The secret to getting things done like a boss

In today’s edition of The Top Newsletter, we’ll discuss something that’s all too common: changes.

If you have stayed constant at a workplace for a year or two, you’ll notice that things change even when no one tries. And yet, there are a few things that we desperately want to change but cannot. 😞

I am talking of those tedious tasks that occupy a cozy permanent spot on the to-do list and don’t start rushing when the alarm hits. While stagnating items add to our burden, sometimes we just can’t push forward. This is where an exciting insight by a Nobel laureate comes in. 📚

What’s the secret to getting things done?

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein set forth the concept of a “nudge” in their eponymous book. A nudge is any aspect of how a choice is presented that alters people’s behavior predictably without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.

Nudges work by leveraging insights from behavioral science to influence decisions toward better outcomes subtly. We see quite a few nudges in action daily without ever realizing so. Wondering where?

The default option of no cutlery on some food delivery apps that cuts down on waste generation 🍴
Displaying fruits at eye level and candies somewhere far away in the cafeteria to encourage healthier choices 🍎🍬
The nod of your colleagues when they see you catching up with long-delayed assignments 🤝

That’s not all! Society uses many more such nudges and subtle tools to reinforce acceptable and appreciable behaviors.

How can managers use nudges?

Imagine a manager, Mark, who needs to implement a new performance management system. Despite recognizing the initiative’s importance, Mark finds it challenging to get people on board. He has explained things and answered questions, yet there’s inertia. But Mark knows about nudges and quickly devises some cool ideas.

The default option for training programs and feedback sessions is “yes.” This sets the schedule straight for everyone unless someone actively opts out. ✔️
Mark shares their example with others whenever someone completes a training module or applies something they learned. This recognition and nod to efforts encourages other team members to join. 🤝
While closing a session, Mark shares specific questions to get their team’s opinions. It helps him escape the generalized “all good” answer, and his team members think along relevant metrics to aid program improvement. 💭

How do we leverage nudges at Risely?

That was clever, wasn’t it? Nudges can be your subtle helping hand in getting a lot done. Even a notification bell or an underlined item on a to-do list can be super impactful when used well, like the one you can see here. ⬇️

That’s how Risely works, too! By subtly pushing and encouraging change through simple daily steps, Risely allows managers to unravel their true potential because we understand that you want to grow but get stuck. And that’s alright. 🤗

Want to see what nudges in action look like? Sign up for a free 14-day trial here 🚀

How to build your brand as a manager.

If you have scrolled LinkedIn recently, you might have encountered people discussing personal brands. Many tips and tricks tell you how to get this essential thing right. You might have encountered professionals who provide personal branding services and help you create an authentic version of yourself. But before getting into this storm of narratives and services, let’s unravel what this is all about.

What is a personal brand?

A personal brand refers to someone’s unique skills, knowledge, values, opinions, and personality combination. It makes you stand out from the crowd and ensures you are remembered. Often, a personal brand results over time through unintentional yet frequent actions. For instance, your habit of being on time always becomes a part of your brand once people notice you are never late. Conversely, a personal brand can be deliberate and cultivated, too! 😯

What about managers?

Surprisingly, a personal brand has always been vital for managers, even when the idea did not have this name or popularity to fend for itself. Think of the managers you have worked with; what makes you look up to them? The never give up attitude, constant openness to learning, or the senior’s ability to trust them? All of these are a part of their personal brand; even when you call someone a good manager or a bad manager.

The thing is, you will get branded irrespective of whether you consciously work on it or not.

For managers, a personal brand is like a professional identity package – it encompasses everything from your expertise in your field to how you present yourself on social media, from how you communicate to the values you uphold or how you deal with your team or others in the workplace. 🎯

What makes a manager’s brand?

Let’s break this idea down into simpler terms. When you think of someone’s personal brand, what are the aspects?

Skills and knowledge relevant to the area of work help position them as an expert. 🧠
Attitude and behavioral attributes make them a great asset. 🏄
Values guide the above two – their openness to learning and building consistently. 🎉
The story ties it all together. Knowing someone’s story helps you empathize easily; it shows you are interacting with their authentic self. ☘️

Building your brand: 3 things you can start today

First and foremost, sit down with a blank paper and pen, and think of yourself with the framework we saw above. What are your skills and expertise? What attitudes and values have guided their formation? And most importantly – what’s your story? Have your main character moment and define who you are. ⭐

Then:

Optimize your social media profiles: You can find detailed guides and tips for making the best use of every platform, like this one for LinkedIn. Optimization ensures that you present the most compelling version of yourself. 🔗
Write and speak: When you think of experts in your area, how often is it someone who does not write or talk about their work? It’s pretty rare, I’d bet. So let’s get you there too. In the simplest forms, you can start with posting on social media. Creating a blog post and attending events as a speaker can be the next steps. 🎤
Guide others: Guiding and mentoring are key skills of effective managers. It sets them apart because it shows their genuine care and responsibility toward their team. Such consistent engagement helps build a positive reputation (along with the obvious professional benefits.) 🧑🏫

Personal branding does sound like a lot, but often it’s quite simple. It’s about putting your authentic self at the forefront to build long-lasting connections. If you have any more doubts about what skills to work on or how to mentor people effectively, you can talk to Risely’s AI coach, Merlin, for free here. 🤖

Are you on track to meet your Q1 goals?

