Discussion: View Thread

The below article is nice in that it has various management professors
explaining performance appraisal issues but a journalist communicating it
all.

Orlando Sentinel. "The best appraisals of workers can be simple:
Objectivity, feedback are important features," December 14, 2003.
<http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-bz.evaluations14dec14,0,6517005.story?c
oll=bal-business-headlines>

Maybe a better version:
<http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/personal_finance/7486852.ht
m>

[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on in
your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

Jay Jamrog, who heads the Human Resource Institute at the University of
Tampa
Judy Callahan, professor of management at the University of Central
Florida's College of Business
Don Rogers, a management professor and director of the master's program in
human resources at Rollins College

Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
St. John's University, New York
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director
RMED series co-editor: http://management-education.net/

Many thanks to our host, Charlie Wankel, for sending along the links to the
article about performance appraisal issues. As it happens, that same
article shows up in the business section of this morning's edition of my
local Fort Myers paper, The News-Press. Apparently, the author, Harry
Wessel, is a staff writer at The Orlando Sentinel but, because that's a
Knight Ridder paper, Wessel's piece is making its way into other Knight
Ridder newspapers as well.

Based on my reading of all three versions (and no two are identical), my
reaction is that some important issues are indeed raised but I thought
their treatment rather superficial. Comments follow.

Much is made of compensation being tied to performance appraisals and the
assertion is made that this accounts for "grade inflation" in performance
ratings but I don't buy the notion that "It's in the money" as the article
asserts. It is possible to tie bonuses and merit increases to performance
appraisals but with differing effects. As regards bonuses, these are tied
to pretty specific performance objectives or else they are simply a form of
managerial largesse. If they're tied to specific objectives, no
performance appraisal is necessary. All concerned know the status of the
objective. If bonuses are not tied to a specific objective, then it's
largesse and there is little doubt as to the game being played there. More
to the point, performance has nothing to do with it. As regards merit
increases, these are usually quite small and the difference from rating to
rating is even smaller. Not much motivation there.

It was also observed that companies regularly revise their performance
appraisal systems every three years or so. True enough but the reason
given -- waning enthusiasm over time -- seems to me to be inconsistent with
what I've observed. First off, I don't know anyone subject to a
performance appraisal system who is, to use the quoted expert's words,
"rah-rah" or enthusiastic about it. Instead, most people dread the
introduction of a new performance appraisal system. Aside from being a
real pain in the neck, what a new performance appraisal system means is
that the people who write and receive performance appraisals have to "break
the code" all over again. They have to figure out how to "game" the new
system, how to make it do what they want it to. And that, I suspect, is a
major reason why companies do redo their performance appraisal systems on a
regular basis.

One company cited, Lockheed Martin, uses a "kinder gentler" version of the
forced ranking system found at GE. The problems with forced ranking are
legion and I don't know anyone who knows much of anything about measurement
who believes that forced ranking is a valid, reliable way of assessing or
improving performance. It has other purposes to be sure but assessing and
improving performance isn't one of them. (I'll come back to these other
purposes in a moment.)

The reluctance of those who write performance appraisals to be critical is
also mentioned and it is asserted that this makes employees increasingly
ineffective. The assumption seems to be that the lack of feedback fails to
improve performance. I don't think that's the case at all. Managers are
indeed reluctant to wax critical in performance appraisals but I think
that's because they know how damaging such comments can be. You see, the
performance appraisal system is part of the carrot-and-stick management
system and it's mostly about sticks, not carrots. Glowing performance
appraisals cannot get you a promotion or even a plum assignment but a
ho-hum or worse yet, a critical, performance appraisal can keep those
carrots from you.

The gist of the advice provided by the experts (or at least as reported by
the writer) amounts to keeping the performance appraisal system simple,
conducting frequent feedback sessions and folding the annual review into an
ongoing performance management system/process, one that is marked by
specific performance objectives. None of those address what's really wrong
with performance appraisal and, for the most part, performance management
systems; namely, they simply don't work at intended or claimed. Indeed, as
one expert points out, "Companies are struggling with the same issues they
did 30 to 40 years ago. The state of the art hasn't advanced much."

