Ben:
The situation you describe with the leader who measures everything and the
team that outperforms all others I accept as a positive example of
performance that is being managed effectively and works well in many work
situations.
What I disagree with in your posting is the assumption that unless an
organization ranks employees that organization will be rife with
incompetent employees who will drag the morale and productivity of the
enterprise down.
This is an artificial dichotomy. I have known many organizations which
measure outputs and rank employees and still harbour gross incompetence,
or tolerate mediocrity. The cause in almost every instance is that the
greatest incompetence of all resides in the management levels where the
executives do not know what is important to their business, and lack
leadership skills to make the business hum.
The approach that I most often recommend to clients is one which installs
two processes: First, a performance management system which is TOTALLY
dedicated to maintaining and enhancing high performance. The employee has
the primary responsibility for managing his/her performance; the managers
serve as coaches, mentors, advisors, confidants, etc. depending on what
the individual employee needs in order to sustain an excellent performance
level. This system accommodates, hopefully 90%+ of all employees,
including managers.
Second, is a progressive discipline system. This system accommodates the
small number of poor performers who obviously lack the talent, maturity,
drive, or skill and knowledge to perform up to standard. They are,
temporarily or permanently, incapable of managing their own performance.
These people are removed from the Performance Management System, placed
under a remedial regime, and given a reasonable amount of time to meet the
conditions for re-admission to a "normal" employment situation. The
expectations are made very clear. The sanctions are made quite clear. The
monitoring is very similar to what some describe as traditional
"performance appraisal and measurement". If the employee is able to meet
the conditions, status in the Performance Management System is restored.
If the employee is not able to meet those conditions, further action is
taken as indicated (including termination).
The point of this approach is that we don't put everyone through a system
designed for catching incompetents. We assume that the people we hired for
their knowledge, skills, and character are responsible and superbly
capable. We use a paternalistic system only for those who need that kind
of system. We usually discover inappropriate or incompetent behaviour in
the day-to-day operations and deal with them at that time. We don't wait
until the next scheduled review to deal with it.
Thus we have a system designed for bright, competent, enthusiastic,
internally motivated employees who perform well and who want to perform
even better.
That is a thumbnail sketch of the system I find most effective and
satisfying to all concerned.
Brock Vodden
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
In part Ben wrote:
>And soon you have a big, nasty bell-curve, and a lot of really harsh
>feelings between employees. The result is that it will be difficult for
>people to cooperate, there will be incessant name-calling, labeling, and
>back-biting; managers may even get involved, fighting among themselves.
--"Brock Vodden" <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>
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