Attorney_Mentoring_HR

What is the Difference Between Performance
Management and a Performance Review?

Performance Management is a process that encompasses
performance review. Performance Management links the
business strategy and objectives with the employee’s objectives
and development. Companies that have a true Performance
Management approach usually outperform competitors and have
stronger financial results.

Let’s consider the traditional model – the dreaded annual review.
That’s when you try to sum up a year’s worth of work on a form to
get us pesky HR types off your case. Instead, think of an ongoing
process that includes the following:

•        Coaching and feedback
•        Employee self assessment
•        Client feedback
•        Identifying performance objectives
•        Professional development plan

You probably think that the above list will create more work for
you. Not necessarily. Let’s consider coaching and feedback. You
are probably already doing this, however, do you take 5 minutes to
make notes of this feedback and include it in your file for that
employee? If you maintain these notes on a contemporaneous
basis the performance review is that much easier because much
of the data has been compiled.

Performance Management requires the employee to be a more
active participant in the process. For example, the employee’s
self-assessment will help you in understanding any differences or
gaps in perception. Employees are responsible for identifying
their objectives and development needs. The employee and
manager will meet to negotiate and finalize these objectives.

The above is an outline of some of the steps in this process. For
this system to work both employee and manager must assume
new responsibilities and work together. Training and other
resources will be necessary. It is critical that Performance review
discussions be handled properly. Just as you would not send an
attorney to their first trial without some mock trial practice,
managers should receive training and practice in conducting
performance reviews.

Check back with us next week and we’ll have additional
information on conducting performance reviews

by Dianne Hennessy, HR Consultant Copyright 2006

Interview for Fit, Not Just Legal Smarts

Interviewing is something that every lawyer will, most
likely, experience as a candidate and interviewer. As an
HR Consultant I can safely say that interviewing is not
given the time and attention it deserves in many
organizations. Failure to take the time to perform “due
diligence” on candidates means that you’re more likely
to encounter performance issues, poor morale and
turnover. Also, firms that don’t take this seriously and/or
treat candidates poorly will quickly get a reputation in the
legal community.

It will not be possible to review all aspects of
interviewing in this article, so we’ll concentrate on
questions that determine fit and the close. Interviewing
is a skill that can be improved upon with practice and
feedback. Even the most skillful interviewer will benefit
from using a “script”. This does not mean that the
interview sounds rehearsed or canned, but rather is
carefully planned and will achieve the ultimate goal of
applying consistent criteria in the selection process.

Let’s assume you’ve asked the candidate questions
about their education, training and legal experience,
what’s left? Some of the most critical questions should
be those that will get at how this candidate will work with
you and others. The following is a sample of questions
regarding behavioral, teamwork, interpersonal and
managerial skills. Depending on the candidate’s level,
you will want to pick a few in each category.

Assume that you’re interviewing junior associates and
you ask questions 1,3 and 6 in the behavioral category
of the first candidate. It’s important that you then ask
other junior associate candidates the same questions
so that you have a consistent basis for comparison.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t tailor follow-up
questions based on an individual’s reply.

BEHAVIORAL
1.        If someone told you that you had made an error,
describe how you would react and what you would say
in your defense.
2.        If someone asked you for assistance with a
matter that is outside the parameters of your job
description, what would you do?
3.        Suppose you are in a situation where deadlines
and priorities change frequently and rapidly. How would
you handle it?
4.          How do you know when you are stressed? What
do you do to relieve stress?
5.          Tell me about a career goal that you have
accomplished and why that was important to you.
6.        Give an example of a time when you were trying to
meet a deadline, you were interrupted, and did not make
the deadline. How did you respond?
7.        It’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. You are given an
assignment that needs to be finished by 8:00 Monday
morning. You plan to be away for the weekend. What
would you do?

TEAM WORK
1.        Tell us about the last time that you had to work
with someone else to accomplish a goal. What team
skills did you use to accomplish the goal?
2.        Describe a time that you had a conflict with
another employee? How did you deal with the conflict?
What did you learn from the experience?
3.        If I asked your previous/current co-workers about
you what would they say?

INTERPERSONAL
1.        Assume you are in a situation where you have to
deal with a person very different from yourself and you
are finding it difficult. What would you do?
2.        What methods do you use to make decisions?
When do you find it most difficult to make a decision?
3.          Describe a difficult time you have had dealing
with an employee or client. Why was it difficult? How did
you handle it? What was the outcome?
4.        What do you do when others resist or reject your
ideas or actions?
5.        Under what kinds of conditions do you learn best?
6.        How would your past employers describe your
response to hectic or stressful situations?

MANAGEMENT
1.        What is your philosophy of management and how
does that influence your style?
2.        Describe for me a time when you have come
across questionable business practices; how did you
handle the situation?
3.        A new policy is to be implemented organization-
wide. You do not agree with this new policy. How do you
discuss this policy with your staff?
4.        Explain, step by step, how you have handled an
employee who had performance problems.
5.        What coaching or mentoring experience have you
had? With groups or one-on-one? How did you
determine the appropriate way to coach/mentor and
what were the results?
6.        Are you best at dealing with details and day-to-day
operations OR with concepts, envisioning and future
planning? Give me an example.
7.        Tell me about your fiscal management
experience: budgeting, reporting, etc.
8.        Have you ever had to champion an unpopular
change? How did you handle it?
9.        Have you ever faced a significant ethical problem
at work? How did you handle it?

CLOSING
Signal to the candidate that you are ready to begin
closing the interview. Ask questions like, “is there
anything else we haven’t covered so far that you would
like to add at this point, that would help us evaluate you
as a candidate for this position?”

