Family

Three sisters, ages 92, 94 and 96, live in a house together. One night the 96-year-old draws a bath. She puts her foot in and pauses. She yells to the other sisters, "Was I getting in or out of the bath?"

The 94-year-old yells back, "I don't know. I'll come up and see." She starts up the stairs and pauses "Was I going up the stairs or down?"

The 92-year-old is sitting at the kitchen table having tea, listening to her sisters. She shakes her head and says, "I sure hope I never get that forgetful, knock on wood." She then yells, "I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door."

Integrity in Leadership

The spirit of an organization is created from the top.

The proof of the sincerity and seriousness of a management is uncompromising emphasis on integrity of character. This, above all, has to be symbolized in management’s “people” decisions. For it is character through which leadership is exercised; it is character that sets the example and is imitated. Character is not something one can fool people about. The people with whom a person works, and especially subordinates, know in a few weeks whether he or she has integrity or not. They may forgive a person for a great deal: incompetence, ignorance, insecurity, or bad manners. But they will not forgive a lack of integrity in that person. Nor will they forgive higher management for choosing him.

This is particularly true of the people at the head of an enterprise. For the spirit of an organization is created from the top. If an organization is great in spirit, it is because the spirit of its top people is great. If it decays, it does so because the top rots; as the proverb has it, “Trees die from the top.”

No one should ever be appointed to a senior position unless top management is willing to have his or her character serve as the model for subordinates.

Action point: Evaluate the character of the CEO and top management when considering a job offer. Align yourself with people who have integrity.

How good is your brainstorming?

• Quantity: How many ideas did you generate?

• Flexibility: How different are the ideas that you generated from each other?

• Originality: How unique are the ideas that you generated from those of other people?

Click here to read more: Idea Revolution: Guidelines and Prompts for Brainstorming Alone, in Groups or With Clients (Graphic Design)

Brainstorming

Why BrainstormingFails
• People are self-conscious
• There is no focus
• People evaluate each other’s ideas
• People get defensive
• Ideas are variations on a theme
• One person dominates
• Some people do not participate
• The group loses energy
• There are no really new ideas

Guidelines for Brainstorming
• Focus matters: Know your objective
• Start alone, then join together
• No criticism, no evaluation
• Freewheeling is not just welcome, but encouraged
• Go for quantity: Quantity catalyzes quality
• Discuss each idea, but only for clarification & elaboration
• Combine & improve on each other’s ideas
• Alternative between individual and group modes
• Take a play break every now and then
• Hold a safe vote at the end

The Do It Yourself Lobotomy: Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Organizing for Success in Business

Decentralized Structure
In 1946, Drucker wrote “Concept of the Corporation,” which explores the evolution of the business corporation and its impact on society. The result of 18 months of interviews and observation, the book discusses the beliefs and management style of Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s creator.

Drucker noted that GM gave its divisions great independence, which was uncommon by the standards of the day. “In over 20 years of work…Mr. Alfred P. Sloan Jr. has developed the concept of decentralization into a philosophy of industrial management and into a system of local self-government.” GM had 50 divisions, and Drucker estimated that all but 5 percent of decisions were within the control of the divisions.

Decisions that did require head office approval had to do with the financial function, pricing, labor costs and capital deployment. Drucker invented the term “profit center” to describe a division, and noted that these groups were held
highly accountable for results.

Principles of Performance Management

The principles of performance managementhave been well summarized as follows:

• it translates corporate goals into individual, team, department and divisional goals;
• it helps to clarify corporate goals;
• it is a continuous and evolutionary process, in which performance improves over time;
• it relies on consensus and co-operation rather than control or coercion;
• it creates a shared understanding of what is required to improve performance and how this will be achieved;
• it encourages self-management of individual performance;
• it requires a management style that is open and honest and encourages two-way communication between superiors and subordinates;
• it requires continuous feedback;
• feedback loops enable the experiences and knowledge gained on the job by individuals to modify corporate objectives;
• it measures and assesses all performance against jointly agreed goals;
• it should apply to all staff; and it is not primarily concerned with linking performance to financial reward.

