A short documentary film about one of our supposedly “low performing schools”, which is actually a great school, in the Mission district of San Francisco. The principal, Adelina Aramburo, is supposed to be fired, even though she is doing a great job. If you don’t think she should be fired, call SFUSD Superintendent Carlos Garcia at (415) 241-6493 (CarlosGarcia@sfusd.edu), State Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss at 916-323-0611, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell at 916-319-0800. You can also email Federal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at arne.duncan@ed.gov
This is about the self-propelled performance process (SPPP).
How good is your organisation with getting people to perform exceptionally well?
How many times have you seen people around you trying to change something about a work situation, in an effort to improve something? Something like a system, a process, work flow, a document and so forth. It happens a lot, not so?
How many organisations do you know, who just don’t make progress with growth, profit, morale or performance. Sometimes an organisation can be good, because the efficient machines make up for human deficiencies and failure.
Many organisations have job descriptions in place, but does it make people perform?
Many organisations have performance measurement in place, but does it make people perform to their potential?
Many organisations even have a strategic plan and derivative business plans, but does it make the organisation perform?
Many organisations even have the performance areas and performance criteria for each and every job documented, but does it make people perform?
Some organisations also undertake or outsource to consultants the design of improved organisation structures, the re-design of roles and responsibilities, the design and development of electronic systems, the design of job grading systems and many more things, without achieving the desired improved performance.
You must agree that performance is a very elusive concept for most persons in positions of authority and in the driving seats of most organisations.
What then, is so magical about bringing about performance in the workplace – and with it a culture of work and work ethics?
What about our school systems? Why have our school systems failed to instigate scholarly performance for so long? Why is it that such a small proportion of children perform well in school? Only a handful come up with exceptional results; in all the grades, in all schools worldwide.
Where then, is the missing link or links? What are the secrets? Are they buried so mystically deep underground that nobody seems to be able to dig it up to the surface of mother earth? Not even the best of human brains; after all the foregoing scientific research and development?
We have heard numerous times of companies, which say they have implemented a system of performance management. The goals and objectives are embodied in the job descriptions and they do performance measurement quarterly, bi-annually or annually. The problem is that employees remain on previous performance levels and nothing occurs to increase their motivation, morale or inspiration to perform better.
We are sure the readers will be able to recite many more examples out of own experience.
Have you noticed that many persons still seem to take recourse to autocratic behavior, although we claim to operate in a democratic society for decades now and in some cases centuries. In other words, many managers still try to get movement by applying a military, dictator style to try and enforce discipline or poor decisions. Others may hide their inabilities behind an aloof attitude of outdated protocol of superiority and make themselves unapproachable.
The big remaining question is therefore: How to get it right, with the correct tactics and how to utilize it for our children also?
We are talking about a process, a systematic work process, with automatic self-control and integrated performance measurement built in, to motivate and inspire all employees, to reach and surpass their strategic and organization goals, on a voluntary basis, regularly.
We had been fortunate to be involved in such a process and experienced the results first-hand.
It is a process, where the desire to perform comes naturally, for everyone involved. In this process all the pieces of the puzzle like strategic planning, business plans, goal-setting, job descriptions, performance measurement, performance areas and performance criteria fall into place, to form a integrated whole that makes sense to all. It is also a process where self-control and initiative by individuals form the foundation for the building blocks of the whole process.
The benefits of this systematic work process are increased enthusiasm, dedication, productivity, performance, profitability and work result satisfaction for both employees and employers alike.
We like to refer to this process as the natural, self-inspired performance process and have appropriately named it “The self-propelled performance process”. You do not have to pay the normal seminar fees of between $1400.00 and $5000.00 for this information, just join the club and you will get it for free. You can read and learn more about it at our website.
Pierre du Plessis (MBL, 1982, UNISA) is a business consultant, co-owner of Leaders Circle, author of several e-books and training manuals, with website Career Builders. This article can be used for re-publishing as long as it remains unchanged.
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The Epson PowerLite S5 is affordable, lightweight, and consistently top of the line. It comes with a 2 year warranty and contains all of the necessities required of a high quality, maximum performance home theater projector.
While the Epson PowerLite S5 is much like its predecessors, the S5 is lighter and brighter than any model before it. This packs a punch in the home theater industry as it provides more bang for your buck. If you’re interested in cheap, badly made projectors than there’s plenty of other brands out there, but Epson builds its products to stand the test of time while performing its upmost duty to the viewer by providing a smooth, enriched image all the way through.
Many projectors (and businesses in general) tend to come up short of their claims when tested, but Epson has generously outdone themselves when it comes to the PowerLite S5. It is dramatically brighter than what they claim it to be and exceeds expectations when it comes to performance. The Epson PowerLite S5 comes with a more compact remote control than the S4 for sleeker design and comfort.
While the Epson S5 is a wonderful projector, it comes with less resolution capabilities than most modern day computers. The projector will compress anything it can to make up for this, but small objects in the film will appear slightly smaller than what they’re supposed to be. If you can afford it, a higher resolution projector would present you with a better overall quality but those with a limited budget can expect just as good quality as any other SVGA projector. Most Epson PowerLite S5’s are sold to schools and small businesses and are the preferred projector for the education system due to the high performance you receive compared to the low price.
