Performance Reviews Gone, Competency Frameworks Next: The Dominoes Fall

I still remember running my first performance review as a young manager. It was a painful ordeal we just needed to get through. But we were following best practice so it had to be done, right?

A cow following the herd is also following best practice. 

Unless you've been living under a rock you will have noticed the yearly performance review process is on it's way out. This trend has been widely reported in the Harvard Business Review, the Washington post, the New Yorker and more. Many large organizations from Adobe, Microsoft, Accenture and Deloitte have dumped their annual performance review process. 

Competency frameworks are next. Those large static lists of competencies usually developed at great cost have no positive impact on organizational performance.

Leadership Competency Framework

Having a competency framework seems to make sense. To link individual performance to the goals of the business we need a list of competencies: the knowledge, skills, judgment, and attributes people need to perform a job. With a standard set of competencies for each role in the business people know the kind of behaviors the organization values and requires to achieve its objectives. A yearly performance review framed around the competency framework completes the loop ensuring the organization operates like a well oiled machine.

But we are human beings, not human resources. Organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources. Competency frameworks are ignored by most managers in most organizations, at best a distraction from the real job of managing.

As a manager ask yourself: if your organization deleted the competency framework from the corporate server, and it was never ever mentioned again, how would this negatively impact your teams performance? 

About the Author:

Phil LeNir is president of CoachingOurselves, a company he co-founded with Henry Mintzberg. They help organizations setup peer-coaching programs for leadership development. Phil believes the whole idea of running leadership development programs to fill skills gaps identified using competency frameworks doesn't make much sense. As best as he can Phil uses common sense and good judgment to help his clients rather than just follow best practices.

Phil developed a keen interest for organizational performance as a manager and director in various high-technology companies specializing in speech-recognition systems. Phil holds a patent on Speech Recognition and Speaker Verification using distributed speech processing, has a Masters of Management and Electrical Engineering degree from McGill University in Canada.

Our Newest Peer-Coaching Module is "Emotional Intelligence: Your Inner and Outer Self"

Having a high IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is important for mangers but so is having a high EQ (Emotional Quotient), or what is called emotional intelligence, made up of a range of skills. Our EQ—the way we manage emotions, both our own and those of others—can play a critical role in determining our happiness and success at work.

Our newest 90-minute discussion module for managers and leaders, "Emotional Intelligence: Managing Your Inner and Outer Self" is authored by David Creelman, President of Creelman Research.

Always provocative and eye-opening, CoachingOurselves topic discussion guides will leave management teams with new perspectives and key learnings that will make them better managers.

About CoachingOurselves:

CoachingOurselves is a peer coaching leadership development methodology that builds community, stimulates exchange of perspectives, and encourages team cohesion. 

This is an innovative adaptation of the 70/20/10 approach to leadership development and organizational transformation created by Phil LeNir and Henry Mintzberg.

The methodology uses 90-minute reflective discussion modules to explore a wide range of topics. These modules were created by more than forty leading management thinkers including Henry Mintzberg, Marshall Goldsmith, David Cooperrider, and Michael Beer.

The modules are used by organizations, certified coaches, and facilitators to deliver a powerful cost-effective learning experience for managers and management teams.

Contact Warren Cohen at warren@coachingourselves.com or (+1) 514-419-1849 for more information on getting started today.

Public Workshops and Webinars on CoachingOurselves

Please contact us directly if you'd like to arrange a workshop for your HR team.

