performancereview - Bertrand Duperrin on Diigo

28 Apr 09

I believe employees want to do a good job.
I believe people do what they get rewarded to do.
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- I believe a good manager can make up for a lot of crappy policies.
- I believe crappy policies and crappy managers should be scrapped.
- I believe you can’t ask for commitment unless you give it first.
- I believe there are more hidden superstars out there than we think there are.
- I believe executives get isolated and lose track of what’s going on.
- I believe the way we do performance management is awful.
- I believe HR was asleep at the switch at some doomed financial services companies.
- I believe people will do a lot more when rules are eliminated.
- I believe anyone who subscribes to Theory X should never be in HR.
- I believe HR attracts an inordinate number of people who used to be hall monitors.
- I believe we have too many processes and not enough systems.
- I believe teambuilding should be an everyday thing, not done at retreats.
- I believe in the company making money.
  I believe in HR helping employees understand how.

29 Nov 08

The Double Meaning of "Feedback"

"Feedback" is one of those loaded, double-meaning words in today's workplace - words that connote very different things to members of different generations.

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feedback management performancereview learning assessment generationx generationy babyboomers

If you're a Boomer, consider what you expect to happen when you have a "feedback session" with your boss. In all likelihood, the purpose of this exchange would be to assess your performance, to render a judgment. Because Boomers love to win, your hopes may be high for a prize - but still it's not exactly the sort of thing one wants to go through on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis - once or twice a year is plenty, thank you very much.
If you're a member of Generation X, the meaning of "feedback" is similar - it relates to an assessment or judgment. But the hoped-for outcomes may be a bit different. More money is great, but so is a longer leash -- more freedom to operate in your own preferred way.
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- But for members of Generation Y, "feedback" means something very different. Ys learn through personal interactions. They are accustomed to reaching out to friends and family for suggestions, coaching or factual input on any number of topics, as they go along. Rather than being linear learners -- I learn, then I go off and do -- Ys are "on demand" learners. They start a task, uncover a need for additional information, seek that specific bit out, and move along. This cycle might happen multiple times every day.
- People who comment that Ys "can't take criticism" are again missing the point. It's not that they can't take it -- it's that that is not what they're seeking. They are in the learning, not the grading phase. They are asking you to teach, not to score.

Down with the performance review?!

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performancereview management humanresources teamwork performance

- Two parties with misaligned goals. When walking into a performance review the boss’ goal of discussing areas of improvement don’t match up with the employee’s goal of promotion and compensation.
- The false belief that performance affects pay. Culbert argues that pay is primarily determined by market forces (which makes sense - just look at our current economic situation - are many people expecting big raises/bonuses this year?) and most jobs are placed in a pay range even before the employee is hired.
- As objective as we try to be - there are always personal biases. This is a fundamental conflict. Depending on one’s position, their opinion and view will differ. This is where Culbert also brings up the “360-degree feedback”. When feedback is anonymized that creates more opportunity for various parties to further their personal agenda since there is no accountability associated with their review.
- Everyone is different - “once size does not fit all”. Performance reviews often revolve around a predetermined checklist. This is why people may focus more on pleasing their boss than doing a good job. Since a happy boss will (theoretically) leave you with a higher score.
- Employees are reluctant to go to their bosses for help (for fear that it will reflect badly on their performance review). It makes sense that employees would go to their bosses for help, guidance and improvement. But, “thanks to the performance review, the boss is often the last person an employee would turn to”.
- Disrupts teamwork. The most important type of teamwork is the one-on-one relationship between a boss and their subordinates. But in performance reviews, as opposed to taking the stance “how will we work together as a team”, it’s “how are you performing for me”.
- At the end of the day… performance reviews don’t improve corporate performance.

09 Nov 08

Get Rid of the Performance Review! - WSJ.com

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performance performancereview collaboration pay teamwork organization evaluation humanresources rewar

Another bogus element is the idea that pay is a function of performance, and that the words being spoken in a performance review will affect pay. But usually they don't. I believe pay is primarily determined by market forces, with most jobs placed in a pay range prior to an employee's hiring.
Most performance reviews are staged as "objective" commentary, as if any two supervisors would reach the same conclusions about the merits and faults of the subordinate. But consider the well-observed fact that when people switch bosses, they often receive sharply different evaluations from the new bosses to whom they now report.
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- Worse, bosses apply the same rating scale to people with different functions. They don't redo the checklist for every different activity. As a result, bosses reduce their global sentiments to a set of metrics that captures the unique qualities of neither the person nor the job.
- The No. 1 reason for that reluctance is that employees want to turn to somebody who understands their distinctive talents and way of thinking, or knows them sufficiently well to appreciate the reasons behind the unique ways they are driven to operate.
- That's because the performance review is so one-sided, giving the boss all the power. The boss in the performance review thinks of himself or herself as the evaluator, and doesn't engage in teamwork with the subordinate. It isn't, "How are we going to work together as a team?" It's, "How are you performing for me?" It's not our joint performance that's at issue. It's the employee's performance that's a problem.
- Instead of stimulating corporate effectiveness, they lead to just-in-case and cover-your-behind activities that reduce the amount of time that could be put to productive use. Instead of promoting directness, honesty and candor, they stimulate inauthentic conversations in which people cast self-interested pursuits as essential company activities.
- Keep in mind, of course, that improvement is each individual's own responsibility. You can only make yourself better. The best you can do for others is to develop a trusting relationship where they can ask for feedback and help when they see the need and feel sufficiently valued to take it. Getting rid of the performance review is a necessary, and affirming, step in that direction.

21 Oct 08

Bob Sutton: Sam Culbert in the Wall Street Journal: Get Rid of the Performance Review!

Although an entire industry of consultants, HR professionals, and software firms seem bent on devoting more and more time and money to performance evaluations, all the energy devoted to these things over the years have done little to change Sam's observation about the difference between the promise and the problems:

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performance performancereview designthinking evaluation humanresources

Sam's article is also in the spirit of design thinking, as in many cases, after people have spent years trying to perfect some procedure, gadget, or feature that they -- usually mindlessly -- accept as something they cannot do without and then a breakthrough happens when some clever person (often someone who isn't an expert in the field) comes along and removes it or unwittingly goes forward and succeeds without it. Then everyone realizes that they never needed it at all.
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- Creative people, often unwittingly, often have a huge impact by removing things that everyone assumes are essential.

Bertrand Duperrin's Library tagged performancereview → View Popular

65 Things I Believe About HR

The Double Meaning of "Feedback"

Down with the performance review?!

Get Rid of the Performance Review! - WSJ.com

Bob Sutton: Sam Culbert in the Wall Street Journal: Get Rid of the Performance Review!

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