Performance Managementis primarily concerned with performance improvement in order to achieve organizational, team and individual effectiveness. Organizations have to get the right things done successfully.

Performance Managementis concerned with employee development. Performance improvement is not achievable unless there are effective processes of continuous development. This addresses the core capabilities of the organization and the specific capabilities of individuals and teams. Performance management should really be called performance and development management.

Performance Managementis concerned with satisfying the needs and expectations of all of an organization s stakeholders owners, management, employees, customers, suppliers and the general public. In particular, employees are treated as partners in the enterprise whose interests are respected, who have a voice on matters that concern them, and whose opinions are sought and listened to.

Performance Managementshould respect the needs of individuals and teams as well as those of the organization, recognizing that they will not always coincide.

Finally, performance management is concerned with communication and involvement. It creates a climate in which a continuing dialogue between managers and the members of their teams takes place in order to define expectations and share information on the organization's mission, values and objectives. This establishes mutual understanding of what is to be achieved and a framework for managing and developing people to ensure that it will be achieved. Performance Managementcan contribute to the development of a high-involvement organization by getting teams and individuals to participate in defining their objectives and the means to achieve them.

Knowledge Management Tools in Action

Knowledge Management can be defined as a systematic discipline and set of approaches to enable information and knowledge to grow, flow, and create value in an organization. This involves people, information, workflows, enabling tools, best practices, alliances, and communities of practice.

The 21st century business landscape is marked by increasing economic and political turbulence, a faster pace of innovation, an inter-networked organizational structure, a focus on intellectual capital, and an increasing employee churn rate. Within this context, knowledge managementis being interpreted as a critical discipline for risk management, increasing productivity, knowledge retention, and more efficient innovation.

Approximately 3.2% of corporate knowledge is incorrect or becomes obsolete every year. An estimated 4.5% of knowledge is lost or hidden due to employee turnover, information mis-management, and knowledge hoarding.

While some of these are cultural problems, others can be resolved by properly aligning content management systems, information policies, and knowledge work. The following key sets of knowledge management tools, as described in action in organizations around the world: content management, taxonomies, groupware, online communities of practice, portals, social network analysis, e-learning, storytelling, wireless platforms, innovation management tools, and inter-organizational knowledge-sharing platforms.

A growing number of companies today have instituted knowledge management systems for best practices, lessons learned, product development knowledge, customer knowledge, human resource management knowledge, and methods-based knowledge. Content teams, meta-data, knowledge maps, and a workflow contextualization can ensure effective reuse of content. Content-centric knowledge management approaches like codification focus on efficiency and effectiveness of operationally focused value chains, while collaborative strategies focus on reinvention and advancement in innovation-focused value chains.

Advanced content management systems include features for seamless exploration, authoring templates, maintaining integrity of Web pages and links, periodical review, archiving, meta-data, version control, rule-setting, indexing, audits, authorized access, administration alerts, and flexible repurposing for multiple platforms and formats.

To begin with, an organization must conduct an enterprise knowledge audit to determine internal and external knowledge leverage points. Internal and external forces come into play here, ranging from customer knowledge to business intelligence via news media, which helps organizational knowledge management initiatives via workflow design and newsfeeds. Accenture implemented a Lotus-Notes-based knowledge management system in 1992. In its early years, it was beset with problems like information overflow, duplication, and redundancies.

Today, the Knowledge Xchange system has a standardized architecture and design and is accessed by 70,000 professionals to share information on project methodologies, sales cycles, current engagements, and other client learnings. Over 3,600 databases exist, and 250 knowledge managers are responsible for reviewing the content and selecting best practices. These are synthesized into special Web sections, and expert directories and external references are provided as well.

Knowledge Management

Concepts and practices of knowledge management are soon approaching mainstream adoption, and this focuses not on fundamental definitions of knowledge and strategy, but on more practical applications of knowledge management tools and technologies in industry. Knowledge Management Tool, in a sense, are the “face and place” as well as the “nuts and bolts” of knowledge in the 21st century workspace.

