience. We will talk about this more in detail as we move forward.

So the ideal confluence of behaviors for a Disillusioned Learner is –

High Directive High Supportive

This is also known as the “Coaching” style of leadership and should be maintained to improve his skill and will levels to attempt to gradually move him into D4 or Peak Performer.

The Danger here is that most employees at D2 level are unfortunately asked to move out of the organization (SACKED) or move away themselves. 

The loss to the existing Leader is the potential that goes away with them.

Penning down. Will be back soon with the “Reluctant Contributor”

CIAO!

The Enthusiastic Beginner - D1

 

D1 - THE ENTHUSIASTIC BEGINNER

We had a look at the Skill Will Matrix in the last article and understood the mapping of employees in their life cycle developmental levels based on their skill & will levels. We also listed the 4 categories of employees based on this.

Let’s understand the first one today – “The Enthusiastic Beginner”

This is an employee who has just begun his career or a new role in an organization.  Since he is new in his career or role, his skill levels are going to be considerably low.

**Please consider 'He, his' to be gender neutral terms for some time in these articles..

However, since it’s a new beginning for him, his motivation levels, energy and enthusiasm are going to be high.

So if you plot him on the matrix... this is where he would be.

This phase will last for a couple of months where he stays self-motivated and tries to learn skills he needs to, in order to do his role.

Now what we are going to talk about in this entire series is the natural progression of an employee if the right kind of leadership interventions or behaviors are not exhibited by the designated leader.

Ideally if you look at the levels at which he is in the two parameters, let us understand what confluence of Leadership he requires.

Since he is low on skill he would require High Task oriented behaviors or Directive behaviors.

Also, his will or motivation levels are already high. So he does not require high relationship oriented behaviors or Supportive behaviors.

A point to note, however, that it would not affect him negatively, if the supportive behaviors are marginally higher. The aspect to be taken into consideration, however, is that too much supportive behavior might lead him to complacency or might end up the leader being taken for granted or taken advantage of!

So the ideal confluence of behaviors for an Enthusiastic Beginner is –

High Directive Low Supportive

This is also known as the “Directing” style of leadership and should be maintained to improve his skill levels to attempt to gradually move him into D4 or Peak Performer without letting him slip into D2 or D3.

We will also focus on all 4 Leadership styles together once we complete detailed discussions on each developmental level in a separate article.

That’s it for now. Will come back soon with the “Disillusioned Learner”. Stay tuned!

Ciao!!

The Skill Will Matrix

 

The Skill Will Matrix

We have spoken about the Developmental Levels of employees in their life cycle & the various leadership Behaviors in the previous two articles.

Let’s understand the Skill-Will Matrix today!

This is simply a tool to categorize employees in their life cycle to enable Leaders to exhibit the right kind of Leadership behaviors with them.  

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 Alert!!

Please be aware that this is not an exact science though. We are, after all, talking about individual human beings, with emotions and feelings and not about machines or robots. So there will never an exact fitment into the mold.

This is just a guideline!

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The 2 parameters for gauging the developmental levels of employees are Skill & Will.

So we graphically represent the two parameters on the two axes to get a confluence of the two to ideally be able to gauge where the employees stands from a “Life Cycle” point of view.

This would then help the leader arrive at the ideal confluence of behaviors to be exhibited. But more about that later.

So if “Skill” is the X-Axis and “Will” is the Y-Axis, this is what we will get –

Any employee would lie in one of the four quadrants, based on their Skill & Will levels, and the leader who is able to gauge this effectively will then have to exhibit the right kind of behaviors for them, to influence them towards their growth.

One important aspect to bear in mind, however, is that every leader has his/her own predominant leadership style which would need to be consciously altered when dealing with employees in various stages of development.

Based on this matrix, we get four categories of employees –

1.       Enthusiastic Beginner

2.       Disillusioned Learner

3.       Reluctant Contributor

4.       Peak Performer

We shall look at each of these individually in the next few articles.

Ciao!

 

Leadership Behaviors

We've talked about Skill & Will; the two parameters affecting the developmental levels of employees in their life cycles. So to be able to impact the team members’ performance and development, these two need to be impacted.

A leader influences team members to improve their skills and will by using his/ her behaviors…

There are 2 different kinds of behaviors that impact the said parameters. And leaders need to exhibit different kinds of behaviors based on the team members' development level according to their skill & will level.

