Less than a Minute Life Lesson-2410 Promotion and Character

Work place Lessons from office stationary-2

Ruler

 Terms used ( Key Result Areas- KRAs and Key Performance Indicators- KPIs)

Ruler was an interesting object in our school days for 2 reasons -1- It was used in our geometry classes for measuring and used in others subjects to ensure legibility of writing. There was one more reason for which some of us did not like the ruler, because it was used to punish some students  who misbehaved or who did not live up to the expectations of the teacher.

In workplace ruler represents one’s ability to measure his/her performance and identify the gaps to fine tune oneself on a regular basis.

On the other hand it is a tool in the hands of the immediate manager to measure the subordinates’ performance.

During my sessions on planning and organizing I have come across situations where participants used to share their thoughts on performance reviews/Appraisals. Some of the major concerns that I had come across was:

•          There is always a gap between what is expected and what is delivered
•          Apart from KRAs/KPIs there are other tasks which comes in between regular activities, and hence not able to accomplish our desired result.

From the above discussion I had with the participants I was able to do a root cause for the above problems and these are some of my findings:

1.          Inability to tell “No”
2.          Not maintaining a to do list
3.          Not recording down the task , which was not a part of KRAs/KPIs

• The first root cause can be addressed by understanding the art of telling No but the 2 and the 3^rd can only be addressed by ensuring that the employee maintains a to do list, constantly reviews whether his/her day to day activities is in line with the KRAs/KPIs or not.

By constantly measuring one’s own performance:

•          One can identify the gaps and work in advance to close the gaps
•          Alerts the person to take up additional task or not.

In certain situations it is inevitable to tell No to certain task due to business pressure , in such situations it is good to record down these tasks which was performed outside the KRAs /KPIs and can be used during reviews to substantiate the reason for non- completion of certain KRAs/KPIs.

“Remember you are the performer and you are the ruler”