This time my journal will be reflect the lesson in class,that we had covered during the past 2 weeks. Our trainer Ms Kolsum had started our module by discussing about the qualities of being a leader. It appears that by identify the qualities of leadership, a leader should recognize their strengths and weaknesses to develop themselves to become a competitive leader. There are few traits of a good leader example:
- Self - confident
- Trustworthy
- Trustworthy
- Communicator
- Inspire
Unit 1: Work with team members to interpret team plans
These traits can be a guideline for an individual to encourage themselves to become a leader in their teams. A leader also should support team members to achieve certain goals in the organization. This is where they required to have a team plan in order to provide any strategies for the organization development. Team plan is a important method to set direction for the team to identify the priorities and simplifies decision making among the team. It also include to highlight resources for implementation, such as financial,time or matched competencies of the employees.
As far as my working experience, our company may or may not implement team planning too in depth. The management would normally plan a strategy by informal way, that it will appear to be lack of resources and identification of team member's capabilities. In this case, by doing certain analysis within the team before interpreting and implementing team plan is recommended. Factors of consideration to take note such as work environment or relationship between business objective and development and implementation of plans and processes at the team level.
Allocate tasks and resources to team members
- What actually needs doing?
- When does it need to be done by?
- How and where does it need to be done (what tools or equipment
does it need, or specific locations)?
- Who can do it (what kind of skills and knowledge, or competence
are required)?
Reviewing performance
Here are few questions, a leader could reflect about the decisions they make in allocating
tasks:-
- How well were the tasks done?
Did people complete the tasks to the standard that the organisation sets and which customers require?
- Was the work done efficiently?
Efficiently is about using resources well to keep costs as low as possible. Was there unnecessary waste or were too many people used to complete the task?
- Was the work done on time?
Able to accomplish in the target time-frame.
- Were the team motivated to do the work well and happy with the decisions that being made and did they get on and do the work well?
The above questions are a useful way of reviewing how well as a leader allocate
work to their team members. The final question is the most important and
difficult to answer. It is to be aware of how your team feel and whether or not they are motivated well. It can only be realize when we are able to talk to the team and listen to their comments. Support and communicate is part of process of allocating task.
Unit 2: Identify learning and development programmes that may support performance
In this unit, after reading through the class notes and writing some points by myself, there are certain things that make me focus on to is about word of "learning". Yes, this is what i am currently doing, despite learning at the same time, thinking of self-development, in which area that i suppose to figure out to develop certain skill or knowledge for myself that can bring benefit to my company.
I believe, most of organizations or companies wants their employees to enhance their knowledge or abilities by providing them choices for learning and development opportunities. The choices that they took may depends on :
- Perspective of the organization and staff towards to training and development. (view in term of positive or negative)
- The priorities and requirement of the organization and staff. (leads to achievement of company's goal or vision)
- Resources and skills for the training and development (sufficient of equipment or staff abilities)
The benefit of training and development for employees and organization may include:
- Workers are helped to focus, and empowering employees become priority.
- Productivity is increased especially among the staff
- Employee confidence is built for enable team development and contributing to better team/organisation morale.
- Employees are up to date with current new job-related information, so as to contribute significantly to better customer service.
- Employees are updated on new and enhanced skills, with a view to aligning them to business goals and objectives.
- After a downsizing, remaining workers are given the technical and management skills to handle increased workloads.
- Job satisfaction, employee motivation and morale are increased.
Models of methods for measuring the performance of team activities
After doing the Performance Analysis, to close the identify gap is by looking at the intervention selection. These are the important way to find a better solution in order to make implementation and changes. It might be through coaching,team building or even provide the team members with training or education.
After we had interpret and implement the team plan, a part from the main discussion about the plan strategies, a leader roles is to ensure that the work assigned to his team is properly and fairly portioned and
allocated among the team members.
The term of allocation basically it is about delegating workloads to the team members in a manner making best use of the available resources. The allocation of task works best when the team members had the capabilities to effectuate the allocates efficiently and on-time. The sign of interest and ambitious of a team members towards the task given shows that they are motivated and enthusiastic to be ready to reveal their talent such as ideas and strength on the job.