So what's going on here? Performance appraisal systems suck; they're a
royal pain; they don't do what they're intended to do; and yet they're
still with us after all four decades or more of what can only be called
"tinkering." Why are they still with us?

I think I know why they're still with us: they are the modern day version
of Simon Legree's whip. As a supervisor or manager, I may not be able to
do a lot for you but I can definitely do a lot to you by way of the
performance appraisal system. I can screw you nine ways from Sunday as the
saying goes and you won't be able to do a thing about it. How? All I have
to do is give you a series of so-so appraisals and that will seal your
fate, especially if we're in one of those "up or out" systems. Or, in the
case of forced rankings, I can place you where your standing won't do you
much good but your complaints will fall on deaf ears. What performance
appraisal systems really do is buttress and shore up managerial and
supervisory authority.

Unfortunately, much if not most of the work that matters in today's world
isn't amenable to management through a command-and-control model, even if
those in command have their whips at the ready. And, for the kind of work
that is amenable to that kind of management, you don't find much in the way
of performance appraisal systems. They're not necessary; the workers are
easily kept in line because the nature of their work makes it easy to
do. As Shoshanna Zuboff said way back in 1983, "It is much easier to
envision how to exert managerial control over a set of people turning bolts
and screws than it is to envision such control over people who must
mentally attend to and process information."

The long and the short of it all is that I think the continued existence of
performance appraisal systems means we are all stuck with a relic of
industrial work well suited for managing industrial workers but not at all
well suited for managing what Peter Drucker called "knowledge workers" and
who are, in the last analysis, people whose work requires of them that they
figure out what to do instead of doing what someone else has figured out.


Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
"Assistance at A Distance"
Distance Consulting
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

Of course, assigning students Fred's missive with the article would be the
way to go!
Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director

-----Original Message-----

Many thanks to our host, Charlie Wankel, for sending along the links to the
article about performance appraisal issues. As it happens, that same
article shows up in the business section of this morning's edition of my
local Fort Myers paper, The News-Press. Apparently, the author, Harry
Wessel, is a staff writer at The Orlando Sentinel but, because that's a
Knight Ridder paper, Wessel's piece is making its way into other Knight
Ridder newspapers as well.

Based on my reading of all three versions (and no two are identical), my
reaction is that some important issues are indeed raised but I thought
their treatment rather superficial. Comments follow.

Much is made of compensation being tied to performance appraisals and the
assertion is made that this accounts for "grade inflation" in performance
ratings but I don't buy the notion that "It's in the money" as the article
asserts. It is possible to tie bonuses and merit increases to performance
appraisals but with differing effects. As regards bonuses, these are tied
to pretty specific performance objectives or else they are simply a form of
managerial largesse. If they're tied to specific objectives, no
performance appraisal is necessary. All concerned know the status of the
objective. If bonuses are not tied to a specific objective, then it's
largesse and there is little doubt as to the game being played there. More
to the point, performance has nothing to do with it. As regards merit
increases, these are usually quite small and the difference from rating to
rating is even smaller. Not much motivation there.

It was also observed that companies regularly revise their performance
appraisal systems every three years or so. True enough but the reason
given -- waning enthusiasm over time -- seems to me to be inconsistent with
what I've observed. First off, I don't know anyone subject to a
performance appraisal system who is, to use the quoted expert's words,
"rah-rah" or enthusiastic about it. Instead, most people dread the
introduction of a new performance appraisal system. Aside from being a
real pain in the neck, what a new performance appraisal system means is
that the people who write and receive performance appraisals have to "break
the code" all over again. They have to figure out how to "game" the new
system, how to make it do what they want it to. And that, I suspect, is a
major reason why companies do redo their performance appraisal systems on a
regular basis.

One company cited, Lockheed Martin, uses a "kinder gentler" version of the
forced ranking system found at GE. The problems with forced ranking are
legion and I don't know anyone who knows much of anything about measurement
who believes that forced ranking is a valid, reliable way of assessing or
improving performance. It has other purposes to be sure but assessing and
improving performance isn't one of them. (I'll come back to these other
purposes in a moment.)

