Results Management: Effective People Management to Achieve Excellent Results

Foreword

It is my pleasure to write this foreword. This is a topic dear to my heart. Perhaps I should say it addresses one of the most vexing dilemmas in my work life as a leader and manager.

How do you move your organization forward, keeping your employees positive, committed and focused on continuous improvement? An effective manager needs to identify areas for improvement, to have them understood, accepted and implemented with zest. This is an ideal state. But what is the real state in most organizations?

I've supervised units at two universities in the United States for more than 30 years. The annual performance evaluations happen in the last quarter of the year when we are involved in the budgeting process for the next year and in the final rush of student recruitment. The performance evaluation process disrupts the positive energy developed with staff during the year and worse; I suspect no one at senior levels has time to really read the evaluations and the forms thoroughly.

In the end, salary is really the most important symbol of achievement to the employee – the percentage increase is really determined by a gross ranking of employees by the supervisor.

In a rush, the percentage increase is determined without effective communication between senior managers and line managers. Many factors impacting on performance and results fail to come into play in the process.

More often than not, the employee gets a decent raise, but is perturbed by a few words pointing out areas for improvement, ...