Richard Karash wrote:
> 1. We know that evals are flawed, their communication is flawed, and
>these can do damage; and yet...
>
> 2. We feel it imperative to manage performance, and
>
> 3. It is very hard for people to see current reality accurately and
>honestly, especially viz. their own performance; we hope that evals can
>help in this.
People do see current reality accurately alright. But accurately according
to their own scale! (And from my scale) The whole issue of employee
ranking seems to rest on the mismatch between the values of the
organization and that of each of its employees.
By saying that ranking is for the employee's own good, reminds me of a
cartoon that I saw some time back. It was about the time when there was a
sharp rise in inflation in India. The cartoon had the "common man"
carrying a large heap on his head which was labelled "common man's
problems" and looking frail and exhausted. On top of of the heap was the
government, looking far with a telescope. The caption had the government
saying "Poor guy. I hope he realises that we are doing it for his own
good".
There was also one more quotation that I had come across earlier. It
read-- "If something is for your own good, you can bet that you won't like
it".
The whole issue rests on values mismatch! The employee who is incompetent
just does not understand the organization's values or the importance of
those values to the organization. Or, the organization just does not
understand the values of the employee which is making him/her to be
perceived as incompetent by the organization. Which is what brings in the
notion of "This is for your own good". If the employee understood the
organization's values s/he would have realized the responsibility that
rests on the employees and act accordingly.
I am sure the issue of competence cannot be solved by ranking employees.
If the employee is made to understand his/her responsibility towards the
organization, it would be much better. Just consider, suppose the employee
is presented with the problem that the management is presently facing, and
is asked how s/he would go about solving it. I am sure both the employee
and the organization would learn something new about themselves in this
process.
Warm Regards
Srinath
srinaths@usa.net
--Srinath Srinivasa <srinaths@lotus.iitm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>