The reluctance of those who write performance appraisals to be critical is
also mentioned and it is asserted that this makes employees increasingly
ineffective. The assumption seems to be that the lack of feedback fails to
improve performance. I don't think that's the case at all. Managers are
indeed reluctant to wax critical in performance appraisals but I think
that's because they know how damaging such comments can be. You see, the
performance appraisal system is part of the carrot-and-stick management
system and it's mostly about sticks, not carrots. Glowing performance
appraisals cannot get you a promotion or even a plum assignment but a
ho-hum or worse yet, a critical, performance appraisal can keep those
carrots from you.

The gist of the advice provided by the experts (or at least as reported by
the writer) amounts to keeping the performance appraisal system simple,
conducting frequent feedback sessions and folding the annual review into an
ongoing performance management system/process, one that is marked by
specific performance objectives. None of those address what's really wrong
with performance appraisal and, for the most part, performance management
systems; namely, they simply don't work at intended or claimed. Indeed, as
one expert points out, "Companies are struggling with the same issues they
did 30 to 40 years ago. The state of the art hasn't advanced much."

So what's going on here? Performance appraisal systems suck; they're a
royal pain; they don't do what they're intended to do; and yet they're
still with us after all four decades or more of what can only be called
"tinkering." Why are they still with us?

I think I know why they're still with us: they are the modern day version
of Simon Legree's whip. As a supervisor or manager, I may not be able to
do a lot for you but I can definitely do a lot to you by way of the
performance appraisal system. I can screw you nine ways from Sunday as the
saying goes and you won't be able to do a thing about it. How? All I have
to do is give you a series of so-so appraisals and that will seal your
fate, especially if we're in one of those "up or out" systems. Or, in the
case of forced rankings, I can place you where your standing won't do you
much good but your complaints will fall on deaf ears. What performance
appraisal systems really do is buttress and shore up managerial and
supervisory authority.

Unfortunately, much if not most of the work that matters in today's world
isn't amenable to management through a command-and-control model, even if
those in command have their whips at the ready. And, for the kind of work
that is amenable to that kind of management, you don't find much in the way
of performance appraisal systems. They're not necessary; the workers are
easily kept in line because the nature of their work makes it easy to
do. As Shoshanna Zuboff said way back in 1983, "It is much easier to
envision how to exert managerial control over a set of people turning bolts
and screws than it is to envision such control over people who must
mentally attend to and process information."

The long and the short of it all is that I think the continued existence of
performance appraisal systems means we are all stuck with a relic of
industrial work well suited for managing industrial workers but not at all
well suited for managing what Peter Drucker called "knowledge workers" and
who are, in the last analysis, people whose work requires of them that they
figure out what to do instead of doing what someone else has figured out.


Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
"Assistance at A Distance"
Distance Consulting
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

Fred: What a great post!!! I just had a meeting this morning regarding a
project I'm working on and the issue of what CEOs and senior executives
pay attention- or not- came up. We are working on a review of the
management literature with respect to occupational health and safety and
the role of management in preventing injury and fatality. Some of your
comments, while not related to this topic, struck a chord with me. It
also caused me to reflect on the program evaluation work which I do- and
how often issues of accountabilities and outcomes have some of the same
complexities as you've outline in your post.

It is often difficult to measure the intangibles- which is what so much
of modern work is about. Yet, I often struggle with my own conflicting
perspectives on these issues. On the one hand, the research which I do
is qualitative and often open to much criticism since measurement is not
the outcome. Much of management work- both practitioner-based and
academic, focuses on quantitative measures. And with good reason- we
live and die on the price of stock, profitability etc. Yet, much of
what does on in workplaces, leading to those positive or negative
quantitative outcomes, isn't measurable. So, I often reject the idea of
measurement while also embracing it and recognizing the value it can
bring. Yet, when we don't have objective measures of things, then we
fall into potential abuse and manipulation of the system- as you've
outlined below. People like the objectivity and apparent impartiality
that accompanies quantitative outcome measures but then also acknowledge
that those parts of their work that cannot be measured this way become
under-valued.