“If the smart manager knows one thing, it is that knowledge management is not just about technology. But, if the smart manager knows two things, the second is that in today’s age of technology-driven communication and information production, the role technology can play to facilitate knowledge managementshould be examined”. Information and communication technologies play a key role in facilitating knowledge management in today’s globalized company, which operates in a complex web of partnerships and alliances. However, it is important to keep in mind that technology is not the panacea for a knowledge management practice, though an easy-to-use knowledge-sharing infrastructure is an important enabler.

Organization-wide access to knowledge managementarchitecture, Web-based applications, groupware, data mining tools, mobile devices, worldwide access, high performance, user friendliness, a standardized structure, and an easily administered controlling system are key requisites of the supporting knowledge management infrastructure. We realized fairly early that the knowledge management initiative has to be, of essence, peoplecentric.

Nevertheless, technology has been an important dimension in our efforts to demonstrate the multiple possibilities of knowledge management to our people, draw them to the movement, and help keep them committed. In this journey, a key lesson we have learnt is that unless people are able to see and experience the direct benefits of knowledge management, no amount of incentives, rewards or recognitions are likely to elicit sustained enthusiasm, participation and involvement”.

Knowledge management enabling tools thus play a useful facilitating role in learning organizations, especially in dealing with the “info-glut” or information overload that is plaguing most organizations that have launched an intranet, enterprise resource planning (ERP), or Business Intelligence Systems.

While amplifying existing knowledge processes, information technology(IT) tools can also create new kinds of knowledge experiences in the long run, particularly among generations of users who grow up in IT-pervasive environments. Technology enables new knowledge behaviours.

Tools that currently fall under the Knowledge managementumbrella have evolved in various phases since the 1980s, starting off with IT tools for computation and databases, followed by publishing and communication tools, and then accompanied by sophisticated platforms for collaboration, wireless delivery, search, and network modelling. From automated agents to workflow tools, knowledge management technologies span almost the entire alphabetical spectrum.

While technologies and tools should not be the sole focus of knowledge management efforts, culture and capacity building are as important. Knowledge Management Toolare finding increasing support from management in terms of being able to address some of their business pressures.

According to a new study, companies are increasingly leaning on more and better methods of assessing economic uncertainty to reach elusive growth targets. Most notably, contingency planning and knowledge management rose through the ranks, both in usage and satisfaction.

Jack Welch - Management

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.” - Jack Welch

Outside of work everyone is a manager, because everyone manages their own life: money, time and decisions. But in work, we often don’t think of ourselves as a manager until we have some form of control and/or authority over other people.

A manager has a wider picture. Not only do they inspect and monitor things now, but it is also usually their job to make predictions, to plan ahead, and to decide how things will change and develop. A manager also generally reviews the past when planning and forecasting the future. Thus, the difference between the two is perhaps their viewpoints: the supervisor is often mainly concerned with the present, and the manager with future, present and past.

Manager Styles

A manager with a persuading style is like a parent in the way they treat people. They make the decisions, and then try to persuade people that this is the best course of action.

Good points

• People generally feel less dominated than with an authoritarian manager.
• Some people may like this level of control and care.

Bad points

• Some people may resent the manager, as they are not treated as adults.
• The manager may feel hurt if people fail, as if they have been ‘let down’.

With a consulting manager, people are welcome to contribute ideas, suggestions etc, and the manager discusses these and then makes the decision.

Good points

• People feel involved.
• People feel part of a team, and feel valued.

Bad points

• People may resent decisions if their own suggestions were unsuccessful.
• People may try to challenge the manager’s decision.

With a democratic manager, the manager and others all take part in work. Decisions are made by the whole group,and the manager agrees to abide by these, as long as they are within any boundaries or constraints imposed by the workplace and/or organisation.

Good points

• Individuals feel enthusiastic, and tend to take responsibility readily.
• Communication and teamwork are good.

Bad points

• The manager needs to have complete confidence in people.
• The manager can lose control.

With a delegative style, the delegating manager sets limits, and gives problems, work etc to others, who refer back on difficulties, but otherwise take on the entire task as their own.

