I have been following this thread with interest. I began just before I set
of for California (from the UK) to undertake an assignment relating to
Performance Management.
As the thread has ebbed and flowed around the many ideas and debates it
seems that two things have been largely un-mentioned or regarded as so
obvious or implicit not to warrant a mention. They are
1. Have many people use the systems that so many organisations have
2. The pay connection.
1. In my experience large numbers of managers simply don't use their
systems. In fact often don't undertake any kind of formal appraisal. THis
creates a number of results.
a. Many individuals get little effective assistance with their
performance or development (in my view a common and appalling indictment
of managers)
b. Some individuals work for managers who help them enormously and
don't comply with the system. THis can be OK until someone wants to
promote you and person's file is pulled out and found to be thin...
c. Managers make up their own system and this is OK.
If we take a. above I am not talking about organisations with poor
records. My experience was often with organisations with outstanding
records. The people managed themselves to the greatest extent. I always
contended in these organisations that they might like to imagine how
successful they would be if their people were managed effectively.
TYpically they did not have time to do it better.
I believe with a great passion that almost any system is better than no
system. I can improve a system if one exists. It is often more difficult
to create one if I am a junior member of staff.
Much of this thread has identified the key role of the individual manager
in the process. Some do it well, others poorly. How many of us have seen
doing appraisals better as an objective for middle managers. For everyone
yes, for individuals rarely. Frankly, in my opinion, the process of
review and development (as well as agreeing clear goals and direction) is
they most important job as a manager [in fact why do we pay them as
managers if they do not do this effectively - my California client may
remember these words as I used them in each of my sessions]
2. It seems to me that performance and pay must be connected somehow. Once
upon a time I believed you could separate them. As I get older I seem to
become more pragmatic. I do not see how pay and performance cannot be
linked. What is important is how you deal with the two issues in
constructive ways without the pay issue ruining the development concerns.
I try to do this by undertaking the performance review as a development
process whilst acknowledging that the outcome will be fed into the pay
system in some way or other. I try to create a climate of openness an
trust for the performance review that enables discussion about good and
unsatisfactory activities.
Others have summarised this thread better than I. For what it is worth the
following are important points for me.
1. I wish more managers genuinely concerned themselves with the
development of their staff.
2. I wish line managers were responsible for any system that an
organisation has not Human Resources. At best HR should keep a copy. THey
should not control the system because it seems to remove the
responsibility from where it belongs.
3. Pay has to be connected to performance. How we deal with this
connection is the key issue so as not to wreck the PR from a developmental
perspective.
4. Like many others I dislike rating performance (I believe we have used
ranking in this thread to mean more than one thing in the same mini
threads which I have found very confusing. I am uncertain if any have been
saying they literally rank their staff from 1-100. Many organisations
rate, so having many scoring a 4 or 5, whatever the system) I would prefer
Achieved what was agreed, under or over achieved. Any further sub division
seems to be for the sake of differentiation. However since so many people
get upset over issues about relative performance the pressure to sub
divide is great, even if driven by flawed logic. HP and LLBean have
figured often as illustrations. If know only of HP. THey have a very
clear systems. I know many managers who dislike their system. AND they are
often competent and capable managers who make the best of their system.
Whatever else this seems to be the key issue. Good managers (in the sense
of concerning themselves with the development of their staff) make things
work, whatever the organisational culture in which they work, whatever the
system they have, who ever works for them.
Perhaps we should spent more time and energy developing managers to lead
and manage than to do PR's better.....(or even develop PR systems)
Best wishes, and thanks to all the many interesting and stimulating ideas
that flow through this list.
Ian Saunders
Transition Partnerships - Harnessing change for business advantage
tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk
--tpians@cix.co.uk (Ian Saunders)
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