When I conduct program evaluations, often the qualitative piece is
sidelined if budget becomes a constraining issue. Yet, the qualitative
piece is very important as it explains and elaborates on how people
perceive and work with the processes which they are involved with.
Improving programs can often only be done effectively if you know what
the users think about it, how they work with it, and what works for
them. Quant measures will tell you outcomes- but can't tell you why the
outcome is what it is. Again, people value what can be measured, timed,
graphed, and made into neat and concise powerpoints. We all know people
and systems don't work like that. But we all look for the 'answer' and
for the magic bullet.

I'll stop now before I meander off into what might appear to be a
completely convoluted thought process. But there are many layers of
complexity in Fred's post. And I haven't even begun to talk about
measurement of student performance- and our previous discussions about
decision-making: how to teach out, evaluate it etc.

Cheers

Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361



-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 2:17 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: HR Student Reading: Professors Explain it Through
Journalists


Of course, assigning students Fred's missive with the article would be
the way to go! Cybercollegially, Charles Wankel Mg-Ed-Dv List Director

-----Original Message-----

Many thanks to our host, Charlie Wankel, for sending along the links to
the article about performance appraisal issues. As it happens, that
same article shows up in the business section of this morning's edition
of my local Fort Myers paper, The News-Press. Apparently, the author,
Harry Wessel, is a staff writer at The Orlando Sentinel but, because
that's a Knight Ridder paper, Wessel's piece is making its way into
other Knight Ridder newspapers as well.

Based on my reading of all three versions (and no two are identical), my
reaction is that some important issues are indeed raised but I thought
their treatment rather superficial. Comments follow.

Much is made of compensation being tied to performance appraisals and
the assertion is made that this accounts for "grade inflation" in
performance ratings but I don't buy the notion that "It's in the money"
as the article asserts. It is possible to tie bonuses and merit
increases to performance appraisals but with differing effects. As
regards bonuses, these are tied to pretty specific performance
objectives or else they are simply a form of managerial largesse. If
they're tied to specific objectives, no performance appraisal is
necessary. All concerned know the status of the objective. If bonuses
are not tied to a specific objective, then it's largesse and there is
little doubt as to the game being played there. More to the point,
performance has nothing to do with it. As regards merit increases,
these are usually quite small and the difference from rating to rating
is even smaller. Not much motivation there.

It was also observed that companies regularly revise their performance
appraisal systems every three years or so. True enough but the reason
given -- waning enthusiasm over time -- seems to me to be inconsistent
with what I've observed. First off, I don't know anyone subject to a
performance appraisal system who is, to use the quoted expert's words,
"rah-rah" or enthusiastic about it. Instead, most people dread the
introduction of a new performance appraisal system. Aside from being a
real pain in the neck, what a new performance appraisal system means is
that the people who write and receive performance appraisals have to
"break the code" all over again. They have to figure out how to "game"
the new system, how to make it do what they want it to. And that, I
suspect, is a major reason why companies do redo their performance
appraisal systems on a regular basis.

One company cited, Lockheed Martin, uses a "kinder gentler" version of
the forced ranking system found at GE. The problems with forced ranking
are legion and I don't know anyone who knows much of anything about
measurement who believes that forced ranking is a valid, reliable way of
assessing or improving performance. It has other purposes to be sure
but assessing and improving performance isn't one of them. (I'll come
back to these other purposes in a moment.)

The reluctance of those who write performance appraisals to be critical
is also mentioned and it is asserted that this makes employees
increasingly ineffective. The assumption seems to be that the lack of
feedback fails to improve performance. I don't think that's the case at
all. Managers are indeed reluctant to wax critical in performance
appraisals but I think that's because they know how damaging such
comments can be. You see, the performance appraisal system is part of
the carrot-and-stick management system and it's mostly about sticks, not
carrots. Glowing performance appraisals cannot get you a promotion or
even a plum assignment but a ho-hum or worse yet, a critical,
performance appraisal can keep those carrots from you.

