Below are some typical hurdles to accessibility and suggestions for improving them in your organization and industry.
boss relationship
A Warning on Being Accessible
Being Accessible does not mean you are available 24/7/52. We all have limits on the degree to which we can be reached by co-workers, and you should feel comfortable enforcing and expecting others to honor these limits.
Can you be too successful at modeling accessible behavior? Is this an example of “too much of a good thing”? We all know that sunlight is a good thing, yet too much can cause skin cancer. We know that the human body needs sugar to survive, and yet too much may cause diabetes. If you’re wildly successful at being accessible, you may find your calendar under attack.
Your goal is to make sure you are being accessible to serve the needs of others, not to become their servant.
Accessibility and the Benefits to Your Colleagues
It is not enough that you are highly accessible to your colleagues; your colleagues must also benefit from the interaction. After all, if accessibility doesn’t benefit your colleagues, what’s the point?
Benefits of Being Readily Accessible
Being readily accessible benefits everyone. Ram Reddy is the Chief Information Officer at The Rockport Group, offering high-quality dress and casual footwear to customers globally. Despite the daily challenges he faces in his busy workplace, Ram is committed to being accessible to those who reach out to him.
Reputation and Your Visibility
Reputation is the intangible ways in which we connect with others. This is where activities and behaviors that help you be known in your organization and industry exist. I like to think of reputation as the echo you leave when you exit a room. Your reputation is what your colleagues say about you when you’re not there. Perhaps your colleagues are commenting on a presentation you just gave, an interaction you just had, or your candidacy for a promotion. Do you know what they are saying about you? More importantly, what do you want your colleagues to be saying about you?
A Performance Management Culture
How do you know if your organization has a performance management system? Once a year, your boss is thrust into the dreaded “performance management cycle.” There he is required to complete numerous performance appraisals. Many managers rush to complete their appraisals en masse the Sunday night before the appraisals are due. While most of their ratings are influenced by the rankings and bell-curve pre-established by the organization. Upon the completion of an exhausting approval process, he finally schedules a meeting with you. Following the meeting, you rush back to your cubicle, call your significant other and exclaim, “I got a 3.5 on collaboration!”
The Often Ineffective Performance Appraisal
History will not be kind to the performance appraisal. After decades of lackluster experiences, stale formats, and non-existent correlations between assessment and achievement, most savvy business leaders and modern management experts would tell you that the performance appraisal is a well-intended yet failed exercise in behavior modification.
Be the Catalyst of Your Own Career!
By all accounts, the world of work you are experiencing is significantly different than your parents’ world of work. The old ways of networking and measuring performance are ineffective in the face of unprecedented change and transparency.
Steps to Take After a Value Meeting
So now you’ve had the value conversation with your boss, and it went really well. Here are a few steps you need to take after a value meeting in order to keep the momentum up.
Talking Points to Make During a Value Meeting
Now that you have your value meeting scheduled with your boss, what are you going to say? Here are some suggested talking points to help keep you on track and to make sure you cover the most important areas.