Fred:
At 11:07 13-02-98 +0000, Fred Nickols said:
>Successful companies (e.g., H-P, LL Bean, etc.) have performance
>appraisal systems and rank their employees.
>Therefore, performance appraisal systems are (good/okay/necessary/
>desirable)...
>I don't think so. Others do. That's the essence of the discussion,
isn't
>it?
I submit that it is another example of unspoken assumptions and
contextual implementation. Proceeding under my assumption that the
Criteria of Wisdom are:
7 A fund of general knowledge
7 Procedural knowledge
7 An understanding of the relativity of values
7 An understanding that meaning is contextual
7 Acceptance of change
Let me give an example of Motorola and a US Auto manufacturer. The
automaker sent staff to Motorola University to study benchmarking, yet
I was called in months later to teach it again. If any of our readers
have seen the Motorola curriculum they will know that its extensive,
almost overkill, so why did the team fail to learn benchmarking?
The failure was cultural (or contextual). The automakers team
inadvertently transplanted a curriculum designed to work in the
Motorola environment/culture to its own culture, a culture that is
extraordinarily data-intensive, that thrived on data - data was life
itself, the prerequisite for action.
When the team brought its exhaustive data trove to the second
benchmarking class, it proved to be meaningless. It was a massive
cross-compendium of technical criteria so minute that they could make
no sense of it, could not apply it. They had read the words but had
missed the message. They had fundamentally benchmarked the wrong
stuff from the onset, yet my reading of the same materials pointed me
in a direction, which the team ultimately found satisfying.
The team had never been allowed to work the process, even scheduling
meetings was daunting, and an expert outcome was expected immediately
by management without any understanding of the demands and timelines
required, etc. (Part of good benchmarking is expectation setting,
securing executive sponsorship, etc.)
Once again, the system was at fault, and not the employees. I have
repeatedly seen the same tool implemented to nurture or bludgeon,
depending upon the corporate culture, the hidden agendas of
management, or both. So it is with performance systems - in some
cultures they will be used thoughtfully and in others it will not.
Depending upon your individual experience (which sets your assumptions
and expectations) you will come down on one side or the other of the
argument.
Best regards, Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group
ghidra@modulor.com
Tel: 248-626-1310
-- Gordon Housworth
--Gordon Housworth <ghidra@modulor.com>
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