Good points

• Work is efficient.
• Individuals are given experience of a wide variety of work.

Bad points

• Individuals may feel overburdened with responsibility.
• The manager may not be available to help when problems arise.

Being an abdicator, the manager abdicates – opts out – by becoming so involved in their own work that others are left to their own devices. Often, managers do this because they mistakenly think they are delegating.

Good points

• The manager is free to get on with their own work.

Bad points

• People blame the manager, even when it is their own fault.
• Work is poor, morale is low, and people feel frustrated and resentful.

Leaders Vs Managers

Are you a leader? Or just a manager? What’s the difference, you ask? If you don’t know, you’re probably in the wrong job. A leader energizes and motivates a sales force to achieve seemingly impossible goals. A manager makes sure all reports are in on time. Leaders innovate. Managers...well, they manage. Lest you think this is a bunch of New Age business-seminar babble. In the twenty-first century, understanding the difference between leading and managing is understanding the difference between winning and losing in cut throat markets.

Global competitiveness is so intense today, and there’s so much sameness in products, that you will succeed or fail ninety-eight percent of the time because of your company’s people, and the quality of the people in a sales force comes down to the quality of its leadership. Pure managers make the system work, but leaders make things happen.They make the people around them better. Put in more practical terms, every time you hire a leader who doesn’t maximize people’s potential, you lose market share.

Benefits of Mentoring

Effective mentoring benefits everyone involved – the mentee and mentor, the organisation and the mentee’s line manager, in the employment context. Much the same is true in a community context; where there are major benefits for society from helping people overcome disadvantage and disaffection.

For the mentee, mentoring provides a safe haven to explore personal, work and career issues. The mentor provides a sounding board for difficult decisions, an independent view to put things into perspective, someone to encourage you when things aren’t going well and sometimes a role model for some of the personal goals you want to achieve.

For the mentor, mentoring is a great opportunity to develop the skill of developing others, away from the confines of his or her own team. It is also one of the few opportunities for the mentor to take reflective time out during the working day. Working with the mentee’s issues often leads the mentor to valuable insights about relationships with their own team. When asked for what they have gained from the relationship, mentors most commonly talk of intellectual challenge, of learning, and of the simple satisfaction at seeing someone else progress.

For the organisation, mentoring contributes significantly to the attraction and retention of talent. People, who have mentors, are less likely to leave the organisation, or at least likely to stay much longer. Various studies indicate, for example, that salespeople with mentors sell on average 20% more in their first year with an organisation. Having a mentoring program also contributes to the organisation’s reputation as a caring, people-centred employer.

Building Sustainable Relationship

This killing tendency is all too common. When you talk at someone, you’re talking down to her. You’re being condescending. Often this kind of approach is accompanied by pointing a finger or pen, and the frequent use of words like “I want” and “you should.” It can’t even be called “giving orders” — it is attacking people with rank and the threat of retribution. The result? Over time, team members will either leave or, perhaps worse, gradually become what your tyrannical style is teaching them to be: responsive only to direct orders … not self-starters … distrustful of management … uncommitted to your vision … unmotivated to operate beyond performance minimums. This absolutely destroys any connection or rapport with the person you are trying to reach.

Manager should talk with team members. One of the best ways to do this is to start using the words “we,” “our” and “us.” “We’ve got our work cut out for us in order to make the deadline we committed to.” “Well, we blew it on that order. Let’s figure out what we learned and do our best not to repeat the error.”

The Developing Person Through the Life Span

BRAINSTORMING

Why Brainstorming Fails
• People are self-conscious.
• There is no focus.
• People evaluate each other’s ideas.
• People get defensive.
• Ideas are variations on a theme.
• One person dominates.
• Some people do not participate.
• The group loses energy.
• There are no really new ideas.

Guidelines for Guidelines for Brainstorming
• Focus matters: Know your objective.
• Start alone, then join together.
• No criticism, no evaluation.
• Freewheeling is not just welcome, but encouraged.
• Go for quantity: Quantity catalyzes quality.
• Discuss each idea, but only for clarification & elaboration.
• Combine & improve on each other’s ideas.
• Alternative between individual and group modes.
• Take a play break every now and then.
• Hold a safe vote at the end.