In my current workplace it happens to be the management is not allocating the task so well among the staff. Since we had less than 10 staff in the company, the task usually been delegate without making consideration of the competencies of the team members. With this, it will end up occur workload for the certain team members. Even they have experience for several years in the workplace, there are some skills or knowledge that they had to develop themselves to avoid any lack or uncertainties to accomplish the job. The best way for the management to consider is by providing any training for the individual to improve their specific skills.
Being a leader, when allocating work to team members it will often have a set of tasks. A set of tasks may mean that there is just one,but usually it will have several tasks that need to be completed. However many there are, leader should start by asking some key questions about each task:
- What actually needs doing?
- When does it need to be done by?
- How and where does it need to be done (what tools or equipment
does it need, or specific locations)?
- Who can do it (what kind of skills and knowledge, or competence
are required)?
Reviewing performance
Here are few questions, a leader could reflect about the decisions they make in allocating
tasks:-
- How well were the tasks done?
Did people complete the tasks to the standard that the organisation sets and which customers require?
- Was the work done efficiently?
Efficiently is about using resources well to keep costs as low as possible. Was there unnecessary waste or were too many people used to complete the task?
- Was the work done on time?
Able to accomplish in the target time-frame.
- Were the team motivated to do the work well and happy with the decisions that being made and did they get on and do the work well?
The above questions are a useful way of reviewing how well as a leader allocate
work to their team members. The final question is the most important and
difficult to answer. It is to be aware of how your team feel and whether or not they are motivated well. It can only be realize when we are able to talk to the team and listen to their comments. Support and communicate is part of process of allocating task.
Negotiate and document the deliverables an
performance expectation of each
team members
In this point, we had covered the definition of performance expectation. Basically, it clarify about setting team members performance in order to deliver goal result within a specific time-frame. It also outlines the general areas of knowledge and skills required of the employee to be successful in the job.
In terms of 'negotiate and document' means is to document or record to use as measurement for deliverable performance expectation -KPI. Type of recording forms can be written such as performance management form or scoring documents. The importance to implement this settings, is to support the observation of progress towards achieving goals and also to clarify clear direction for team activities.
Overall, communicating clear performance expectation towards team members was highly required so they will understand where their job is needed to be focus in to implementing the organizational goals.
Using the 'SMART' objective settings, could possibly support and enhance team members performance.
Team members need clear performance expectations in order to drive both individual and team success. It takes time, effort and discussion between a leader and the team members to achieve this. It may take one discussion, it may take several. The process of engaging the team member in the discussion and having them contribute to defining the expectations helps ensure that they have ownership of and commitment to performing.
Unit 2: Identify learning and development programmes that may support performance
In this unit, after reading through the class notes and writing some points by myself, there are certain things that make me focus on to is about word of "learning". Yes, this is what i am currently doing, despite learning at the same time, thinking of self-development, in which area that i suppose to figure out to develop certain skill or knowledge for myself that can bring benefit to my company.
I believe, most of organizations or companies wants their employees to enhance their knowledge or abilities by providing them choices for learning and development opportunities. The choices that they took may depends on :
- Perspective of the organization and staff towards to training and development. (view in term of positive or negative)
- The priorities and requirement of the organization and staff. (leads to achievement of company's goal or vision)
- Resources and skills for the training and development (sufficient of equipment or staff abilities)
The benefit of training and development for employees and organization may include:
- Workers are helped to focus, and empowering employees become priority.
- Productivity is increased especially among the staff
- Employee confidence is built for enable team development and contributing to better team/organisation morale.
- Employees are up to date with current new job-related information, so as to contribute significantly to better customer service.
- Employees are updated on new and enhanced skills, with a view to aligning them to business goals and objectives.
- After a downsizing, remaining workers are given the technical and management skills to handle increased workloads.
- Job satisfaction, employee motivation and morale are increased.
Regards to training and development opportunities, when it comes to team plan, a leader can analyze their team member's performance in order to implement any changes or skills required to achieve the goal plan. Perhaps, the leader also should develop themselves from time to time, it can be part of encouragement or role model to the other involved team members.