The gist of the advice provided by the experts (or at least as reported
by the writer) amounts to keeping the performance appraisal system
simple, conducting frequent feedback sessions and folding the annual
review into an ongoing performance management system/process, one that
is marked by specific performance objectives. None of those address
what's really wrong with performance appraisal and, for the most part,
performance management systems; namely, they simply don't work at
intended or claimed. Indeed, as one expert points out, "Companies are
struggling with the same issues they did 30 to 40 years ago. The state
of the art hasn't advanced much."

So what's going on here? Performance appraisal systems suck; they're a
royal pain; they don't do what they're intended to do; and yet they're
still with us after all four decades or more of what can only be called
"tinkering." Why are they still with us?

I think I know why they're still with us: they are the modern day
version of Simon Legree's whip. As a supervisor or manager, I may not
be able to do a lot for you but I can definitely do a lot to you by way
of the performance appraisal system. I can screw you nine ways from
Sunday as the saying goes and you won't be able to do a thing about it.
How? All I have to do is give you a series of so-so appraisals and that
will seal your fate, especially if we're in one of those "up or out"
systems. Or, in the case of forced rankings, I can place you where your
standing won't do you much good but your complaints will fall on deaf
ears. What performance appraisal systems really do is buttress and shore
up managerial and supervisory authority.

Unfortunately, much if not most of the work that matters in today's
world isn't amenable to management through a command-and-control model,
even if those in command have their whips at the ready. And, for the
kind of work that is amenable to that kind of management, you don't find
much in the way of performance appraisal systems. They're not
necessary; the workers are easily kept in line because the nature of
their work makes it easy to do. As Shoshanna Zuboff said way back in
1983, "It is much easier to envision how to exert managerial control
over a set of people turning bolts and screws than it is to envision
such control over people who must mentally attend to and process
information."

The long and the short of it all is that I think the continued existence
of performance appraisal systems means we are all stuck with a relic of
industrial work well suited for managing industrial workers but not at
all well suited for managing what Peter Drucker called "knowledge
workers" and who are, in the last analysis, people whose work requires
of them that they figure out what to do instead of doing what someone
else has figured out.


Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
"Assistance at A Distance"
Distance Consulting
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

As usual, Fred has nailed this one right on the head. A lot of
insightful points...loaded with experience.

A few years ago, when I was "revising" our performance system, I
consulted with a number of corporations. A director of one of them
intrigued me when she said that they had successfully focused on
performance improvement, and isolated pay from the appraisal discussion.
I asked how then did they determine pay adjustments. She smiled, and
said simply, "The way we always have. The supervisor decides who gets
what."

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Nickols [mailto:nickols@att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 2:00 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: HR Student Reading: Professors Explain it Through
Journalists


Many thanks to our host, Charlie Wankel, for sending along the links to
the article about performance appraisal issues. As it happens, that
same article shows up in the business section of this morning's edition
of my local Fort Myers paper, The News-Press. Apparently, the author,
Harry Wessel, is a staff writer at The Orlando Sentinel but, because
that's a Knight Ridder paper, Wessel's piece is making its way into
other Knight Ridder newspapers as well.

Based on my reading of all three versions (and no two are identical), my
reaction is that some important issues are indeed raised but I thought
their treatment rather superficial. Comments follow.

<snip>

Fred Nickols, CPT
"Assistance at A Distance"
Distance Consulting
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

Hi, Fred

Only a brief response - thorough understanding of, and attention to, the
8-Question model that I proposed as a foundation for a search toward a better
model, can fix most, if not all, of the performance appraisal problems. My book,
Win-Win-Performance Management/Appraisal discussed the issues years ago and
though it does not yet incorporate the 8 Questions, it does discuss the way to
go.

But for action to occur, academia and HR have to be willing to move toward a
more practical, actionable and all-inclusive management/leadership approach to
education and development..

