Questions and Answers of Retail Management

Some companies make it nearly impossible to score a “five out of five” on their performance criteria. In some companies, what would appear to be a good evaluation internally may look like a poor
Now that you have a great software product, can you sell what you have developed? In two to three sentences, how would you promote your new software to prospective customers? What difficulties does
As discussed earlier, the frequency of observations and feedback is a key determinant in how effectively behavior is changed in workers. With this in mind, how would you facilitate observations that
If the president of the company wants to move the company in one direction, while the employee thinks it is moving in another direction, communication between the president and the employee is said
Alerts are used in software systems to remind users when they have done something incorrectly or missed a timeline. What kind of alerts would you use in the system to remind both evaluators and
Software is irrelevant if users do not utilize the output in a constructive manner. For performance management, the more software can streamline and standardize feedback, the more useful it will be
If you did create a numerical rating, how could you compare the evaluation scores/effectiveness between managers and departments?
Many of the greatest civilizations throughout history have actively encouraged and promoted competition, comparison, and winning. Schools, sports, and countless competitions measure performers and
Would you include a section for 360-degree evaluations in your software? How would team members of the employee interact with the software for that employee’s evaluation?
How would the evaluator interact with the software before, during, and after the evaluation?
How would the person being evaluated interact with the software before, during, and/or after an evaluation? Would you want them to interact with the software or would you want to leave it all in the
Standardization is important to keeping evaluations objective and fair. What preparation information would be input by each manager, and what information would be input by a third party(e.g., Human
Preparation is the key to any performance management system.What type of information would the user be required to set up before a rating period begins?
The usability of software is crucial to its success in the marketplace. Usability is often determined by the organization of information on the user interface that allows (or prevents)intuitive
If you were CEO, how would you prevent this type of activity from happening at ElectroCo? At the very least, how could the company marginalize such activities? Use some of the concepts in this
What are some of the possible consequences of Joel’s philosophy as pertaining to the company? Overall, is it good for the company or bad for the company? Explain. Is it good or bad for the
Do you agree or disagree with Joel’s philosophy? Why or why not? Is Joel just playing by the rules the company has laid out?Has Joel figured out the best way to play the game? If the company does
How would you communicate this to Casey if you were his boss?How would you practice what you preach to get your point across to Casey?
Honesty and genuineness is respected in the workplace, is it not?What is the difference between being real and being a jerk? In the future, how can Casey be real and give effective feedback in the
What do you think of Casey’s feedback philosophy? Is it better to just be honest with people rather than have to dance around their feelings?
Most companies preach employee honesty, integrity, and transparency in their core values, mission statements, vision statements, and other similar literature.a. In your experience, is honesty truly
Should the performer have knowledge of the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of a feedback session? Why or why not? If the worker does not evaluate and provide feedback on the effectiveness of
Were the dimensions and behavioral examples helpful? Did they assist the observer in evaluating the effectiveness of the feedback session? Did the dimensions and behaviors assist the people
After completion of the feedback session, the volunteer performer summarizes his or her assessment of the feedback session. Is there agreement with the assessments made by the observers?
The observers of the feedback session should evaluate it by asking the following questions.a. How well did it seem to go?b. Was the feedback focused on the performance or the performer?c. How did the
Provide feedback to the volunteer. Given what has been covered in this chapter, you should attempt to create a feedback session that is as effective and useful as possible.
Assuming team sizes of around six, assign three team members the responsibility of generating performance feedback for the volunteer (generating material for feedback may take an hour or more). Two
Identify major dimensions of performance to serve as criteria. For example, if the volunteer is a team member, you could focus on dimensions that are part of that role, such as interpersonal
Find a volunteer who is willing to receive performance feedback.The person might be a current or former member of your company or a team member.
Every performance management system has pros and cons.Assuming this team-based approach to evaluations is implemented in the business world, what are the downfalls of such an approach? Is this a
Assuming you had the resources and the buy-in from the organization sponsoring the team (or team owner), how would you implement a team-based performance feedback system?Would you recommend any
Some team members may resist adding performance feedback to their roles as team members. How would you address the problem?