(Performance Technology Model)
The diagram above shows one of the model and methods to measure performance of teamactivities. It also known as Human Performance Model. This is one way of maintaining awareness of expected and actual performance. The objective of this model is to determine what is required to close the performance gap - lack in terms of cause analysis such as resources,data,skill and knowledge. The performance gap is an indicator as ''missing'' state where it had been define in Performance Analysis.
After doing the Performance Analysis, to close the identify gap is by looking at the intervention selection. These are the important way to find a better solution in order to make implementation and changes. It might be through coaching,team building or even provide the team members with training or education.
The Evaluation of Result is by provide regular feedback or evaluate immediate reaction and application. Negotiation to deliver feedback towards team members requires a good technique, to clarify the strategies available for a win-win situation between participants and their team members
Performance Feedback
In order to maintain awareness of expected and actual performances, the process of providing feedback to the team members is important to team activities. Normally at work, the management will provide feedback through communication (example via meeting or consultation - face to face)
Barriers of giving constructive feedback
In order to maintain awareness of expected and actual performances, the process of providing feedback to the team members is important to team activities. Normally at work, the management will provide feedback through communication (example via meeting or consultation - face to face)
Barriers of giving constructive feedback
There are several point whereby the leader facing barriers to provide feedback to team members.
- a fear of upsetting the members or damaging the leader–members relationship.
- a fear of doing more harm than good.
- the members being resistant or defensive when receiving criticism. Poor handling of a reaction to negative feedback can result in feedback being disregarded thereafter.
- feedback being too generalised and not related to specific facts or observations.
- feedback not giving guidance on how to rectify behaviour.
- inconsistent feedback from multiple sources.
- a lack of respect for the source of feedback.
As we all aware, performance feedback are forms into 2 ways which are constructive feedback and destructive criticism. To avoid the team members to misunderstood the feedback that they received as a destructive criticism,here are some points or guideline to take note :
- Content (the issue should be specific)
- Deliver (the manner on how you deliver it)
- Sincerity (with care and respect - No Mixed messages)
- express appreciation (positive feedback)
- Timing (in real time, when the incident occur)
- Frequency (to acknowledge performance)
Negotiation Technique
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Thomas and Kilmann describe five distinctive personalities for handling conflict situations or negotiations.
This style of negotiation is best described as competitive and is one of the most used styles in negotiating. Negotiators using this style are looking out for their own needs, asking themselves ‘what do I need to get from this discussion / process?’. They use a variety of tactics to get what they want and their concern for the relationship is low.
Compromising (I Lose / Win Some – You Lose/ Win Some)
Avoiding (I Lose – You Lose)
Response to performance of the employee's working condition
Apart from communication and negotiation, in order to encourage team members to work on to achieve team plan strategy, there are few responses to consider by the leader towards team members that can maintain good criteria within them. example criteria such as initiative, absentees or collaborative (in team work). The responses can be done by the leader as follows:
- Performance bonus
- Coaching
- Learning and development programmes
With this implementation responses, team member can gain benefit from the organisation and also can develop themselves to the next level.
Unit 3: Lead and managing team performance
In this unit, we identify the progress of monitoring team plan and review the team performances. By the end of the plan, we can possible observe our team members effort to generate result by review team against success criteria. Below are the steps on how to manage team performances:
1. Identify goals setting - (expectation).
2. Giving feedback to evaluate outcomes.
3. Success criteria can be a bench-marked towards business objective.
4. Adhere organisational SOP regulation to ensure team members been treated well
5. Promote team morale and productivity.
Offer public recognition for a job well done. While many people are motivated by money, receiving acknowledgment for their performance also can serve as a big motivator and morale booster.
Make the workplace an enjoyable place.
A working environment that is dull, uninteresting
and uninspiring can bring down even the cheeriest person in the world. Organize employee gathering,Ensure that the office or work area is well lit, freshly painted and tidy.
Make employee duties and requirements clear. People need to know what is expected of them. If they don't, that can lead to a low morale and a feeling that they can do better elsewhere.
Success criteria for measuring team performance
To review team performance, there are certain benchmark or criteria to be taken note for measuring purpose toward business goals.