We are in the middle of the first quarter of 2024. Seems hard to believe. It surely is! ⏰

Time has passed by pretty quickly, but have our goals followed in the same stead? After starting on the high of a new year, we often falter. And that’s okay. In today’s edition of the Risely newsletter, let’s take a moment to reflect and reset.

We’re in the middle of it!

As the second week of February closes, we are officially in the center of the first quarter of this year. The steam typically cools down by this time, and high enthusiasm fizzles out. The reality starts to kick in. “Are we going to meet our targets for Q1?”

Instead of overthinking about it, let’s try to track some reasons why it happens:

Your work is not really yours. Someone else handed down the goals to you, and they just don’t feel yours. It happens with micromanagement and imbalance frequently. 🤹
While setting up goals for 2024, you became overambitious. Our ideal self sets goals often only to catch our realistic self struggling. 📚
A lot is happening? If you have early morning hobby classes followed by high-speed sprints and closing the day with wellness habits you need to have, you are likely to be overburdened. 🏃
You are beating yourself up about it. For many of us, stress happens solely out of anticipation. If you don’t do certain things, you will be in trouble. So you keep thinking of the trouble instead of doing the things, and end up in (surprise) trouble! 😞

How can we step out of this toxic cycle and refocus?

It’s pretty simple: consider those directly impacted and ask them for feedback.

You 🧠

First and foremost, focus on yourself. Understand the scope of your duties and assess your critical skills with Risely’s self-assessments. From decision-making to delegation, we’ve got you covered. Checkmark

Your Team 👥

Next, involve your team members. Recognizing the dullness of individual surveys, Risely offers anonymized team assessments to gather and report detailed feedback on your critical skills. Moreover, Risely tracks your skills over time alongside other managers, allowing for global benchmarking.

Unlock these features and more by signing up for free today! 🌟

PS: Don’t tell anyone about the secret superpower you get with Risely 🤫

Figuring The Next Steps 🛠️

Once you’ve identified areas for improvement, the question becomes how to proceed before we hit the end of the quarter. Managerial development offers various paths, including workshops, coaching sessions, and self-help tools. Risely integrates insights from these sources into one platform, delivering expert guidance directly to your mobile device daily upon signup. Start with these small steps today to lay the foundation for your future plans.

Do boring stand-ups leave your team sleepy?

Whether to stand up or not to stand up is the real question. Does your team drag through those early morning stand-up calls?

Chances are that your team members are among the thousands of employees who feel that stand-ups are more often than not pointless. That’s likely to happen when a team’s stand-up meetings are reduced to status checkpoints. In today’s edition of The Top newsletter, let’s reinvent efficient stand-up calls for you.⭐

What should a stand-up call look like?

First things first, let’s get the idea behind stand-ups right. It is supposed to be a short meeting, with concise messages and quick updates, ideally wrapped all within 15 minutes every day. As part of the agile working methodology, stand-up calls help a team sync up and find immediate solutions to problems that someone else might be facing.

An ideal stand-up looks like this –

“I am working on issue #78, but I’m stuck on this issue. Does anyone know how this is supposed to work?”🙂

On the other hand, most stand-ups unfortunately sound like this –

“I have completed working on #56 and today I will do #78 and..”😞

It often ends up being a litany of daily to-do lists. One person does not know why they should listen to someone else’s things to do. Right?

Quick Fixes for Effective Stand-ups

Here are a few things to change:

Start from the shared goal: If everyone is working on different ideas, there’s bound to be limited scope for collaboration or even the need for coordination. Thus, ensure that your team performs on different parts of the same shared goal instead of different goals altogether. 🎯
Create a safe space: How’d it be if you were asked to share your difficulties in front of a few people first thing in the morning? A little awkward, at least, right? Often, team members struggle to share their issues with their teams, too. As a manager, you can take steps to create a safe space for everyone where getting stuck is not seen in a negative light. 🤗
Lead by example: Use the stand-up calls to set examples for how you want them to go. Be vulnerable and share your problems, ask for suggestions, share additional context to drive collaboration, and bind the team together effectively. 💪
Encourage cross-functional collaboration: You can encourage your team members to help each other solve problems and offer tips. 🤝

Lastly, and most importantly, ask your team about the management processes that they work with. While something may perform well for many teams, it may not be the ideal solution for yours, too. Solutions to many people management challenges must be customized to suit a team and their manager’s specific context.

Saying yes too much could be hurting you

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when we think of ice cream? 🍨

Let me guess.

