Eugene Bujalski, in the well-written post cited above, captures much of
the essence of the discussion about employee ranking and performance
appraisals; in particular, the tension between those who take the people
side of things and those who place themselves on the organization's side
of things.
Everyone can no doubt guess that I place myself firmly on the people side
of the discussion and for a very good reason: Organizations don't do
anything, people do. Employee ranking and performance appraisal systems
are instances of people doing things to other people.
Moreover, employee ranking and performance appraisal systems aren't
neutral devices. They reflect the values of those in positions of
authority. These values are then imposed on other people by virtue of
claiming that they are the organization's values. Nonsense; organizations
don't have values, people do.
In the last anaysis, then, the tension and the passion regarding employee
rankings and performance appraisals isn't between people-oriented and
organization-oriented people, and it is most definitely not between people
and organizations, it's between people, period, and the central issues are
those of authority, dominance, and submission, not performance.
That's about as plain as I can put it.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>