If they don’t volunteer questions, ask them, “Is there
anything you’d like to ask about before we close?”

Make sure that the candidate understands the hiring
process, next steps and when they can expect to hear
back. Determine their interest and ascertain whether
they are close on something else.

by Dianne Hennessy, HR Consultant Copyright 2006

Retention Facts

According to "The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence" by Joshua
Freedman & Todd Everett, MBA (Institute for Organizational
Performance):

The primary reason people leave a job is relationship based.

One

of the key factors is the quality of the relationship between

the

employee and her/his supervisor/manager.

As leadership

guru

Richard Leider says, "People don't leave companies

-- they leave

leaders."

hat distinguishes relationships

that lead to retention?

Compelling evidence from Gallup

shows that it's all about

feelings. In their landmark research of

over two million

working Americans, the Gallup team identified

three critical factors

that predict if an employee is "engaged" --

and engaged

employees are 50% more likely to stay in their

jobs.

The three factors that inspire exceptional motivation and

productivity are:

The employee feels cared for by their supervisor.
They received recognition or praise during the past
seven days from someone in a leadership position.
They believe their employer is concerned about
their development."

An Associate's Emotional Intelligence Can Be a
Better Predictor of Superior Performance Than
Their IQ; How Lawyers Can Raise Their Emotional
Intelligence

A well-known work performance based theory known as
"Emotional Intelligence (EI)" and "Emotional Intelligence Quotient
(EIQ)" has been proven in numerous studies to distinguish
superior performers from average performers.   EIQ, in its various
iterations and models, measures drivers of workplace
performance and the factors that distinguish the star performers
in an organization.   While EIQ, unlike its better-known counterpart
Intelligence Quotient (IQ), can be learned, absence of EI
competencies can hold back an otherwise talented individual. EI
has evolved over time to be successfully used both as a
predictive tool as well as a coaching tool. Numerous workplace
and government studies have shown EIQ to be a good predictor
of top workplace performance, including one study that showed
that higher EIQ scores distinguished better performing
experienced partners in a multinational consulting firm by a factor
of $1.2 million per client over partners not scoring as high in their
EIQ (Boyatzis, 1999). Similarly, studies of a wide variety of
professions showed that

EIQ has also been used as a successful coaching tool, including
improving sales performance, decreasing stress, and generally
improving standard drivers of workplace performance.   Research
by the Center for Creative Leadership has found that the primary
derailment in executives involve deficits in select emotional
competencies.   Interestingly enough, there is also research that
suggests that individuals primarily strong in emotional
intelligence were more likely to succeed than the strongest in
either experience or IQ (Egon Zehnder International).

BACKGROUND

P. Salovey and J.D. Mayer, who started to develop valid measures
of EI, coined the term “emotional intelligence” in 1990.   EI and
the concept of "emotional competencies" were later expanded
and popularized by D. Goleman in his 1995 book, Emotional
Intelligence (New York, Bantam).

EI is based on the theory that certain non-cognitive aspects of
intelligence are important for success.   Studies have been
conducted that suggest that IQ by itself is not a very good
predictor of job performance, reflecting a variance of 4% to 25%
based upon the study. (Consortium for Research on emotional
Intelligence in Organizations, quoting studies by Hunter and
Hunter (1984) and Sternberg (1996).   According to Goleman and
others, while EI alone is not the sole determining factor for
workplace success, it provides the basis for certain
competencies that are.   Hence, the distinction and use of the
terms "emotional competencies", which Goleman referred to as
the personal and social skills that lead to superior performance
in the workplace.

Numerous researchers since have shown that various emotional
competencies predict financial success in various jobs (such as
M. Seligman's "learned optimism" quotient (Schulman, 1995) as
a better predictor of salesperson performance over standard
screening tests; and ability to manage feelings and handle
stress important indicia in store managers financial success
(Lusch & Serpkenci, 1990)).

EI AND WHY IT MATTERS TO ASSOCIATES AND LAW FIRMS

Lawyers like other highly skilled and educated professionals,
have relatively high IQ's and have attained a certain level of career
success as a result.   However, their law school training did not
address emotional intelligence competencies. Some would
argue, that law school and some law firm environments may
actually repress certain emotional competencies.    EIQ has been
shown to directly impact performance results and increase
interpersonal effectiveness, including influencing clients,
improving management skills, increasing revenue generating
capacity and overall improving employees' financial performance.
This has been shown to be even more significant in highly skilled
professions such as law.

Two types of personal emotional intelligence, intra and inter,
combine to form EIQ.   In his book, “Working with Emotional
Intelligence”, Daniel Goleman described the following five*
clusters to emotional intelligence:

Self-Awareness.
Self-Management.
Self-Motivation.
Social Awareness.
Relationship Management.

(*While the 5-cluster model has since been consolidated into a 4-cluster model excluding a separate Self-
Motivation cluster that tends to overlap with other clusters, we will use the original 5-cluster model for the
purposes of providing tips later in this article.)

Low EIQ is one reason that otherwise brilliant Lawyers do not
achieve their potential.   There are countless examples of
Lawyers with the technical know-how and experience who never
achieve Partnership or who are unable to effectively deal with
their colleagues and clients.   With more awareness of one's
emotional competencies and the correlation between higher EIQ
and personal and professional performance, one can activate
certain learned behavior that directly influences others, improves
performance, attracts more business, and generally reduces
workplace stress.

While individual IQ's are somewhat fixed, the potential for
increasing one's EIQ is open ended and, therefore
implementation of a few key strategies can directly increase a
Lawyer's overall performance relatively easily.

Click here for a table of competencies and action items for
lawyers designed to increase their emotional intelligence.