The good taste, obviously
The pleasant after-taste
Everyone’s happiness

What are the first three things on your mind if you think of a manager? Probably a person standing in a suit, leading a meeting, and instructing others. The number of matches in these features stands at 0. So, why do we act like we can crank it up to 11? 💯

People-pleasing is all too common

A YouGov poll showed that 49% of people surveyed identified themselves as “people-pleasers,” taking on a self-imposed quest to make everyone happy, even at personal costs. This behavior is even more present in women due to prevalent social constructs.

We often inadvertently fall into some familiar people-pleasing #behaviors while trying to be the managers of our dreams. Are you one such person? Let’s see –

I usually don’t #delegate because my team is already doing so much.
I accept all proposals and ideas because I want to show I value them.
I don’t offer negative feedback because I don’t want to hurt others.
I keep the responsibility concentrated in my hands, especially when things go wrong.
I am ready to do pretty much everything to avoid conflict and #confrontation.

Not saying no hurts you!

But ensuring comfort does not mean a perpetual yes, and aiding growth does not stand for never being critical. There’s a thin line in there, and standing on either side of it can translate into a massive difference in the impact you can make as a manager.

Consistent people-pleasing behavior does not only hurt your perception. There’s much more to it. While a manager’s credibility is lost, the people lose trust, and slowly, resentment builds up. The feeling of anxiety every time someone is about to be unhappy wrecks up your nervous system. Eventually, the vacuum left by a leader can become the team’s first step toward collapse.

Saying no and standing your ground at the right time can save you. How do I do it? Ask Merlin for free now. 🤖

Multitasking is killer, a killer of your effort

Are you reading this in your early morning round-up of news? Or while driving? Or worse, amid a conversation with someone? It is much more likely to happen than we ever imagined because 72% of employees feel pressure to multitask during the working day.

Multitasking is a myth

Multitasking has been consistently proven to be a killer of our much-loved productivity. Yet, we are often caught up in the chase of getting multiple things done at once. More often than not, we are not doing multiple tasks at once. Instead, we quickly switch back and forth between tasks, increasing the cognitive load with each turn.

Are you a believer?

Psychology Now magazine recently shared an interesting resource to help eliminate this impasse. Go through the list below and see if your behaviors match those of multitaskers:

Checking emails, making a drink, and reading the news starts my day 🌅
There are several tabs open on my computer at once 🖥️
I often look at my phone while working 📱
I often say, “What was I supposed to be doing?” 🤔
Phone calls are a great excuse to do the online food shop, go for a walk, or run errands 🛒🚶

How can you stop multitasking?

Do you agree with the list above? If yes, it means you must take a step back and rethink how you manage your time and work. I can help you with the first one here; take a free assessment of your time management skills now. It will help you understand the various domains and how well you fare in each. ⏳

Managing work is often a little bit more complicated. In addition to focusing on delegating tasks better across your team, you need to look for ways to get into the flow zone. Conceptualized in the global bestseller Ikigai, the idea of being in flow stands for immersion into what you are doing—a mindful focus that prevents distractions and keeps you going. 🌐

You can work with a coach to find what works best for you or start a free conversation with the AI-coach Merlin to get a head start now. People vary, and so do the things that help them work. You may not have clarity at the get-go, but here’s to starting the journey toward working effectively. 🚀

The Doodles are back in the office, what about you?

Managerial Tips for a Joyful Holiday Season

It’s that time of the year again.

Yes, you guessed it right. The holiday season has kickstarted, and we are about to go off for the longest and presumably the best part of it. As winter kicks off, a new vibe sets in. The year’s ending; let’s push some ideas onto the next one. Or, by the year’s end, we need to rush these tasks at the earliest!

However, what it looks like for your team depends on what you do. But here’s the thing: the holiday season may not be the same for all your team members. 🙂

Making the Holidays Easy for All

While the spirit is of cheerfulness, strict deadlines often play the spoiler. There’s the added financial and social stress of performative roles. Trust me on this because the numbers align right well. In a survey, 88% of people highlighted it as the most stressful part of the year. The urge to be perfect also follows us at work with the perfect decor, the right gifts to exchange, and so on. 😥

But we are managers, right? We can put a pause on this. Here’s how:

Be empathetic: The key lies in understanding that holidays differ for everyone. Some team members could be affected due to personal issues at such times. Isolation often rises during the holiday season, as SHRM reports. Offering them an empathetic and supportive hand is essential. 🤝
Be inclusive: Moreover, keep in mind that inclusivity rests on remembering diversity. Do not get wrapped up in singular ideas of what holidays mean. Be open and celebrate together. 🎀
Be a little more flexible: Putting that cute decor up needs more than a few rounds to the supermarkets. And that’s not the end of it! As the time to reconnect with family and reset lives comes, employees need more time to themselves that you can offer. Helping set priorities and goals for end-of-year that don’t overburden teams is important, too.📆
Check-ins and checking out: Some of your team members would do great if you checked in with them frequently to chat and wrap things up. Conversely, encourage your team to take time off and enjoy the festivities. 🎆
Take the lead on planning: Workers report high stress toward the end of the year due to massive deadlines and planning needed for the following year. Managers can ease things out by planning to allow a few days of rest and relaxation for all. Ensure that they are not overwhelmed, and aid goal-setting for the new year on a positive note. 😀

Before the out-of-office notes start plugging in, here’s a quick note to all managers: take a break. For all the stigmas that they carry, breaks are not the ultimate hurdle in your growth. Often, they can be the panacea to many problems that escape our eyes every day. Reconnecting with family and friends over delectable chats and food is a great way to rejuvenate – don’t let the ghost of toxic productivity scare you away from what you need!

