>This [performance appraisal] system, which has been so hopelessly
>derided by many on this list, saved our butts, and actually increased the
>morale and camaraderie of the entire department.
Yes, and at least a few expectant Mothers were safely driven to the
hospital in Ford Edsels - an automobile acknowledged as one of the great
marketing disasters of this century. While good and bad examples of the
effects of performance appraisals abound, judging the appraisals
themselves is impossible without putting them in a larger context.
In your case a better hiring system would have produced the same eventual
results, i.e., the poor manager would never have been put in charge in the
first place. I presume from your narrative that the new manager was an
outside hire, but why didn't his previous PA system catch and identify his
shortcomings? Are you implying that because a particular appraisal system
worked in your favor that it is a good thing? Racism works in favor of a
few people too, but I hardly think that qualifies it as a good policy.
I agree wholeheartedly that there are plenty of examples of wholesome,
well tuned performance appraisal systems that have beneficial results.
However, I think it is the tuning and the wholesomeness, not the intrinsic
value of appraisals in general, that creates these successes.
--Lon Badgett lonbadgett@aol.com "Two paths diverged in a yellow wood, and feeling sorry I could not travel both, I realized I had a false dilemma on my hands." Emil Gobersneke
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