Every organization wants their new hires or transferred employees to “hit the ground running”. This is especially true for millennials who have significantly different expectations and new managers. The faster they get up to speed, the faster they start delivering results. An effective onboarding system will position a new employee or manager for success. It shortens the learning curve and ensures they are a contributing member of the team. Effective onboarding systems focus on these basic tenets: (more…)

A very interesting read on recent research that indicates that we, as senior leaders, really do need to reconsider how we provide feedback to our employees: vis a vis, something different than yearly static employee evaluations.

If you wanted any more evidence that traditional performance appraisal methods are (at best) counter-productive, then new research (more…)

Bruce Dougan joins Group50 as the head of its Organizational Development Practice
UPLAND, Calif. — Group50^® Consulting announced today that it has significantly expanded it consulting resources and tools in Organizational Development and change management.

Jim Gitney, CEO and Founder of Group50® commented….”Strategic Execution^TM is the cornerstone of a company’s success and our sweet spot. Our clients want to work with a consulting firm that has broad expertise and deep bench strength. I am pleased to announce that Bruce Dougan has joined Group50 to head up its Organizational Development practice. Bruce combines Technical, Operations and Human Resources expertise to Group50 as a result of his various senior level positions over a 15 year career at Procter & Gamble and his consulting background. He (more…)

Group50 has introduced a new cost effective cloud based performance management and strategic execution tool called Cascade. This system provides clients with the ability to achieve higher levels of employee engagement, monitor key strategy implementation, focus on cultural and performance objectives throughout the organization and institutionalize winning behaviors throughout their company.

Companies who have implemented Cascade have seen significant improvement in their operating performance at all levels.
Read more about utilizing Cascade for:

• Executing Strategy
• Performance Management

About Group50^® specializes in the development and implementation of manufacturing and supply chain strategies. The Group50 team are all former executives with well-known manufacturing and distribution companies who understand what it takes to put together and manage the implementation of a successful strategic plan. Group50 has designed a series of strategic assessments, workshops and strategic execution tools that eliminate the existence of Anti-Strategy^TM. You can reach us at (909) 949-9083, request more information here or send a note to info@group50.com.

For most employees, the yearly ritual of sitting across the table from their boss and receiving feedback on their prior year’s performance is completed. According to a study done by Leadership IQ, only 13% of managers and employees feel that year end reviews have a positive impact on them and only 6% of CEOs thought the performance reviews their organization used were effective. They believe that evaluations don’t impact strategic execution.

So, given these dismal statistics, why do organizations continue to spend so much precious energy and time utilizing a system that is at best distasteful and at worst a waste of corporate resources and good will?

The answer isn’t all that complex. It is what we have been taught to do during our careers and, given the lack of an acceptable alternative, something we continue doing. After all, we must do something to tell our employees how they are performing. Yearly evaluations have become a “check the box” ritual.

This ritual can be retooled into a Strategy Execution Consulting Services process that maximizes the productive input (more…)

Over the past few years it has been well documented that technology can significantly improve employee engagement and performance management.  We see that networking has significantly increased the ability of people to accelerate their business dealings and personal relationships. Just about everyone in the workforce is familiar (more…)

I was just forwarded a study by Mark Murphy, Founder & CEO of Leadership IQ. As I read it, I was fascinated by the results. In a survey of 48,000 CEO’s managers and employees, only 13% of managers and employees and 6% of CEOs thought their year-end reviews were effective. For my entire career, I have not been part of the 13% or the 6%. Why?

As the study points out, there are three primary reasons:

1. The first was a lack of differentiation: reviews aren’t synced to performance so there’s no real recognition for being a high performer
2. The second reason why people really dislike performance reviews is because the boss’ feedback isn’t relevant. Employees are walking away from performance reviews shaking their heads and wondering if the boss even knows what they did this year.
3. This is the third big reason why employees don’t like performance reviews. Most managers conduct performance reviews from a boss/employee perspective rather than using it is a coaching and mentoring tool. They sit across the desk from employees and say “this is your ‘grade’ and this is your pay” and they hope employees don’t have too many questions, because there are another dozen more reviews to conduct.

Ever feel this way as either a manager or an employee? Yearly performance appraisals are typically a “check the box activity”, that is done because it is policy, rather than using reviews as a tool to engage employees in open and transparent dialogue on the needs of the company and the employee. Yearly reviews cannot accurately reflect what an employee is being held accountable for, because the objectives of the business change real time, not yearly. Many leaders approach their business on a cyclical basis, but they are fooling themselves, because their business is dynamic and real time. They need to communicate these changes as they occur, and if that impacts the performance objective of an employee, that employee should know about it and begin supporting it.

I am in favor of scrapping paper based yearly evaluations as part of an effective organizational development strategy, because I have never seen one work well, and the aforementioned study bears this out. It is truly a shame for a business to expend this much effort on yearly appraisals to achieve these kind of results. If the finance team were to do an ROI on the yearly cost and the obvious lack of benefit, they would recommend scrapping a paper based system all together.

I am not against evaluations though. I am in favor of a real time system that allows for employees and managers to have two way discussions about what the business is going to hold them accountable for: clear and concise performance objectives.

That is why Group50 has spent so much resource and time supporting our newest product offering Cascade: a low cost, cloud based system that gives employees, managers and senior leaders that ability to all be on the same page, to communicate with each other on how objectives are being met on a real time basis and to instantly change objectives throughout the organization when business conditions require it.

You can see a short video on Cascade here. After viewing this, please post a comment, give me a call at (909) 949-9083 or drop me a note at jgitney@group50.com to let me know what you think about ETW, or the study.

About Group50 and the author:
Group50’s focus is on strategic execution^TM. Jim Gitney, the CEO of Group50 has worked with organizations of every size in support of their movement to a culture of effective strategic execution, and realize their potential in the marketplace. You can request more information here, email info@group50.com, or call (909) 949-9083 for more information. To see the services that Group50 provides, go to our home page

During a keynote address at IIR’s Balanced Scorecard Forum, Robert Kaplan, a leading international business management guru, revealed “that less than 10% of formulated strategies are executed effectively” and an international survey indicated that consistently executing strategic objectives were in the top three concerns of CEO’s and corporate boards. Kaplan also added “that it is a well know fact that organizations who have a formal strategy execution process dramatically outperform the rest”. Effectively and consistently implementing corporate strategy requires all stakeholders to be aligned to those objectives, understand their role in achieving them and be accountable for effective implementation. If your company doesn’t have a formal process, then the hard work is figuring out what one looks like. A strategic execution process must (more…)