Promise yourself to grow beyond your limits and reach new heights in the year to come. 🎉

It’s lonely as a manager. But, here’s a change

Let’s head back to history for a while. How did you react when you were told you would be a manager? Let me make a wild guess: You were happy. Excited at the prospect of being in a leadership position and doing better than you ever have.

In some corners, there’d be a little bit of hesitation lurking. What if it all goes wrong? I believe it didn’t because you are here, making waves in your role and taking teams to new heights. 💡

But here’s the thing. Sometimes, we mess up. And although it may not impact us in the long term, it does hold us back. More often than not, this is about very typical and non-serious issues.

That time when you skipped a review only to catch errors later and do the whole thing again. Or when your team disagreed, you still went ahead, much to their dismay. In hindsight, after spending years at our jobs, we wonder if we could have done things differently had we had the time. Or had we known exactly what to do? 😣

Leaders often feel isolated

You are not alone in this feeling. Research shows that leadership roles are often accompanied by feelings of loneliness, ironically enough. Succession to the top leadership position in an organization is basically isolating as it separates leaders from others (who now directly report to them) and leaves them without peers.

Additionally, as a leader, you are often expected to meet the needs of employees – be it taking care of their concerns or providing support through tough times. However, when no one is available to respond to the leaders’ needs for company and support, the leaders fall prey to loneliness.

The authors of this essay point out that executive or leadership coaching can be a great first step to beat down isolation. The safe space with a coach offers a much-needed platform to think out loud, examine, and accept. Their words can further help you improve and get over hesitation and issues. 🧑🏫

But, there’s support!

While our professional journeys go on, the feeling of loneliness that sets in with the first leadership role remains by our side. As Shakespeare said, “Heavy is the head that wears a crown,” holding the mantle is tiresome, too. Now, I won’t ask you to search for the best coach possible and turn your life 180 degrees. ⚙️

But here’s something simpler, lighter, and easier: Talk to Merlin once. Describe what’s going on, what you’d like to do as the new year hits, and where your mind has been stuck lately. The best part is that our AI coach doesn’t judge you (at least openly 😜). You have three free conversations that you can start anytime. Get started. 📍

Seeking inspiration? We’ve got you covered!

Check out this week’s manager story, where Shruthi Kamath unveils her managerial journey through the ups and downs. Follow Shruthi’s over-a-decade-long journey of leadership and management in a field often described as a men’s arena. Read more to explore how she learned from her experiences to become the excellent manager she is today!

Does Your Team Think You Need Training?

In a survey by SHRM, about half the employees pointed out that training to help their supervisors and managers would directly improve their performance. And that’s not the end of it. Over half of the employees surveyed (57%) agreed that their manager needed some training.😯

Now, you might think that if they are not team leads, who are they even to judge you in the role of one? Well, your team members are the ones who are directly impacted by your team management abilities.

SHRM President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, further points out, “There is no relationship in the workplace more powerful than the one between people managers and employees.” 🤝

For most organizations, feedback systems go one way. From the top to the bottom. While trickle-down economics is a hot debate, trickle-down feedback is a broad norm for all its harms and fallacies. What is missing is that effective feedback must be a two-way exercise for both sides to learn.

On the one hand, the managers guide growth for their team members in line with the organization’s mission, and the team suggests practical improvements on the other, creating a feedback loop in its true sense.

Often, managers point out where a team member needs to work. SHRM flipped the lens here, and team members listed some areas where we can all work a bit to get a lot better.

According to the employees surveyed, the top five areas for improvement in people management skills are:

#EffectiveCommunication (41%) 🗣️
#TeamDevelopment and training (38%) 🏆
Time management and #Delegation (37%) ⏲️
Fostering a positive and inclusive #TeamCulture (35%) 🎊
Managing #TeamPerformance (35%) 📈

All of these areas can strategically improve team performance and your performance as a team manager. Communication is often the cornerstone of all action. Get this right, and the rest flows into place.

Similarly, mastering #TimeManagement and delegation ensures smooth workflows for you and your team. Once these battles are won, you can move toward creating a great team culture that focuses on performing and learning.✨

But you might still wonder if you fall into the majority that is earmarked for improvement by their teams.

Here’s a quick way out: Drop into a conversation with Merlin. Merlin is Risely’s interactive chatbot, which enables success for people managers. From the link below, you can have three free chat sessions with Merlin to discuss your professional journey and seek advice on where to work. If hesitation often keeps you from knocking on the doors to success, here’s the right chance to speed up.

