Greg's Right Fit Newsletter - #63

Techniques for FIT

• Bonuses and incentives don't produce results, they reward results. 
• Our management goal should be to produce the behaviors that will generate results. That starts with a vision of your future state. 
• After vision, it gets down to who is responsible for what behaviors. Goals, responsibilities, skills, then behaviors. 
• Once you get beyond behaviors, and break that into resources and experience, then it's time to talk bonuses and incentives. 

Being Human - Shortcuts

There has to be a better way

I am told, "Greg, there are no shortcuts, there are no secrets," and while I understand the sentiment of hard work, I think you need to acknowledge and work with your people's shortcuts. It's part of managing to results. Let me explain. 

Any skills required to achieve a result can be learned. Expertise at consistently getting those results comes with practice and effort. Usually illustrated as a journey through the four stages of competence. 



The problem with that model is that most results are a collection of smaller skills and tasks and people don't progress linearly through stages of competence. They jump back and forth. When you're trying to produce consistent results, there are simply some tasks that you can repeat unconsciously from the start. It looks more like this:



That produces tension when management wants consistency. They're looking to take someone from stage 1 "you don't know what you don't know" through to stage 3/4 "you can do this on purpose" sequentially. 

Don't do it. 

Acknowledge their built in shortcuts. If part of the skills and tasks are working, note it and work on other elements. Just be aware that no one knows why it's working. That's part of being human. 

Random Stuff

It's springtime

Yes, I'm done with March Madness. The Bluejays laid an egg and after the third day of the tournament, my bracket was busted, giving me time to think. 

Nothing deep, just asking myself why is it that I love to watch this college basketball tournament? Objectively, the games aren't that attractive. The skill of the players isn't world class. I have not idea who most of the players are after the first weekend, so it's not affinity.

People say it's the passion the players bring to the game. Maybe.
Others say it's the lose and go home nature of the tournament - anyone can win on any given day. Maybe.
Still others will say it's ritual - the brackets, the expectations, the camaraderie. Maybe.
Cynics say it's the relentless marketing effort from the NCAA's sports marketing machine. Maybe. 

After raking leaves to avoid the last 10 minutes of the Creighton game, I have an alternate hypothesis. 

The tournament coincides with spring.

Longer days, warmer weather, birds singing, neighbor kids screaming. 

I think that's why I enjoy it so much. It just happens to coincide with emerging from winter. 

Whatever the reason, it's certainly not because my school wins in March, I know that for sure.