Choose a team that you have been a part of (sports, clubs, academic, fund-raising, church, etc.). What was the end result the team was seeking to achieve? Was there any type of accountability around
Certain sets of questions will show a larger difference between ratings. Which questions show the highest difference between ratings and which show the lowest? Why do you think this might be? Share
What is the difference between the thoughts that each statement conjures up for each section? Which set has undertones of objective facts versus undertones of subjective opinion? Will one line of
What is the difference in the level of defensiveness conjured up by the first set of questions as opposed to the second? Which set of questions inspires defense and which inspires inquisitiveness and
Now read the following statements to the other person. The employee being evaluated should write down their initial thoughts and rank the level of defensiveness created by each statement.a. Your
Get together with a partner and read the statements below to the other person. Have the other person write down their initial thoughts and feelings after hearing the phrase read to them. Next have
Share your findings with the class.
What if you determine that a student performs poorly for a semester and fails? Will your method stand up to outside, perhaps legal, scrutiny? Explain.
Being the highly sought-after professor that you are, you also teach four other classes each day. Can you streamline this process of tracking performance and providing feedback? Are you doing this in
Now that you know how often you will provide the students with feedback, exactly how will you track each student’s performance?Will it be done electronically, mentally, in a spreadsheet, on paper,
How much of your time would this take to do each week? How did you arrive at this number?
A student can think of nothing worse than arriving at the end of a semester and finding out that they are doing more poorly than they had thought, only to find that it is too late to catch up. Still,
Suppose that you were a college professor who created a new class of thirty students, teaching whatever subject you would like(choose one). Now suppose that the grades of each student are based
Every push for efficiency improvements within a company comes at a cost. Frame-of-reference training is no different in this respect. While most managers are paid a salary and considered an overhead
Did the evaluations converge and become more accurate for each progressive evaluation session? Did the workers or students view the FOR process as useful?
Should the worker being reviewed have knowledge of the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of a feedback session? Why or why not? If the worker does not evaluate and provide feedback on the
Were the dimensions and behavioral examples helpful? Did they assist the observer in evaluating the effectiveness of the feedback session? Did the dimensions and behaviors assist the people
Revisit Basic Skill Builder 6.1 of this chapter and prepare materials for feedback to another performer. Follow the steps in Basic Skill Builder 6.1, but use the dimensions you generated here to
Using your revised set of dimensions, apply the CIT (see Chapter 3) to generate your own behavioral incidents to each dimension and assign effectiveness values to each. Generate anchors for your
The above dimensions were generated some time ago and prior to the popularity of team-based structures and empowerment. Are the dimensions and behavioral examples still applicable today?Are there
After completion of the feedback session, the volunteer performer summarizes his or her assessment of the feedback session. Is there agreement with the assessments made by the observers?
The observers of the feedback session should evaluate it using the following questions:. How well did it seem to go?. Was the feedback focused on the performance or the performer?. How did the
How would you recommend your solution in item 3 be implemented? In other words, how would you go about selling or convincing management that your solution is needed and should be followed?
What could be done to improve the situation?
Why is the annual positive review that she receives not enough?
Based on your reading of the opening example, what is the problem for Phuong? That is, why is she not a happy and committed worker?
From your experience, do you agree with such a performance evaluation system? Do the pros outweigh the cons? Why or why not?
Imagine that you have just been hired to become the CEO of a company that takes the streamlined approach and focuses on goal setting. The company is slowly losing market share and profits to your
How effective do you think such a system would be for a company? Is this a useful system to use? Explain.
With the exception of Box 7, large companies arguably require employees in all eight other boxes in order to function long term.A company cannot be full of only high potential/high performer
Was establishing levels of future potential more difficult than for past performance? Why or why not? Is this a fair way to categorize employees? Would it be effective at keeping a company
Create FOR materials to be used to train various managers on low, medium, and high levels of an employee’s future potential.
Choose a job position that you have either worked in or managed.Create a CIT based upon “future potential” of an employee for this position.
How would you improve this system based upon methods discussed in this chapter and previous chapters?