Talk to Merlin! 🆓

Along with Merlin, you can also avail yourself of Risely’s free self-assessments for critical managerial and leadership skills to picture your professional abilities accurately. With the help of such conversations and assessments, you can visualize a journey of growth designed just for you.

In the end, remember that leadership and leadership development don’t come with a set finish line. While reaching new goals, keep in mind that there’s always more to learn, do, and achieve with your team. Happy growing! 🤸

SHRM President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, further points out, “There is no relationship in the workplace more powerful than the one between people managers and employees.” 🤝

Often, managers point out where a team member needs to work. SHRM flipped the lens here, and team members listed some areas where we can all work a bit to get a lot better.

According to the employees surveyed, the top five areas for improvement in people management skills are:

#EffectiveCommunication (41%) 🗣️
#TeamDevelopment and training (38%) 🏆
Time management and #Delegation (37%) ⏲️
Fostering a positive and inclusive #TeamCulture (35%) 🎊
Managing #TeamPerformance (35%) 📈

But you might still wonder if you fall into the majority that is earmarked for improvement by their teams.

Talk to Merlin! 🆓

Is Your Team Hesitant to Disturb You?

Here’s a simple question: does your team know you are there for them? Now, I don’t mean to disparage your efforts. But let’s think about it. You are present, nearby, and often visible, yet engrossed in your work.

Would your team members think twice before contacting you when they are stuck? If yes, there’s some work to do. Let’s undo these invisible walls together today. 🧱

Breaking the Ice

Suppose your manager is sitting right before you, and you have a question. You have been stuck for hours, and asking him will likely complete things as soon as possible. But, you wait. Why?

Your manager looks busy. They are entirely focused on the desk. They are tense, and you are sure your question will interrupt them. Most likely to make them annoyed. So you mail them instead. 😞

Yet, here’s a twist. What if simple changes could make this situation better? Let’s revisit. You are there with a question while your manager is fixed on their screen. For a second, they look up and offer a reassuring smile. You get the inlet you need! There goes the question, and you have some hours and hesitation saved. 😀

So, what made the difference? In the second setup, you could approach your manager. Being present is essential, but it’s useless until and unless your team knows you are there for them, not merely by circumstance. ✅

Approachability 101

How can you do that? Being an approachable manager is simple.

Know your team and what they do. Understanding their roles will help you establish connections and foster trust. 🤝
Focus on your body language. We all are busy, tense, and focused at work. Yet, being relaxed and open to conversation can help your team interact. 🧑💼
Empathy and authenticity are your guides. Being genuine in your interactions while understanding your team’s perspectives will help them see you as an approachable guide in times of need. 🗣️
Share anecdotes and reassure others. Talking about your experiences can help your team relax and connect. 👍
Choose words and phrases that convey positivity. Avoid negative or judgmental language that may make others hesitant to approach you. 🧘

Ultimately, the game is all about communication in its various forms. Sometimes, actions say a lot. So make sure that yours are spelling out the correct messages! It’s not just about the words; communication encompasses your body language, gestures, and listening habits. You can test your communication and active listening skills for free with Risely’s self-assessments for people managers today to get started toward a new way of leadership.

Skill assessments are one of the many ways that Risely enables growth for people managers, but that’s not all! You can unlock various interactive features, including the AI chatbot Merlin, who provides guidance 24*7 for your people management challenges, guided and customized learning journeys, and much more at half the cost now with our exciting Black Friday offers.

Grab discounts up to 50% on all annual plans with the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2023 till the 31st of December 2023 to unleash your team’s true potential, one step a day!

Leadership in Gray: What We Can Learn from Zuckerberg?

Do you ever find yourself in a total head-scratcher? I bet you have; we all have those moments when we’re like, “What on earth is going on here?” Life can be a tricky puzzle, and sometimes, we manage to solve it, but other times, we just can’t seem to piece it together. 🧩 The key is knowing that as managers, our job is to be the guiding star for our team and help them chart a path through the chaos.

Why does Mark Zuckerberg always wear gray T-shirts?

Let’s talk about something more common and simpler: Mark Zuckerberg’s gray tees. You’ve probably noticed how he’s almost always wearing the same thing. It might seem like he’s just being lazy, but there’s a method to his fashion madness.

Zuck says, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.” He’s all about minimizing the number of decisions he has to make so he can make the few that really matter count. 🤷♂️

You are not alone in fatigue

An average American makes about 35,000 decisions a day, as per one estimate. The number sounds huge. But, opening this piece to read on your device involved many decisions – to read or not, where to read, what device to use, and so on.

An American journalist named John Tierney coined a term for this concept – #DecisionFatigue. It’s that feeling when you’ve made so many choices that your decision-making quality starts to nosedive. Sound familiar? If it does, it’s time to step back and shake things up in your team.

Delegating tasks and responsibilities is a smart move, and you can even take a page from Zuckerberg’s book by cutting out the noise and zeroing in on what truly counts. It’s like a workplace spring cleaning! 🌼

Smarter solutions await!