Delegation

A concept related to authority is delegation. Delegation is the downward transfer of authority from a manager to a subordinate. Most organizations today encourage managers to delegate authority in order to provide maximum flexibility in meeting customer needs. In addition, delegation leads to empowerment, in that people have the freedom to contribute ideas and do their jobs in the best possible ways. This involvement can increase job satisfaction for the individual and frequently results in better job performance. Without delegation, managers do all the work themselves and underutilize their workers. The ability to delegate is crucial to managerial success. Managers need to take four steps if they want to successfully delegate responsibilities to their teams.

1. Specifically assign tasks to individual team members.
   The manager needs to make sure that employees know that they are ultimately responsible for carrying out specific assignments.
2. Give team members the correct amount of authority to accomplish assignments.
   Typically, an employee is assigned authority commensurate with the task. A classical principle of organization warns managers not to delegate without giving the subordinate the authority to perform to delegated task. When an employee has responsibility for the task outcome but little authority, accomplishing the job is possible but difficult. The subordinate without authority must rely on persuasion and luck to meet performance expectations. When an employee has authority exceeding responsibility, he or she may become a tyrant, using authority toward frivolous outcomes.
3. Make sure that team members accept responsibility. Responsibility is the flip side of the authority coin. Responsibility is the duty to perform the task or activity an employee has been assigned. An important distinction between authority and responsibility is that the supervisor delegates authority, but the responsibility is shared. Delegation of authority gives a subordinate the right to make commitments, use resources, and take actions in relation to duties assigned. However, in making this delegation, the obligation created is not shifted from the supervisor to the subordinate — it is shared. A supervisor always retains some responsibility for work performed by lower-level units or individuals.
4. Create accountability.
   Team members need to know that they are accountable for their projects. Accountability means answering for one’s actions and accepting the consequences. Team members may need to report and justify task outcomes to their superiors. Managers can build accountability into their organizational structures by monitoring performances and rewarding successful outcomes. Although managers are encouraged to delegation authority, they often find accomplishing this step difficult for the following reasons:
   

• Delegation requires planning, and planning takes time. A manager may say, “By the time I explain this task to someone, I could do it myself.” This manager is overlooking the fact that the initial time spent up front training someone to do a task may save much more time in the long run. Once an employee has learned how to do a task, the manager will not have to take the time to show that employee how to do it again. This improves the flow of the process from that point forward.
• Managers may simply lack confidence in the abilities of their subordinates. Such a situation fosters the attitude, “If you want it done well, do it yourself.” If managers feel that their subordinates lack abilities, they need to provide appropriate training so that all are comfortable performing their duties.
• Managers experience dual accountability. Managers are accountable for their own actions and the actions of their subordinates. If a subordinate fails to perform a certain task or does so poorly, the manager is ultimately responsible for the subordinate’s failure. But by the same token, if a subordinate succeeds, the manager shares in that success as well, and the department can be even more productive.
• Finally, managers may refrain from delegation because they are insecure about their value to the organization. However, managers need to realize that they become more valuable as their teams become more productive and talented.

Written Communication Skills

Written communication has several advantages. First, it provides a record for referral and follow-up. Second, written communication is an inexpensive means of providing identical messages to a large number of people. The major limitation of written communication is that the sender does not know how or if the communication is received unless a reply is required.

Unfortunately, writing skills are often difficult to develop, and many individuals have problems writing simple, clear, and direct documents. And believe it or not, poorly written documents cost money. Therefore, managers must be able to write clearly. The ability to prepare letters, memos, sales reports, and other written documents may spell the difference between success and failure.

