May 17 2013
Setting some basic principles is key when establishing a well-functioning Performance Management. In this short video, Performance Management Expert – Johannes Ingerby, gives you three principles that he thinks are the most important ones to establish in order to get a good start when you’re looking to boost performance.
May 16 2013
Susanne Holmström, Head of Customer Operation Sweden at Tele2, has been chosen as the Future female leader 2013 by Ledarna – Sweden’s organization for managers. We at The Information Company wish to congratulate Susanne on this great honor and we are also glad to be working with Susanne and her co-workers to translate the strategy of Customer Operation Sweden into action.
For further reading on Susanne Holmström, please see this article (in Swedish).
May 15 2013
You thought money couldn’t buy happiness? Wrong. You just have to spend your money on other stuff… Check out this TED talk:
May 14 2013
Often when I am at different conferences or meet business leaders there is a discussion regarding which steering model is the best? This is however a wrongly put question. The question that should be asked is rather what kind of culture do you want to have and which effects are you aiming for in your specific organization?
May 10 2013
Entrepreneur Derek Sivers gives an interesting take on leadership in this classic three minute TED talk:
May 7 2013
An incentive system aimed at curbing tardiness at a commercial-laundry plant ended up decreasing productivity 1.4%, say Ian Larkin of Harvard Business School and Lamar Pierce and doctoral student Timothy Gubler of Washington University. The program, under which employees with perfect attendance were eligible for drawings to win gift cards, actually squelched workers’ intrinsic motivation to behave well.
First, employees ended up gaming the program; employees who would otherwise have arrived to work tardy on a certain day might instead either call in sick to avoid disqualification or else simply stay home because they would be disqualified from the award regardless.
Second, employees who previously had excellent attendance and were highly productive ended up suffering a 6-8 percent productivity decrease. The reasearch suggests the incentive demotivated these workers, as they believed it was unfair to recognize people who only changed their behavior because of an award.
Here’s full paper.
This award did not recognize people who went above and beyond, it was an award for a behavior that employees should have. So tip 1 is to make sure that incentives reward truly outstanding behaviour.
Furthermore, people respond to monetary incentives with a strong gaming mentality. So tip 2 is to focus less on the money and more on the public pat on the back – you can’t put a price on getting official recognition.
A pat on the back is priceless…
May 6 2013
I read an interesting piece on the subject of obeying or disobeying orders, authored by the internationally recognized performance management expert Gary Cokins. Mr Cokins questions the slow adoption rate of management methods, strategy maps and balanced scorecards in organizations and puts the onus on middle managers to clean up mistakes made by weak top executives. He is looking for more “champion” behavior from key individuals in organizations and gives an inspiring example of a U.S. Marine Corporal who disobeyed orders to save his comrades and risked his life doing so. Read the article and ask yourself if you are ready to defy?
May 2 2013
When an organization cries out for a pronounced steering, the problem is usually not so much the lack of steering as the overdose of steering.
Research within the public sector (http://www.offentligaaffarer.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1421:dubbla-budskap-i-dagens-verksamhetssstyrning&catid=45:ekonomi&Itemid=88, in Swedish) show that the number of different management models used within organizations increases, but without the old ones being cleared out. Goals are formulated for the organization and the co-workers and operational managers are expected to come up with the solutions to achieve them. Still they have loads of rules, policies and detailed instructions to follow. These conflicting messages decrease the latitude of operation managers and co-workers and lead to less clarity within the organization.
So before you dismiss a management model as non-functioning because the organization doesn’t perform as desired, do the analysis; is your organization overdosing on steering?
Apr 30 2013
These are the days of filing your income tax returns in Sweden – and maybe also the days of realizing you’ll need to pay some more… So here’s a quick fix saving tip for you: a research experiment shows that people who earned money were up to 8.6% less likely to save their cash (as opposed to spending it on such items as T-shirts and photo albums) if they stored it in three accounts rather than one. With funds spread across multiple accounts, people find it harder to see how much money they really own, and it’s easier for them to invent creative justifications for fun purchases, the researchers in this article say.
Tonight in Sweden we celebrate Valborg, an old tradition of lighting huge bonfires – which has absolutely nothing to do with taxes. But if you find yourself with too much money when filing your tax returns, you can always use some to add fuel to the fire… Glad Valborg!
A Valborg bonfire in front of the Stockholm city hall
