I’m planning on setting up my first O3 meetings next week. I’m very nervous. My American employees will like them, I’ve no doubt. But I’m going to have a tough sell to my German Local National (LN) employees. I know this may sound presumptuous of me, but I’m fairly confident career progression is not a topic I can use to motivate/coach them on. Let me explain, we all work for the Army, and LN positions are VERY hard to come by. There is an extremely low turnover rate, and the only time a vacancy occurs is if someone retires or dies. For them to progress into a higher paying job would involve a move to another city and there are very few willing to do so. So when they get a job, they stay in it. They also have some pretty good workforce protection rules, for example they are not required to have annual appraisals. So while I can easily use the O3s to build personal relationships, I’m not sure how much long–term goal setting I can conduct. I’m having difficult time thinking how to make the O3s a positive experience for them or tailor the O3 to the cultural difference. Maybe I’m just expecting too much and I’m sure once I get started and we go through a few of them, focus will come into play…I just hate winging it.
I was trying to search for employee goal setting in the forums and after this post will search the pod casts too, but if anyone has a forum link, I would appreciate that.
thanks
O3 nervousness
Relax reid2l. Take O3s slow and you will definitely see areas to introduce coaching and goal setting. Focus on your directs and explore their worlds to find areas in their life and work to coach them all. Take this slow and ensure its areas that they are interested in and I'm confident you will find more than enough areas to help with that don't need to fit into career promotion.
Build the relationship first, provide all the assistance and feedback you can, the rest will fall in place in time. Don't push it and just let it happen.
O3 nervousness
Mike's right, the goal of the O3s is to build better relationships with your team.
In the O3s, you will start to find out what it important to each individual on the team, making it easier for you to know what motivates them. Maybe they want to perform certain tasks they enjoy that you need someone to do. Maybe they just want someone to listen to them. Or, maybe they just want to keep their jobs and need to do as you (their boss) ask ;-)
I think the "Setting goals" casts are what you're looking for:
http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/12/how-to-set-annual-goals-part-1-of-…
http://www.manager-tools.com/2008/01/how-to-set-annual-goals-part-2-of-…
http://www.manager-tools.com/2008/01/how-to-set-annual-goals-part-3-of-…
O3 nervousness
reid2l,
I hope your O3's are going well. Keep in mind the goal of the O3 is to build a relationship, not to provide your team with career progression. Keep the O3 simple and focus on relationship building. The coaching and goal setting can be added later after you have established a relationship with your direct.
The O3 will be a positive experiance if you keep it focused on building the relationship. Ask about the family, follow-up on personal things that are mentioned. I can't tell you how many times I have heard surprise in my directs voices when in the middle of an O3 I ask about a personal item (vacation, home move, family illness). Some of them even thank me for asking the question.
Keep the focus early on for building the relationship. Once a good relationship is established adding the other pieces will be easier.
MadAmos
6 week report - SUCCESS STORY
I am speechless...well not really, but i'm too excited to know where to start. Here are my success stories after only 6 weeks of weekly O3 meetings:
- 1 employee has stopped cussing and exploding at everyone and has made a notable effort to be more calm and patient.
- 1 employee has come up with the solution to an 'odor problem' of getting up early in the morning to shower before work vs showing in the evening (THAT conversation was only able to happen after extensive reading and POD listening on this site)
- 1 employee has stopped abusing the open door policy of interupting me every 1/2 hour and now says "it can wait till our next o3 meeting"
- 1 employee has stopped with the passive aggresiveness and is more diligent with his work.
I just can't ever thank you all enough. SHAME on ME for hiding in my office all this time thinking these problems were too scary and too difficult and too personal to handle. It can be overcome.
Thank you all so much for giving. I feel so empowered at this moment.
O3 nervousness
Laura,
Great story! Thanks for letting us know how it worked out.
John
O3 nervousness
Nice going Laura - it's pretty remarkable how much progress you've made already. Just keep working on the relationships, and all kinds of good things will follow.
-Hugh
O3 nervousness
Laura,
My late response is - the credit goes to the one in the ring.
Awesome to see your results. I saw similar returns when I started them. My poor team is asking 'when are we starting up O3's again?' after the insanity of this year. I think they are ALL excited to have the scheduled time again. We're on the cusp, and they know it.
AND...I simply have not had the time in the last 6 months. Luckily for me, my team has been there, know what my schedule has been, and have been patient. They come to me when they need to, and hold things until I'm not running crazy when they don't. I still know about the new baby that's coming, the wedding plans, and the anniversary celebrations. I still hear about the concerns, worries, and goals. We got through the death of a team member together.
If it weren't for a solid framework built from my O3s earlier, it wouldn't have been possible for my team to continue to excel even as their leader was buried under changing workloads. But...the lack of O3s has been at least as hard on me as it has been on them. I'm fortunate that the relationships I've built with them have been strong enough to weather the storm.