Welcome
to the Altris Blog
Misuse of feedback?
Once you let feedback loose in an organisation there is a period where people are trying it on, getting used to it and seeing if everyone else is buying in just as much as them. In the early stages feedback can often be poorly done: too lengthy, softened too much in order to not offend, poorly timed, poorly delivered, emotionally delivered, and a whole host of other accidental failures. If you want feedback to thrive then you need to look beyond the early difficulties and encourage the good use and practice of feedback because, like anything else, it takes a bit of practice particular in the organisational setting where there are so many pitfalls.
360 the power and the problems
360 feedback has now been around for many years and as coaches it is a ripe tool for development conversations. Or at least it should be if used well. However there are some problems with 360 tools that I believe can easily be rectified with a few mindset changes amongst users. In this article, I’m… Read more
Powerful Performance Reviews
Performance reviews have always been a bugbear for many organisations and a challenge for many managers. In recent years, organisations have disconnected the development conversation from the annual pay and reward rounds and some are even moving away from performance ratings with a view to making the conversation less about ‘the rating number’ and more about development. Whichever way you do it, the challenge is always how well the managers deliver when they conduct a session.
Are leadership roles harder these days?
A board colleague of mine recently commented that ‘Leadership roles are so much harder these days’ to general agreement around the table. Its one of those things that everyone knows isn’t it. Afterwards I found myself querying the view and asking why she thought that was the case. Everything she listed was in existence when… Read more
Ambition and getting in the way of yourself
People who are strongly guided by their desire to keep moving forward can have very strong expectations of themselves. Again, a leader that has no expectations of themselves? Someone who doesn’t hold themselves accountable or responsible? Yup, that’s not a leader. But people with ‘very strong’ expectations of themselves can only notice what they didn’t achieve, and are overly hard on themselves when they don’t meet those ‘high bar’ expectations. There is little long term motivation from only seeing your failures.