Know your Onions

Ann Hobbs
Business owner
1st December 2016

There are many similarities between running an allotment and running a business. At this time of year manure gets applied to the ground to replenish and enhance the quality of the soil for next year’s growth . Of course businesses need to be replenished in a similar way and I see that, like manure, experience is only useful if it is spread around. So any people strategies have to include feedback and visioning based on the actual experience of individual participants – that is how people grow.

There are some key management activities that distinguish well-run businesses from the rest. I list these below:

Visioning- knowing where the business is going over the next year, 3 years and 5 years and telling staff

Being consistent – Support at all levels to deliver the vision

People Development – Appraisal – positive reinforcement of employee contribution

Selection of the right people – will they “fit” into this “patch”

Weeding out- managing under-performance positively

Leadership- setting out the culture of the organisation and seeing ahead

Maintaining USP-why us and why our product

A big one amongst these is Appraisal, the process of discussion about contribution and the future. In so many organisations this has become a tick box exercise, matching to competence matrices and largely designed at the centre – to ensure consistency – but with little real relevance to the participant. Where rewards are not at stake people wonder whether time spent in 1-1 meetings is worthwhile.

We believe that “Appraisal” is all about preparing the ground for the future. Getting employees ready for their next steps. Good appraisal requires preparation from both sides and that leads to understanding the individual and the individual understanding themselves. The outcome is a well- motivated engaged employee.

Continuing the allotment theme – the Onion Model is a good way to illustrate what goes on beneath the behaviour of the individual- both Appraiser and the Appraised. Each layer of skin around an onion represents the person, the outer layer is what we see – Behaviours, next layer in is Attitudes, and deeper in the onion is Values and at the core is Personality. Employers need permission to go deep into the Onion. Appraisal is about knowing what motivates people to excel.

Quote from Oprah Winfrey – “What I find powerful is a person with the confidence to be her own self”

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