renroon » Professional Development

Our Beauty Bias

yamommy — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:31:20 +0000

You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t! If you are too beautiful as a woman, life will work against you and if you aren’t beautiful (by society’s terms) then life will work against you too. The same thing applies to men, but probably not as much as women. I found this great article and video on Newseek that are worth sharing. The video is called ‘Looksism’ Goes Pop. Jessica Bennett is basically pointing out that we are biased against ‘ugly’ people even if we don’t know it. I am going to use the harsh term ‘ugly’ to just make the point of how ridiculous this is. To get a job, people will usually hire good looking applicants; in fact, well-rounded applicants that are good looking are better options than ugly but very intelligent applicants (who may be better for the job). Babies stare at beautiful people a lot more than they stare at ugly people. Teachers give more praise and better feedback to beautiful people.

Are we that shallow? I guess we are that shallow and maybe I do that too. To be honest, when I used to recruit for our company, the way an applicant looked probably did affect my first impression of him or her. But did it determine whether they got the opportunity for the second round of interviews. I really hope not and I don’t believe so. But, I guess the question is, knowing what we know now about the beauty bias for both men and women, what are we personally going to do about it? Well I know that I am going to be more conscious about it. I want to ask myself the question bravely at the right time- is this person’s looks affecting my judgement? I am sure if we ask ourselves this one simple question whether it is about the men or women we date, or whether it is about colleagues that we work with or whether we are recruiting, we can then address this issue upfront. I mean, enough is enough. The world is being ruled by superficial values – how we look, how much money we have, what car do we drive, who do we know. Let’s go back and simplify. Let’s jump out of this shallow cloud and dive back down to Earth. That’s where the soul of humanity is anyway. Do we have a deal?

SMART to SMARTER

yamommy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:32:22 +0000

This is the beauty of starting a blog for yourself – you learn! I have been in HR/L&D for 4 years now and I never new that SMART objectives for performance management actually got SMARTER! So, when line managers sit with their team members to discuss their objectives, they need to make sure that these objectives are SMART. What does that mean? Objectives should be:

S: Specific

M: Measurable

A: Attainable

R: Relevant

T: Time Bound

And here is the new addition!

E: Evaluate

R: Reevaluate

I love the ER, I really do!

Today’s post is really about two issues:

A. Does Management by Objectives really work?

B. Why I love the -ER!

A. Does Management by Objectives really work from your experience?

From my experience, I see that managing by objectives can only work if:

1.appraisal managers know how to set SMART objectives which is often not the case

2. managers clearly communicate the SMART objectives to the employees and the employees really understand them and what achieving them means for them, for the team and for the organization as a whole

3. the organization has a transparent culture where people are held accountable. Managers should be held accountable if they don’t take this process seriously.

Notice the word managers in bold over and over again! By managers, I don’t just mean executive managers, but direct report managers, supervisors, line managers or team leaders. I usually find the bottleneck is with them; maybe they aren’t sold on the idea. Maybe the appraisal system used is not user-friendly or maybe they hate doing ‘admin’ work. Somehow, they need to believe in the system and be trained to use it to their advantage and for the development of their employees. That should be the aim of any company that claims it is managed by objectives. Get your managers on board or get them out! If they don’t believe in the system, it may be a sign that they do not share the same organizational values; employees, especially managers, with different values become toxic to the organization eventually.

B. Why I love the -ER!

I love the E – Evaluate and the R – Reevaluate because if managers sit with their team members and discuss and review their objectives on a regular basis, the performance management system may work a lot better. Constant yet more ‘formal’ communication will allow employees to freely discuss where they are with their objectives and if they will be able to meet them; if not, managers and their subordinates can discuss what can be done so they can meet them or even change them before it is too late. Best practice states that managers should meet with their employees 4 times – 2 informal meetings, 1 semi-formal and the actual appraisal interview. This of course is the minimum.

So, I hope that if you are a manager, you realize that you have a huge role to play to develop your team and to move your agency forward. Objectives are not to be taken lightly. I have a lot to say about performance management in general, but I will leave that to future blog posts.

Do you think you are the MVP at work?

yamommy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:59:10 +0000

I hate to tell you this, but everyone is dispensable. Throughout the last few years working in training and HR, I realized that people often think more highly of themselves than others perceive them. I feel this is quite dangerous because this gives employees tunnel vision and prevents them from developing themselves. They often take feedback as criticism and ignore it. But in the spirit of Spain winning the World Cup, I thought I should offer my two-cents about this. Do you think that any of the players on the Spanish team think they are the best or better than their teammates? I don’t think so. That is why they were magical on the football field. That is why even when they had the chance to score, they would look around hunting for their pals to share the challenge and glory. If companies operated like the Spanish team, they would reach the top 100 companies in the world to work for easily. And come to think of it, who from the Spanish team can you label as the MVP- the most valuable player? I don’t know what the pro’s will decide, but in my point of view, it could be David Villa, Andrés Iniesta or Iker Casillas. Or maybe someone else from the squad. Why can’t I decide? Because they are all very valuable players. They play their best every single second.

So what can YOU do to be the MVP of your team at work? Well, I found this simplified checklist by Robert Half International on careerbuilder that I thought could give you a good start. I recommend you check out the article for details, but for now, I will just share the checklist headlines..just to wet your appetite:

1. Have a winning mind-set

2. Don’t be afraid to change plays

3. Develop the ability to make tough calls

4. Practice good sportsmanship

5. Offer to pinch hit

6. Build an enthusiastic fan base

Listing the above doesn’t give the article justice. It is worth you checking it out. Good luck and let’s play ball.