But here’s the cool part – you don’t have to go on this journey alone. Risely, the AI co-pilot for leadership development is your trusty sidekick. Meet Merlin, the interactive chatbot, and unlock its multiple powerful modes to level up your skills and tackle challenges. 🤖 Check out this short video 👇

Merlin makes decisions easy for you with its constant support and advice. You can practice difficult conversations before heading to them, discuss specific situations, and seek tips for developing a skill – all as per your comfort.

So, create your free account today, and start tracking your progress one step at a time. In a world that’s changing faster than you can say “meta,” having a buddy who’s got your back and gets you ready for whatever comes your way is your ticket to success! 🚀🌟

Meanwhile, remember that taking breaks is not just okay but great. It helps you rejuvenate and jump back to business better than before.

Let’s navigate the skills maze? Perceptions vs. Reality

Would you be willing to talk about building your skills today? Essential skills that help you unlock professional success. Critical skills to your growth. Great #communication skills. Strong delegation ability. And so on… Honestly, getting these buzzwords thrown at me puts me into an initial spurt.

I surely want to work on these skills next. But how do I do it? After all, what does effective communication even mean? 🤔

If I ask my team members, I’d hear varied answers. While one emphasized listening well to others, the other pointed to the need to speak clearly. And neither is wrong! Yet, how do I place these in order and clearly understand what I need to do? If you have ever been through this whirlwind, today’s newsletter is the much-needed clarity you deserve. Let’s unpack. 🧩

What’s a skill, after all? 🤔

A skill can be easily defined as an individual’s learned ability to perform effectively. Skills can be specific to the domain of your work or general with broad applications.

Every skill can be defined further in terms of sub-skills, the smaller units that make the whole. For instance, let’s talk about guidance ability. In essence, it includes the ability to direct and nurture others. This skill would also have my potential to be a good role model and give feedback that helps my team members grow. 👨👦🗣️

Thus, when working to improve my #GuidanceAbility, I need to focus on multiple areas. In some, I might fare well due to experience and natural tendencies, while others can be harder nuts to crack. 🌰💪

Let’s make it easier! 🛤️

Jumping on this train of understanding skill and working progressively along every aspect is a dream plan, right? But as dreams go, it’s unrealistic. Not every manager can know, weigh, and understand every aspect. The perception of a manager and their team about the skills can differ heavily, too. You might think you give bad feedback, but your team may find it helpful. Again, we are in challenging waters. 🌊

Risely resolves this problem by allowing in-depth skill assessments that involve your self-assessment and a review of your skills by your team. The best part is that your team members are anonymous and, thus, encouraged to be honest. By comparing those scores for various sub-skills, you can figure out precisely what interventions you need to build your core skills. Here’s what it looks like – 📊

A self-assessment enables you to introspect and understand yourself. Your team’s feedback allows you to look into the social perception of your skills. Are your skills creating an impact? Learning methods that focus on you in isolation, forget that you influence and get influenced by others, too! That’s what it helps you answer. By combining these two metrics, Risely provides insights to work on the exact skill areas holding you back. 🔍

Treading the managerial profession is hard, and we are here to help you with many more such tailored ideas. Join a tribe of managers committed to growth and excellence today by signing up for free. 🚀👥📈

Say hello to bite-sized learning

Today, in The Top newsletter, I want to dive into a small idea that addresses a seemingly big issue.

So, my team and I have been working closely with managers, and we’ve embarked on this exciting journey called Manager Stories. It’s been about a quarter since we started, and let me tell you, the entire process of curating these stories has been a real eye-opener for us, from getting people on board to publishing. But the real gems have been the conversations we’ve had.

During one of our chats with Shine Nagpal, he dropped a nugget of wisdom that really resonated with us. He said, “I didn’t want to spend hours in training sessions when I could be with my family.” 🕰️ Shine wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Shockingly, only 11% of executives see value in leadership development programs, according to a recent McKinsey report. 📊

These numbers raise a red flag because leadership development programs are supposed to be the lifeblood of organizations worldwide. But clearly, something’s missing. Our conversations with managers and leaders have shed some light on this issue:

Leadership development should be more personalized. Inspirational examples are fantastic, but challenges aren’t one-size-fits-all.
Training sessions can be a drag if they’re dull. Development programs need to be engaging, fostering retention and genuine growth.
Occasional training doesn’t always cut it. Real-life scenarios don’t follow a seminar script, leaving managers puzzled when unexpected issues arise.
Clarity is an excellent place to start with. Managers understand the concepts, ideas, and need for leadership training much more when they can see the impact and know where to apply their learnings.

So, how do we tackle this? The challenge lies in creating scalable solutions that adapt to a wide range of circumstances – something traditional training often struggles with. After all, there are limits on the capacity of on-site coaches, and workshops only suit some. Geographical and financial limitations lead to smaller organizations often falling through the cracks. Moreover, not every manager on your team will resonate with the same approach! There are a lot of factors at play. 🏢

That’s where technology swoops in to save the day. 🚀 Take Risely, for example. When managers sign up, they get to define their specific challenges. As they progress, they receive gentle nudges designed to focus on their personal growth. And guess what? These nudges won’t eat up your entire day – they’re as simple as reading an inspiring quote that guides you through your day. How convenient is that?