- Effectiveness - length of contribution to achieve the objective
- Efficiency - the extent of time or resources in providing the effort
- Budgeting - financial resources is well used
- Analyze key performance Indicator - The designed KPI are well and reliable
Negotiating is essentially a process to communicate with people to get us to where or what we want. This technique can be implement in the workplace - especially between leaders and subordinates. The process can be quick, it might take seconds or the negotiation could take months or more.To effectively negotiate it is important to recognize the different styles of negotiating.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Thomas and Kilmann describe five distinctive personalities for handling conflict situations or negotiations.
This style of negotiation is best described as competitive and is one of the most used styles in negotiating. Negotiators using this style are looking out for their own needs, asking themselves ‘what do I need to get from this discussion / process?’. They use a variety of tactics to get what they want and their concern for the relationship is low.
The top 5 Negotiating Styles of Thomas and Kilmann
Competing (I win – You lose)
This style is most effective when results are needed quickly, or you are certain there is no room for negotiation.It means by being fully assertive and uncooperative approach to handle the situation.
Accommodating (I Lose – You Win)
This style of negotiation is all about the relationship and it is opposite of the Competing style. Accommodating negotiators believe that the only way to ultimately get what they want is to give everything to the other party and maybe in time they will do the same or stay. Examples of this style are when a person knowingly injures another person and willingly offers to pay all medical expenses hoping the injured party does not sue.
Compromising (I Lose / Win Some – You Lose/ Win Some)
This style values the relationship and acknowledges that there is a loss but it is better to compromise then completely lose. A compromising style results in both parties getting more or less half of what they originally wanted. This style is common when the negotiating parties have a high level of trust between each other.
Collaborating (I Win – You Win)
This style is opposite with extreme avoiding. It is possible for both sides to come out with what they want. Both parties aware that they have needs that must be met and take the time to find creative solutions, based by mutual respect and listen to others opinions.
Avoiding (I Lose – You Lose)
An example of this style is two co-workers who cannot agree on the delivery of a project and avoid communicating with each other but happily talk to other co-workers about it!
Apart from communication and negotiation, in order to encourage team members to work on to achieve team plan strategy, there are few responses to consider by the leader towards team members that can maintain good criteria within them. example criteria such as initiative, absentees or collaborative (in team work). The responses can be done by the leader as follows:
- Performance bonus
- Coaching
- Learning and development programmes
With this implementation responses, team member can gain benefit from the organisation and also can develop themselves to the next level.
Unit 3: Lead and managing team performance
In this unit, we identify the progress of monitoring team plan and review the team performances. By the end of the plan, we can possible observe our team members effort to generate result by review team against success criteria. Below are the steps on how to manage team performances:
1. Identify goals setting - (expectation).
2. Giving feedback to evaluate outcomes.
3. Success criteria can be a bench-marked towards business objective.
4. Adhere organisational SOP regulation to ensure team members been treated well
5. Promote team morale and productivity.
Promote Good Morale in the Workplace
Offer public recognition for a job well done. While many people are motivated by money, receiving acknowledgment for their performance also can serve as a big motivator and morale booster.
Make the workplace an enjoyable place.
A working environment that is dull, uninteresting
Make employee duties and requirements clear. People need to know what is expected of them. If they don't, that can lead to a low morale and a feeling that they can do better elsewhere.
Success criteria for measuring team performance
To review team performance, there are certain benchmark or criteria to be taken note for measuring purpose toward business goals.
- Effectiveness - length of contribution to achieve the objective
- Efficiency - the extent of time or resources in providing the effort
- Budgeting - financial resources is well used
- Analyze key performance Indicator - The designed KPI are well and reliable
Performance Appraisal
Performance Appraisal is the systematic evaluation of the performance of employees and to understand the abilities of a person for further growth and development. It also part of the tool to manage performance.
Performance appraisal is generally done in systematic ways which are as follows:
1. Leaders analyses the factors behind work performances of team members.
2. The employers are in position to guide the employees for a better performance
The process of performance appraisals are based by appraisal meeting. the key elements that are recommended in the process are measurement,feedbacks (providing information to progress and continue to perform well in future). Doing exchange of views between leader and the members to support performances. Importantly agreement between them in order to be clear and understand about the improvement to be done.
Good work, Khadijah. I like how you relate lesson learnt in class to what's practiced (or not) at work. I look forward to your next journal.
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