Interpersonal Communication is real-time, face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation that allows immediate feedback. Interpersonal communication plays a large role in any manager’s daily activities, but especially in organizations that use teams. Managers must facilitate interpersonal communication within teams and reduce barriers to interpersonal communications. Common barriers to interpersonal communication include the following:

• Expectations of familiarity (or hearing what one is expected to hear). After hearing the beginning comments, employees may not listen to the remainder of the communication because they think they already know what a manager’s going to say.
• Preconceived notions. Many employees ignore information that conflicts with what they “know.” Often referred to as selective perception, it’s the tendency to single out for attention those aspects of a situation or person that reinforce or appear consistent with one’s existing beliefs, value, or needs. Selective perception can bias a manager’s and employee’s view of situations and people.
• Source’s lack of credibility. Some employees may negatively size up or evaluate the sender based on stereotypes. Stereotyping is assigning attributes commonly associated with a category, such as age group, race, or gender to an individual. Classifying is making assumptions about an individual based on a group he or she fits into. Characteristics commonly associated with the group are then assigned to the individual. Someone who believes that young people dislike authority figures may assume that a younger colleague is rebellious.
• Differing perceptions caused by social and cultural backgrounds. The process through which people receive and interpret information from the environment is called perception. Perception acts as a screen or filter through which information must pass before it has an impact on communication. The results of this screening process vary, because such things as values, cultural background, and other circumstances influence individual perceptions. Simply put, people can perceive the same things or situations very differently. And even more important, people behave according to their perceptions.
• Semantics and diction. The choice and use of words differ significantly among individuals. A word such as “effectiveness” may mean “achieving high production” to a factory superintendent and “employee satisfaction” to a human resources specialist. Many common English words have an average of 28 definitions, so communicators must take care to select the words that accurately communicate their ideas.
• Emotions that interfere with reason. Tempers often interfere with reason and cause the roles of sender and receiver to change to that of opponent and adversary.
• Noise or interference. Noise does not allow for understanding between sender and receiver.

Voice of Influence

To model conscience, set a good example. To engage in pathfinding, jointly determine the course. To achieve alignment and discipline, set up and manage systems to stay on course. And to empower and evoke passion, focus on results, not methods. And then get out of people’s way and give help as requested.

These modeling roles are sequential. We must first strive to find our voice personally before attempting to build high trust relationships and practice creative problem solving.

Before you respond to a situation, decide whether or how to use the voice of influence. The boss may be a jerk, but you can choose your response. The key question: What’s the best thing you can do under these circumstances? You choose which level of initiative to use on the basis of how far the task lies within or outside your “circle of influence.” This choice takes sensitivity and judgment, but gradually your circle will expand.

There are seven levels of initiative. They are:

1. Wait until told. Unless you have the influence of someone who can do something about a problem, don’t waste energy on something you can do nothing about. Otherwise, you risk the “emotional cancers” of criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing and contending.
2. Ask. Ask about something within your job description but outside your circle. If the question is intelligent and preceded by thorough analysis and careful thinking,
   it could be very impressive and may widen your circle.
3. Make a recommendation on an issue outside your job and at the outside edge of your circle. This process works great in many situations, and can enlarge your circle.
4. “I intend to.” Here you’ve done more analytical work. You’ve owned not only the problem but the solution, and you’re ready to implement it.
5. Do it and report immediately. This is on the outside edge of your circle but within your job. Report to the people who need to know.
6. Do it and report periodically. You are clearly within your job description and your circle.
7. Do it. When something is at the center of your circle, it’s at the core of your job description, and you just do it.

You empower yourself by taking initiative in some way. Be sensitive, wise and careful about timing, but do something and avoid complaining, criticizing or negativity. In our culture of blame, taking responsibility means going against the current. It will also require some vision, a standard to be met, some improvement to be made and discipline. It requires enlisting your passion, in a principled way, toward a worthy end.

The 8th Habit - Strategies to Take You from Effectiveness to Greatness

For individuals and organizations, effectiveness is no longer merely an option. Your survival requires it. But to thrive, excel and lead in the Knowledge Worker Age, we must move beyond effectiveness to greatness, which includes fulfillment, passionate execution and significant contribution. Accessing a higher level of human genius and motivation requires a sea change in thinking. A new mind-set and skill set, in short, an additional habit to those featured in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The crucial challenge is to find our own voice and inspire others to find theirs. This is the 8th Habit.