The S5 is a lot quiter than many home theater projectors with only 35 db of sound with the lamp on maximum output. When the lamp is in low power mode the noise level drops to 28 db which is extremely quiet. In a small room you will definitely be able to hear some amount of noise coming from the projector, but it won’t be so bad that you’ll have to scream just to be heard. You should find the noise to be more of an observation rather than an annoyance.
While many offshore centers have been around for decades, high performing offshore centers seem to be about as common as common sense—which seems to be quite a rare commodity.
Following are seven tips for operating a high performing captive offshore center.
Tip#1: Sense of self. First, the center/unit must have a sense of self. In other words, it must be structured in a way that allows the members to view themselves as an individual and unique entity unto itself. If the offshore center serves many different parts of the Parent Corporation and/or different clients through various regional organizations, the sum of all of the parts must still come back to the middle.
Tip#2: Sense of belonging/importance. Despite needing a ‘sense of self’ high performing centers have at their very core strong unifying themes and aggressively promote a sense of belonging with other corporate entities that goes beyond the barriers of its own organizational domain. To be truly successful there must be line of sight to higher-level management in the parent organization and a clear mission that is fully supported by executive leadership.
Tip#3: Do not compromise on center management. When hiring the center management team in the offshore location, be very particular. There are many schools of thought regarding the use of expats. I tend to lean toward using an expat team to start things off and get the culture established, then gradually replacing expats on a selective basis with strong local management over time.
When going the expat route, don’t assume that a common heritage automatically guarantees success. In some cases that I’ve seen, individuals who were Indian by birth but removed from the continent for many years put into local management teams only to see those individuals revert to very old-school Indian management techniques. While those techniques might have worked well twenty or thirty years ago, they no longer do because in-country management styles and processes are considerably advanced over techniques applied twenty of more years ago.
Tip#4: Appreciation for different cultures. In addition to building a ‘sense of belonging’ in a captive offshore center, it is important that the head of the business unit to which the offshore center reports, also be evolved in their thinking about other countries and cultures. Selection criteria for potential expats need to include additional attributes like a genuine open-mindedness to different cultures in general but to the target culture in particular. Both the parent organization leader and expat manager must be on the same page and agree that they are not going to run the business as if it existed in the home country and will seek to understand the best ways to blend the core values and cultures of the parent and local companies.
Tip#5: Blended culture. In addition to having an understanding of the local culture, a key objective should be to establish a blended culture within the center. Similar to a joint venture, you want to utilize the best of each organization and throw away the parts that don’t work.
If you start a captive offshore center that is entirely operated under the local culture, it will be a very foreign environment for employees of the parent company that come to work in or visit the captive offshore center. The reverse is likewise true for employees of the captive center when they go on assignment to other locations of the parent company. Perhaps of greater consequence is the risk of having clients visit the captive center and leave with the feeling that the location and its’ team are too ‘different’ or ‘foreign’ and thus more difficult to work with than other captive centers where they feel more comfortable. The objective again, is to work to develop a blended culture that embraces and nurtures the best of both worlds.
Tip#6: Communication in the context of the culture. Assuming that high performing captive offshore centers are at least partially dependent on expatriate managers to get started, communicating with local staff is extremely important and a critical success factor for the business. Before arriving in country expats, should spend time with other expats and/or people who are from the target country and who have operated successfully in both cultures. The operative word here is ‘successfully’. Merely spending time in a foreign country does not assure the parent organization that the individual has assimilated the intricacies of managing and working with people who do not share the same heritage. Cultural awareness and understanding are critical components of successful communications in an expat environment.
In addition to shadowing and learning from others who have been successful doing what the expat manager is expected to do, there are a number of good cultural primers or guides available. I recommend asking those whom you know understand the target culture to recommend one or more of these guides and then read them before arriving in country.
Tip#7: Measures and Balancing Measures. Measuring performance is an important and critical attribute of high performing captive offshore centers. However, personal experience suggests that in creating a measurement system for captive offshore centers it is important to do more than simply establish a set of primary measures. To ensure that the organization achieves what it hopes to achieve the business should consider developing at least one balancing measure for each primary measure that is established and tracked.
For example, let’s say you want to improve the time to close a ticket for call-center agents. With only a “time to close” measure in place you could see customer satisfaction dip and the number of new incidents rise unexpectedly. Why? Because the agent may be incented to get the caller off the phone as quickly as possible and may even close the ticket in the call system before the caller hangs up.
Personal experience demonstrates that extraordinary things can and do happen if a balancing measure is not in place for each and every primary measure you hold people accountable to. If a measure impacts their performance rating, speed of advancement, and/or compensation you will see extremely creative ways to drive measures to their benefit. In most cases, this kind of behavior is not beneficial to your company or its’ clients.
Finally, don’t forget the basics…. The Tips presented above are representative of areas to be considered when setting up a captive organization in an offshore location and creating a high performance work environment. Of course all other normal good business practices still apply in building and managing captive offshore centers.
The high performing captive offshore centers I have seen are successful for many reasons but most of them have thought through what it means to be ‘best in class’ and have put into practice many of the suggestions in this article.
Mike McGarry is a Senior Consultant with Alsbridge PLC, the award winning advisors on outsourcing, shared services and offshoring.