• April 10^th | CSTD Ottawa Chapter | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with PhilLeNir
• April 21^st | ATD Central New York Chapter (Syracuse) | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with PhilLeNir
• April 22^nd | Niagara Institute Hosted Webinar, 2:00PM EDT | Peer Coaching: Developing Leaders, Building Community and Improving Performance
• April 28^th | CSTD Montreal Chapter (Montreal) | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with Phil LeNir
• May 4^th | ATD Hudson Mohawk Chapter (Albany) | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with Phil LeNir
• May 6^th | CSTD Hosted Webinar | Building Community through Peer Coaching
• May 14^th | RPFQ Hosted Webinar (en Francais)| Apprentissage par le coaching entre pairs
• May 18^th-20^th | ATD National Conference (Orlando Florida) | Exhibiting – come visit our booth!
• June 2^nd  | ATD Mid New Jersey Chapter | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with Phil LeNir
• June 4^th | ATD Central Massachusetts Chapter (Boston) | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with Phil LeNir
• July 14^th | ODNetwork.org hosted webinar | Workshop on Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching with Phil LeNir
• September 9-12^th | CoachingOurselves Conference, with Mintzberg, Jennings and Pontefract | Visit us in Montreal to learn about CoachingOurselves through sessions, case studies and workshops
• Oct 6-7^th | Congrès des ressources humaines 2015(Quebec City) | Exhibiting -- come visit our booth
• Oct 7^th | Workshop at CRHA 2015 starting at 9am (Quebec City) | Imaginer… l’apprentissage par le coaching entre pairs (peer coaching)
• Nov 17^th | Workshop at the 2015 Canadian Public Sector Excellence Fair | Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching
• Nov 18-20^th | CSTD Exhibition and Tradeshow (Toronto) | Exhibiting -- come visit our booth


The primary audience for our "Learning and Performance through Peer Coaching" workshop would be folks in HR. The other audience would be senior and middle managers, or business owners, interested in alternative approaches to management and leadership development. 

During the workshop participants will learn about peer-coaching as an alternative to traditional management and leadership development; what it is, where it came from, how it fits into the continuum of pedagogical approaches in management and leadership  development (e.g. compared to Case Study methodology, Action Learning, Traditional content focused learning etc..).

All of what we do is based on the work Henry Mintzberg has been doing in management education. Using his work we have packaged two programs; the cascading program and the reflection cafe program. Through these programs managers learn from, and coach, each other. Organizations build capacity to develop themselves and it's up to 75% less expensive than classroom based learning.

CoachingOurselves was co-founded by Henry Mintzberg in 2007 and our approach is used by over 15,000 managers in organizations around the world.

"Stimulating the Entrepreneurial Imagination"

The word entrepreneur is derived from two words, entre, meaning  to ‘enter’ or to ‘penetrate in between’, and prendere, meaning to ‘grasp’ or ‘seize hold of'. So, an entrepreneur is one who penetrates the spaces between established boundaries and seizes opportunities that are overlooked by others. This ability to challenge the dominant worldview and ‘think the unthinkable’ gives those with an entrepreneurial imagination a decisive advantage over those who pursue strategies based on conventionally held ideas and beliefs.  

Our newest CoachingOurselves module provides you with some thought strategies to stimulate your entrepreneurial imagination and invites you to shift the focus of your attention to creating added value for your organization. You will:

• Understand how the entrepreneurial imagination is created through shifting paradigms or worldviews.
• Develop paradigm-shifting strategies to innovate new value-adding products/services/practices within your organization.

Robert Chia is Research Professor of Management at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. Prior to entering academia, Robert worked for 16 years in aircraft maintenance engineering, manufacturing management and human resource management for a large multinational corporation based in the Asia Pacific.

See http://www.coachingourselves.com.

About CoachingOurselves:

CoachingOurselves is a peer coaching leadership development methodology that builds community, stimulates exchange of perspectives, and encourages team cohesion. This is an innovative adaptation of the 70/20/10 approach to leadership development and organizational transformation created by Phil LeNir and Henry Mintzberg.

The methodology uses 90-minute reflective discussion modules to explore a wide range of topics. These modules were created by more than forty leading management thinkers including Henry Mintzberg, Marshall Goldsmith, David Cooperrider, and Michael Beer.

The modules are used by organizations, certified coaches, and facilitators to deliver a powerful cost-effective learning experience for managers and management teams.

Contact Warren Cohen at warren@coachingourselves.com.