Team Tips - 23 {Protocol Check - on myself}

I've been thinking about my last post of Team Tips - Team Tips 22 {Ouch, that hurts - Part 2} - and that no one responded to my challenge.

And how that is actually a good thing. Weird, eh?

I know that 20+ folks looked at the blog page, and so it is reasonable that some even read it. But not one comment.

Now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (or more precisely, is not evidence - period.) Someone out there may be busy pondering my questions, researching articles, sharpening their cyber pencils, drafting an essay, getting copy editor revisions, and so on. Or not!

However, no response is perfectly reasonable, because I broke the rules.

The Perfection Game is one of the Core Protocols. I like the choice “Protocols” because it implies following a procedure, a set of steps. In other words, doing it - the Protocol - properly. After all, if you want to do things well, then once you have a successful method follow it! At least until a better procedure shows up.

So I shouldn't have hidden an Ask for Help inside a pretend Perfection Game. Sure, I presented it as “an example” to skirt the fact that you didn't actually ask me to Perfect your reading of the post. But a donkey having been through the car wash is still a donkey.

I should have just Asked for Help directly.

All of you who didn't comment - all 100% - congrats! You could have gleefully screamed “Protocol Check!!” and pointed out the error of my ways. You could have asked me for an intention check to clarify my purpose, and then with that clarification from me then gleefully screamed “Protocol Check!!”. Or you could have ignored my inappropriate behaviour and walked away, as the evidence might indicate you did.

The point of having these atoms of proven successful group behaviour - the Protocols - is that everyone in the group knows them, how to use them, what to do if they suspect improper use. All of which set up the best known initial conditions for successful teamwork. If you would rather use your own version of the Protocols, or not use them at all, be my guest. Let me know how that is working for you.

In the meantime, let me Ask for Help properly:

• Will you use the Comments area to note some [employee] performance examples for which the Perfection Game doesn't seem to work; and
• when using the Perfection Game as your performance management method, a simple scheme to allocate merit increase money if it must be based on job performance?