The 8th Habit shows you how to tap the limitless value creation promise of the Knowledge Worker Age. It shows you how to solve the major contradictions inherent in organizational life. Most of which are a carryover from the Industrial Age. It will transform the way you think about yourself, your purpose in life, your organization and other people. It explains how to move from effectiveness to greatness.

Read more ......
The 8th Habit Personal Workbook: Strategies to Take You from Effectiveness to Greatness

Performance Management

Performance Management is a force for both vertical and horizontal integration. Performance management should be integrated into the way the performance of the business is managed and it should link with other key processes such as business strategy, employee development, and total quality management.

Vertical integration
Integration is achieved vertically in two ways. First, it facilitates the integration or alignment of business strategic plans and goals with individual and team objectives. The agreed objectives are those that support the achievement of corporate goals. They take the form of interlocking objectives from the corporate level to the functional or business-unit level and down to teams and the individual level. Steps need to be taken to ensure that these goals are in alignment. This can be a cascading process so that objectives flow down from the top and, at each level, team or individual objectives are defined in the light of higher level goals. But it should also be a bottom-up process, individuals and teams being given the opportunity to formulate their own goals within the framework provided by the overall purpose and values of the organization.

Objectives should be agreed, not set, and this agreement should be reached through the open dialogues that should take place between managers and individuals continually. In other words, this needs to be seen as a partnership in which responsibility is shared and mutual expectations are defined.

Secondly, vertical integration takes place between the core values and capabilities of the organization and the values adopted and level of capability achieved by individuals. Some companies approach to integration thus: Setting up appraisal systems in a vacuum adds no value. They are merely a record of a convention that must take place in the context of the business strategy and annual plans. Creating the right context for the conversation is an essential part of successful performance management.HR has to develop and implement a range of strategies across the organization which enable excellent performance from all our employees.

Horizontal integration
Horizontal integration means aligning performance management strategies with other HR strategies concerned with valuing, paying, involving and developing people. It can act as a powerful force in integrating these activities. The impact of performance management on organizational effectiveness is enhanced because, along with the development of competence frameworks, it is the most important means of helping to integrate the various approaches that organizations can adopt to improving effectiveness through their processes for managing, motivating and developing people.

The approach is related to the concept of bundling , which is the development and implementation of several HR practices together so that they are interrelated and therefore complement and reinforce each other. This approach is accepted by many, and appeared in many books, who commented that one thing is clear from all the research: there is no point in investing in specific practices. Performance-related pay, psychometric tests in selection or extensive training will not in themselves bring bottom-line results. The key lies in finding the right bundle of practices .

The process of bundling is sometimes referred to as the use of complementarities or as the adoption of a configurational mode. The concept of bundling was explained as follows:
Implicit in the notion of a bundle is the idea that practices within bundles are interrelated and internally consistent, and that more is better with respect to the impact on performance, because of the overlapping and mutually reinforcing effect of multiple practices. The logic in favour of bundling is straightforward Since employee performance is a function of both ability and motivation, it makes sense to have practices aimed at enhancing both.

Performance management can and should be a holistic process that is concerned with motivation, development and, in its broadest sense, reward.

Performance Management

Management Accounting

The main objective of management accounting is to provide management information which will help managers to optimize their decisions with a view to improving present performance and providing for longer-term profitable growth. Management accounting could therefore be described as the development and maintenance of a management information system.

In carrying out this task, management accountants are governed by two key principles:

1. Comparison. Either of: what has been achieved with what should have been achieved – this
   is a feedback process designed to point the way to corrective action and improved performance, not simply a stick with which to beat managers; or alternative courses of action with a view to deciding which, on balance, is the best in terms of cost/benefit, cost-effectiveness or return on investment – this is an evaluative process.
2. Relevance. Management accounting as a decision making tool must only be concerned with relevant data, ie information that will lead the manager to the best decision. When managers make decisions they are choosing between alternatives in order to predict which one has the best future. Historical costs only help to shape predictions, and the relevant data or costs are the expected future data that will differ among alternatives. Any item is irrelevant if it will remain the same regardless of the alternative selected.