The behaviors are Supportive Behavior & Directive Behavior.

Supportive behavior is Relationship oriented behavior and impacts the Will levels of team members.

Directive Behavior is Task oriented behavior and impacts the Skill of team members.

Supportive or Relationship Oriented behavior involves listening to people, encouraging them and their efforts, involving them in problem solving and decision making etc.; the extent of the last 2 will depend on their individual skills.

Directive or Task oriented behavior involves clearly telling people what to do, how to do it, where to do it, when to do it and then closely supervising and monitoring them and provide course correction if they err anywhere.

To be able to exhibit the right kinds of behaviors with the team members, the leader needs to stay in touch with the team members and understand them. It requires effort to inspect and identify where they are on the Skill/Will scale. (more about this scale in the next article)

Behaviors help after you have identified where team members lie on the scale. Consequently, mapping them right, becomes extremely crucial. Without comparative accuracy you will not be able to use the right behaviors with them and fail as a leader as they might get behaviors contrary to what they require.

One more thing to remember… there always has to be a mix of both behaviors in a leader. You do not need to be at 2 extremes. Not only supportive or directive; however the extent of Supportive & Directive needs to be high or low depending on the skill/ will level of the team member.

One important question to ask ourselves before we move ahead!

How do you map a person on the scale... based on what?

First thing to do is to identify the skills required for a particular role, job, and task... make a list of all competencies required.

Then check where the person lies, in each of them. This can be ascertained by the specific actions he/ she takes and the output or performance generated.

You may find that they lie on various developmental levels on different skills and you will have to use directive behavior only in those situations where that particular skill which he/ she is low on, needs to be used or exhibited.

Will on the other hand is basically the motivation level of a person and can be ascertained by their behaviors, body language, willingness to volunteer, openness to feedback and various other things apparent from their behaviors.

So to gauge skill levels look at actions, and to gauge will levels look at behaviors.

You will have to be prepared in your mind and be aware of the developmental levels of your team members at all times during every interaction with them to be able to exhibit the right kind of behaviors with them.

Signing off for now… Be back soon with the Skill/ Will scale!!

Ciao!

 

Developmental levels in an Employee Life Cycle

To understand Leadership better, it is first important to understand the various developmental levels in an employee's life cycle.

There are 2 parameters to be considered when you talk about an employee developing within an organization... or under a leader, Skill and Will!!

When we talk about Skills we are talking about a combination of Knowledge & Skill together…

Let’s understand the two separately first.

“Knowledge is understanding or awareness of something through information or facts”

or

“Knowledge is information that you have about something”

- These could be some definitions of Knowledge that you can think of…

“Skill is learning the method of accomplishing a particular task and can be learned through practice”

Or

“Skill is when you learn something through practicing and are able to do it mentally & physically”

- These could be some definitions of Skill that you can think of…

If I have to put it in simple words, Knowledge is the "What" of a particular topic or subject and Skill is the "How" of it..

One of the biggest sources of knowledge is the environment we live in and the experiences that we have had in our lives from the day we were born... through awareness and understanding…

Skill is simply knowing how to do something and can be obtained and improved by consistent practice of the actions and behaviour required.

Let’s take an example of Cooking to understand this better.

The knowledge of cooking is the awareness that I have to take edible products and apply various techniques on them to be able to consume them... the awareness of the various techniques... such as chopping, grinding, boiling, frying, braising, roasting, baking, etc.

The skill is actually, practically take a knife in your hand and chop the onions into pieces... the first time you do it, it will not be uniform... but you have acquired the skill at a nascent level...

As you practice you will get better and develop the skill…

For the purpose of this topic we will club Knowledge & Skills together and call them Skill... so just be aware that whenever I mention skill in the next few articles... I mean both of them together…

So is working knowledge and skill enough to accomplish a task? (And I'm not saying accomplishing it well... just accomplishing it)

Not really!

What really completes the troika of accomplishing a task is the “Desire” to do it… Which comes from genuine willingness to do something…

And that is the Will we are talking about.

So for anything to be accomplished effectively you need a confluence of the three... What, How and Desire…

So to understand the developmental levels of an employee in his/ her life cycle, we would need to map these 2 parameters on a graph and understand where exactly the employee lies in the life cycle with respect to these parameters.

More of this later… Stay tuned…