There’s a chatbot to help you constantly – whether you are wondering how a difficult conversation will play out or beating yourself up to figure out precisely what’s missing in your skillset – Merlin will guide you through.

Add skill assessments and a skill center to showcase your progress, and top it off with masterclasses to dive deeper into the mess and detangle your leadership journey. You get a holistic solution to your people management troubles. And the best part? You can sign up today for free and embark on a whole new journey of development interventions. 🌟

How Culturro Developed Effective Performance Reviews – A Lookback

Performance management – is often a dreaded phrase, and not without valid reasons to back that fear. We often conflate performance reviews with appraisals because that is how the world shaped things over the years. Yet, new waves of change are taking a different approach – demarking performance management, performance reviews, and appraisals as distinct but complementary areas. Culturro’s path toward the present scope and mode of performance management and reviews has also evolved. As we usher in another change, and quite a major one, to mark an essential milestone in the organization’s journey, let’s look back at everything that has shaped us so far.

Table of Contents

How Culturro Developed Effective Performance Reviews – A Lookback
Other Related Blogs

Personal Experience with Performance Reviews

My initial encounter with the so-called evil of performance reviews happened at my first job. The process and outcomes were underwhelming and unhelpful. But, it also proved to be a significant learning experience. Performance reviews at my organization were closely tied with appraisals and thus followed an annual cycle. When performance reviews are conducted once a year, we miss a lot. Neither the team member nor the manager can address the entire timespan effectively; a level of recency bias is bound to enter the conversation. But that’s not all the trouble.

What was amiss?

Annual performance reviews that relied on metrics set by the organization became a unidirectional process, where the manager rated employee performance and added their remarks as deemed relevant. Quite a few essential elements were missing:

Little actionable feedback was provided to aid improvement. I had mixed feelings and no idea where to proceed.
Even if feedback was added, it would be assessed one year later! The lack of regular checks and real-time support was disappointing.
The process missed some areas and covered some. Annual reviews mean multiple projects, skill sets, and activities – all of which can merit more time for assessment and development.

What was needed?

As I moved on from this team to another, and as things progressed. A few things became clear. First, performance reviews cannot merely be the basis of compensation. There’s more to it, especially for performance management. Tying up reviews and compensation together created awkward situations for the HR functions of organizations. Second, performance reviews and discussions should go both ways. After all, what’s the point if I cannot ask questions and get support? Managers needed to redesign reviews as a holistic program focusing on performance management and improvement. A recent McKinsey Global Survey revealed that many employees feel their organizations’ current systems and practices have no effect—or even a negative one—on company performance. The sentiment is, thus, echoed widely and needs action.

Culturro’s Journey

Culturro started as a small team of fewer than five people, with some contributing across multiple domains and taking on varied roles. Performance management, thus, was heavily dependent on individual effort. Over time, the system indeed and unsurprisingly gave up owing to the inconsistency. Yet, this was where things began to take shape – with a realization that performance management matters for every team.

Starting the Reviews Game

Over the next few years, performance reviews took a different avatar, focusing on one-on-one catch-ups between team managers and members. It was a monthly exercise where we discussed what was happening and how to improve it. We concentrate on mutual feedback and understanding things from all perspectives. On top of this came annual performance appraisals through discussions over the year and highlights on the primary hits and misses. One thing was missing, though – the numbers. While one-on-ones went on with great consistency across the team, much of it was undocumented and informal. Thus, we missed a chunk of the matter from our discussions. And so, we went ahead and switched things up!

Building Method into the Madness

As the last quarter closed, we introduced performance reviews for the team. In our new approach, self-assessments and manager assessments of critical tasks and activities guide the review discussions. We ask questions about challenges, learnings, and development opportunities and create a structure that further guides our efforts to manage and improve performance. Moreover, the discussions are shaped as two-way conversations, where the team members also offer feedback and suggestions to their managers.

OtherInterestingReads

Learnings and the Way Forward for Effective Performance Reviews at Culturro

While constantly making changes and incorporating ideas to create a holistic performance management system, we have understood the need to overcome conventional beliefs. Performance management need not merely be a checklist exercise that causes dread in employees. Instead, it can be the most exciting part of someone’s growth and development.

Utility of performance reviews

What role do performance reviews play in your team? That’s a question worth pondering for every manager. Are they merely tracking how much additional compensation to pay or adding some value to your team’s performance and development? Reshaping performance reviews into discussions that focus on growth through mutual feedback is the key to getting things right in the new employment era – where individuals know what matters to them and value development opportunities highly before choosing a workplace.

