John Constantine wonders:
>Assuming a company or other organization has gotten accurate data, now
>what? What does the outfit intend to do with it? Is the intention to keep
>the "best" and shoot the rest?
Excellent questions to ask, and ones I always ask a client when they want
me to help them set up any kind of information feedback system. I, too,
am experienced enough to be cynical about the motives of managers who want
to "measure performance." I have seen too many people, even one I had to
confront in my own company (at high personal risk, I might add), who want
to use feedback information "against" individuals.
I also resonate to what I believe is Deming's argument, when you talk
about systems being responsible for (most of the) outcomes. I know that
Deming was adamantly against measuring individuals' performance. However,
he was just as adamantly for measuring "system" performance and making
this information quickly and directly available to the individuals who
worked within the system.
Information feedback about our performance is so vital that it is almost
as important as the air we breathe. Suppose you wanted to walk from where
you are now to the door of the room, for some reason. You take your first
step and ... what do you do? Do you continue walking in the same
direction? Or do you change your direction? How can you decide? In the
absence of performance feedback (that tells you whether your first step
was helping you get to the door or not), you are literally frozen with
your foot off the ground -- never to move again!!
Now, in simple situations (such as are almost never found in real life
work settings), you can provide your own feedback -- by just looking at
the door and judging whether you're headed in the right direction. But,
in the complexity of organizational life, it becomes impossible for an
individual to "look at the door." There must be something built into the
system that provides "look at the door" kinds of information -- to guide
decisions and policies and individual actions.
That's the legitimate need, and justification (in my eyes), for
performance measurement. Not for judging individuals, but for helping
individual people do what they intend to do. I always tell my clients,
"Performance feedback must be primarily for the benefit of the performer.
If we can extract from the performers' information some summaries that
help at other levels of management, fine. But the performer must get the
information first, quickest, and in a form s/he can use."
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>