Feedback from the internal customer adds another useful dimension to the evaluation system. Some would say this creates conflict for a consultant between giving the customer what they want and giving
Feedback from team members references a type of 360-degree feedback system. Does team-member feedback make sense in this case? In a highly complex and political organization, what are some strengths
This company, rather advanced in its performance evaluation systems, utilizes both results-based and performance-based criteria. Evaluations based upon ROI would be considered a“result-based
At a company like SJ&B, it would seem that there is no system in place for measuring the effectiveness and accuracy of evaluation methods from office to office or manager to manager. What if the
In the grand scheme of things, if evaluations are not tied directly to pay, is this discrepancy cause for concern by senior management? For a multinational company, what are some of the
Do you think an impact of casual attributions on evaluations should occur? Is it fair? What is the purpose of a company? To make a profit? If so, should anything other than the employee’s ability
Refer to the causal matrix used in attribution theory (see Figure on page 97). Place performance attributes of each animal in each quadrant of the matrix. Does placing the performance of an animal in
How would you take each of the following results-based criteria into consideration with each “employee”?a. Consider the level of difficulty of objectives. How difficult was the goal? How do you
As they finished at approximately the same time, would you score them the same? In a results based system or a “goals only”system, wouldn’t it be unfair to score them differently? Explain?
What is your assessment of the FOR training approach? Do you think it would be effective for developing common evaluation standards in an organizational setting? What are some possible disadvantages
Does the error rate get larger or smaller with practice for the volunteer? How much does this error rate multiply in a company of 1,000 employees with hundreds of other scripts and actors?
Find someone to act as a test subject for your FOR training(coworker, classmate, spouse, children, etc.).a. Discuss the criteria of performance (What are the dimensions? What are the rating scales?)
Use the behavioral incidents and performance levels you created from this exercise to build three to four “descriptions of performance” that include all dimensions. These descriptions of
Use the CIT to create a behavior-based description for this position.a. Generate three to four job dimensions.b. Create ten to fifteen critical behavior incidents for each job dimension.c. Apply
Choose a job position that you have held in the past, one you hold now, or preferably one that you have managed at some point.
Compare your results with the rest of the class. Which scenarios differ the most between classmates? In a company, who would make the final decision? What are the legal consequences?
Business is, hypothetically, survival of the fittest. Those companies that are faster, smarter, and more efficient than other companies survive, while those that are slower and less efficient die. Do
Is it fair to disregard those items in a performance evaluation for which you have marked “sickness”? Can people manipulate this if they see patterns develop?
Is this an all-or-nothing exercise? Can some of these be partially sin and partially sickness? How will you decipher during a real evaluation?
Determine whether the following causes of poor performance are due to sin (has control) or sickness (has no control).
Choose a professional sports team. Choose a specific position on this sports team (i.e., quarterback, third baseman, halfback). Now create results-based criteria for this position upon which you will
This chapter suggested that during implementations of such new evaluation programs, it is important to execute them “from the ground up.” In other words, it is important to get the buy-in from
Create Frame-of-Reference training materials upon which the weatherman’s boss can evaluate him or her. You want to make sure that all weathermen at the parent news company are evaluated evenly.a.
Create a three-dimensional CIT for a local weatherman (or weatherwoman) on a local news stationa. Determine the three dimensions. Will they be performance based, results based, or both? Why?b. Create
What other information does Sheila need to find out to determine the causes of David’s apparent success? What questions can she ask? What actions can she take?
Is it really relevant for Sheila to determine what the cause of observed performance is? As long as David gets the job done, why is causality important? Give five reasons.
Consider the locus-by-stability matrix used in attribution theory(see Figure on page 97). Where does David’s performance, as described in this scenario, fit into this matrix? Could it fit into more
Create a “sales pitch” to the CEO of WidgetCo, detailing the cost of this proposed plan and how it is offset by the return on investment from this project.
Assume that your questionnaire uncovered that, indeed, WidgetCo is deficient in all five categories you are investigating.Create an action plan for you to help WidgetCo become a top-tier company in
Create a questionnaire or survey often to twenty questions to send out to employees and managers to learn about the effectiveness of the WidgetCo performance management evaluation process. Use
What are the top five things you would like to find out about the evaluation system at WidgetCo? What are the five most important issues that you would like to uncover at WidgetCo? What would some of
What would be the possible benefits of reducing or eliminating this difference in criteria?
How could the difference in criteria be resolved? Describe the steps that could be taken.
Why is the difference in criteria between Randy and James a problem for First Consulting? Do you think one is right and the other wrong? Why?

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