Holistic understanding of performance – the good, bad, and the ugly

Feedback on performance need not be all good to motivate or encourage someone per se. Instead, it needs to be realistic and helpful. Picking the right scale to evaluate performance feedback is essential. If the rating is good vs bad, then crucial areas such as timeliness and helpfulness are missed. It calls for managers to be open and authentic as well as supportive. While providing critical feedback can be daunting, recognizing its value in the longer run of things helps. Intelligent techniques like a sandwich feedback technique would help you as well. The key lies in presenting all sides of the picture – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and enabling improvement.

Reviews and Appraisals – a match made in?

Well, we know what we think about this. It’s a match that often causes trouble, so why not separate the two? Building direct connections between performance and compensation leads to performance anxiety in team members. That’s not where the issue ends; such links have led to unhealthy working habits that harm in the long run, such as working overtime, overlooking quality checks to produce quantity, and employees overburdening themselves. All in all, it’s a recipe for a lack of psychological safety at work. To beat this trouble, organizations can decouple compensation and performance. Instead, rely on set metrics, enable a match of expectations, and develop employees who are able as well as willing to go above and beyond.

Getting the frequency right

With Culturro, I understood that monthly cycles were a tad too short to focus on long-term objectives. Things like developing a skill or building a new product feature extend a month frequently. While we can check the progress, it’s too quick for a review. Annual or six-month cycles, on the other hand, are heavily prone to availability and recency biases. Thus, the sweet spot of performance reviews lies in a quarterly cadence. It gives enough time to work on crucial areas, allows for quick recall and real-time feedback, and ensures we are not glossing over critical areas.

Incorporating frameworks

Conversations that build empathy with team members are great. Documented conversations that allow you to track and measure performance are even better. Goal-setting frameworks like SMART goals and OKRs are great ways to ensure this. SMART goals offer clarity. Picture this:

We need to increase website traffic. Vs
We aim to take website traffic from X to Y over the next quarter.

Clear goals with relevant metrics to measure them are essential to effective performance reviews. OKRs add to it by ensuring accountability and ownership over several areas and tasks. Building such frameworks into the review process can simplify your journey. Moreover, as fairness is a critical factor in ensuring the effectiveness of performance reviews, using frameworks that help visualize the bigger picture, offer transparency, and set standards is essential.

Conclusion

Performance management is one of the most crucial areas for managers and HR leaders. Yet, several opinions and debates take over this matter and leave organizations hapless. At the turn of a new age of employment, with the entry of the Gen-Z into the workforce in a post-pandemic world, recognizing the value that effective performance reviews can have is critical for success. The key to excelling lies in letting go of unhelpful conventions and instead creating a system that suits your needs. With more team structure and composition variety, it’s only the beginning of customized employee solutions in all areas.

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Does your team know what you want? Here’s how to ensure it.

This week, let’s dive into something we’ve all encountered: those plans that never quite take off and ideas that seem to circle endlessly in meetings without any action. It’s frustrating, right? Well, a big part of this issue often boils down to one thing: setting expectations.

Now, you might be thinking, “Setting expectations? That sounds a bit fuzzy and complicated.” But fear not, my friend! We’ve got the roadmap to help us navigate this terrain. 🗺️

When it comes to setting expectations for your team, you can base them on:

✅ The established standards of work in your team and industry.

✅ Ideas that everyone agrees on as constituting good work.

✅ A shared understanding of team goals and responsibilities.

Setting clear expectations regarding performance and behavior among team members helps synchronize reactions to challenges, in addition to ensuring that clarity on processes and goals remains high across the board. Hence, if you often find yourself frustrated and overwhelmed with the number of things that go wrong – the loophole might lie in not setting the expectations right for your team.

Just picture this:

Your team does not know that you expect reports on Friday evenings
Your team knows that you review reports on Friday evenings

Which scenario is going to help you out here? Once that is clear, we can figure out how to set expectations effectively.

What’s the right way to set expectations?

But here’s the twist – your team also has expectations of you! They want a manager who provides effective feedback, resolves concerns, and doesn’t pester them for hourly reports. The tricky part is that these expectations often go unspoken. We get so caught up in setting quarterly goals that we forget the day-to-day expectations shaping our work.

At the onset, setting expectations can be trickier than setting goals. There’s no clear finish line, which varies from person to person. And often, you or your team might not know exactly what’s needed. To tackle this challenge, managers can:

🚀 Lead by example and demonstrate the behavior you expect from your team.
🤝 Establish shared standards and norms with your team.
🗣️ Use feedback sessions to discuss expectations in professional relationships openly.
💡 Respect your team’s needs and boundaries.

And here’s a nifty tip: learn from examples! Check out what other managers and leaders are doing to set expectations right. Risely can help with that. It offers interactive quizzes that evaluate real-life situations related to expectation setting. Plus, it shows you the right expectations and how they come about.

You can even sign up for free to access these quizzes and other activities that enhance your critical skills. Expectation setting is just one of the areas that can hold back professional success for managers, and there are many more where small mistakes are creating more significant troubles for you. Risely is your AI co-pilot for leadership development, offering short and sweet training units to help you grow. 🌱