Cheers,

Erwin (Rausch) didacticra@aol.com, erausch@kean.edu

From: Mike Kiska mkiska@jefferson.lib.co.us

Is the basis for a performance appraisal (PA) a discussion between two
people, manager and reportee, about how well the job is being done and where
the employee's strengths & weaknesses are IN THE MANAGER'S OPINION (probably
swayed to a great extent by how close the personal relationship is between
the two)? Or is the basis of an appraisal a cold, hard look at the data
that defines company standards compared with the data that defines the
employee's behavior over the past rating period?

Executive management in my present organization believes that "work" has a
significant social side as well as it's work side and a lot of the O.D.
material I read supports this - humans are social animals after all.
Therefore, PA's should reflect not only the quality of the work, but
relationships between the supervisor and the supervised in their opinion.

This is an example of what at least one real organization in the word is
wrestling with right now. I wonder how a classroom full of management
students would answer this? They have to deal with trying to get the grade.
For some that means trying to guess what is important to the instructor - a
rather subjective undertaking. Others may try to get it by developing as
close a relationship as they can with the instructor. Imagine if you didn't
give exams but awarded grades at the end of term to each student based on
the quality of the discussions that occured in the classroom. You wouldn't
call it a grade, you'd call it a performance appraisal.

Mike Kiska
Training & O.D. Manager - Administrative Services
Jefferson County Public Library

Find us on the Web: http://jefferson.lib.co.us

From: Fred Nickols [mailto:nickols@att.net]

Mike Kiska (whose postings I know to be of high quality from other lists)
writes:

>Is the basis for a performance appraisal (PA) a discussion between two
>people, manager and reportee, about how well the job is being done and
where
>the employee's strengths & weaknesses are IN THE MANAGER'S OPINION
(probably
>swayed to a great extent by how close the personal relationship is between
>the two)? Or is the basis of an appraisal a cold, hard look at the data
>that defines company standards compared with the data that defines the
>employee's behavior over the past rating period?

I assume from what follows below that the questions above are largely
rhetorical; however, they deserve answers.

I believe the first question above reflects the "reality" of many if not
most performance appraisal situations. I believe the second question
refers to a myth; namely, that data defining company standards can be and
is compared with data defining employee behavior so as to enable a cold,
hard look at the two. The best way I can respond to this question is to
make you an offer: I will give you a dollar for every company that has and
uses both of these if you will give me a dime for every company that does
not have one, the other, both or fails to make use of either.

>Executive management in my present organization believes that "work" has a
>significant social side as well as it's work side and a lot of the O.D.
>material I read supports this - humans are social animals after all.
>Therefore, PA's should reflect not only the quality of the work, but
>relationships between the supervisor and the supervised in their opinion.

Good for your company, Mike, but I have a question. What say does the
employee have about the nature of "quality" in the relationship between
employee and supervisor?

>This is an example of what at least one real organization in the word is
>wrestling with right now. I wonder how a classroom full of management
>students would answer this? They have to deal with trying to get the
grade.
>For some that means trying to guess what is important to the instructor - a
>rather subjective undertaking. Others may try to get it by developing as
>close a relationship as they can with the instructor.

Indeed, they do. "Psyching out the Prof (or the instructor)" is, or so I
am told, is a long-standing "game" played in higher education. I can't
comment on the truth of that but, if true, I would not be surprised. I
also suspect that if I did some digging I could find instances in which
professors provided high grades in return for sexual favors from students
(no gender bias implied) suggesting that "Screwing your way to the top" is
not confined to the business world.

>Imagine if you didn't
>give exams but awarded grades at the end of term to each student based on
>the quality of the discussions that occured in the classroom. You wouldn't
>call it a grade, you'd call it a performance appraisal.

I agree that what you describe bears marked similarities to the commonplace
performance appraisal. However, I am led to ask you, "On what basis would
those grades be awarded?" The "quality" of the discussions? If so, how
are you defining "quality" in that context? The "relationship" with the
professor (or the instructor)? If so, how are you defining (a) "quality"
and (b) "the relationship"?


Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
"Assistance at A Distance"
Distance Consulting
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us