Blog posts on performance appraisal

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• Performance without Appraisal

  In the short article Performance Without Appraisal: What to do Instead of Performance Appraisals, Peter wrote:

  Dr. Deming said of Performance Appraisals, “Stop doing them and things will get better.” He was correct. Many organizations, however, wonder what to do instead.

  For those that do require “some alternative” Peter included some good ideas in The Leader’s Handbook(see chapter 9 “Performance without Appraisal pages 293 to 368). This chapter has excellent material for any manager.

  continue reading: Performance without Appraisal
• W. Edwards Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases

  Seven Deadly Diseases

  1. Lack of constancy of purpose
  2. Emphasis on short term profits (Overreaction to short term variation is harmful to long term success. With such focus on relatively unimportant short term results focus on constancy of purpose is next to impossible.)
  3. Evaluation of performance, merit rating or annual review (see: Performance Without Appraisal: What to do Instead of Performance Appraisals by Peter Scholtes).
  4. Mobility of top management (too much turnover causes numerous problems)
  5. Managing by use of visible figures, with little of no consideration of figures that are unknown or unknowable.

  continue reading: W. Edwards Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases
• Performance Without Appraisal

  The comments on the mini-microsoft blog shows performance appraisal continues to be an emotional topic. People on opposite sides of the debate are very passionate.

  I admit it took me longer to accept Dr. Deming’s thoughts on performance appraisal than other ideas (and that is even with Peter Scholtes being a friend which gave me the opportunity to discuss the idea with him). So I understand it is not an easy concept to accept.

  continue reading: Performance Without Appraisal
• Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual

  Mark Miller, General Manager, Markey’s Audio Visual spoke on Markey’s experience adopting Deming’s ideas.

  • Markey’s needs to anticipate the changing needs of customers and anticipate those needs
  • Unknown and unknowable – not really unknown just un-measurable (again taught to all employees)
  • Gemba – where the real work gets done (the customer interaction – he stressed time and again that the key to their success was Markey’s employees interaction with customers – Markey’s aims to provide the best customer experience the customer has with any company)
  • Break down barriers between departments – Markeys doesn’t charge internally. Indianapolis looses money – they own the high end equipment used by the other offices.
  • Intrinsic motivation v. Extrinsic motivation – he has the chart from page 122 of New Economics in Deming’s handwriting on his wall.

  continue reading: Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual
• Performance of People: Does Performance Appraisal Help?

  Why can’t performance be numerically rated and ranked? It can’t be defined operationally, it can’t be measured with any degree of precision, it can’t be separated from other effects, and it is destined to vary over time in any case. Any one of these factors present significant (if not insurmountable) problems itself. Combined the problems create an impossible barrier.

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• Performance Appraisal Problems

  There are no easy answers, but what it should be about is managing the system to produce the best results. My best advice is to read chapter 9 of The Leader’s Handbook and read the rest of the Leader’s Handbook and other great management improvement books. And manage using the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Scholtes, McGregor, Ohno… 

  continue reading: Performance Appraisal Problems
• Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal

  People are increasingly challenging the notion that we just have to live with performance appraisal systems. As usually, I will make my suggestion that chapter 9 of the Leader’s Handbook offers great material on performing without appraisal (and the rest of the book is great too).

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• Another Quota Failure Example

  However, as I was to learn from Dr Deming, this was judging performance using arbitrary goals, which fostered short-term thinking – the only thing they cared about was: Did I make my quota this week? Misguided focus. The focus was not at all on the customer. The focus was: How much money can I make off this customer?
  …
  It created a lot of internal conflict. What type of internal conflict? Well, the salespeople hated having new salespeople hired on the floor, because they felt like it would cut into their commission…

  Also, judging performance using arbitrary goals fostered a giant amount of fudging of the figures.

  Jim McIngvale, CEO Gallery Furniture and author of Always Think Big.

  continue reading: Another Quota Failure Example
• Righter Performance Appraisal

  Just because it would be nice for performance appraisal to work doesn’t mean it does work. As Deming said some numbers are unknown and unknowable and the wish that it is possible to quantify the contributions of people doesn’t mean you can. People cling to the idea that performance appraisal is the only tool we have to manage performance so we must use it. Even if most people realize it is just a game that accomplishes little, if anything positive, and causes great frustration and animosity they persist. Hopefully performance appraisal will be seen as “artifact of the past” sometime soon.

  continue reading: Righter Performance Appraisal
• Creating and Sustaining Great Management Systems

  It is hard enough to create and sustain great management systems without adding more challenges to achieving success. When the management system results in having credit for each success fought over (to allocate credit to whoever convinces others they deserve the credit) it is much harder.

  This is one of the many ways Performance appraisals schemes (where people have to claim responsibility for successes in order to get more cash) create problems.

  continue reading: Creating and Sustaining Great Management Systems
• Performance Appraisals – Is Good Execution the Solution?

  Good execution of performance appraisal is not the solution. More people are realizing that improving how performance appraisal are done is an attempt to do the wrong thing better. If you insist on doing the wrong thing, I suppose you might as well do it better but how about just not doing the wrong thing at all? What should be done? See: Performance Without Appraisal and read chapter 9 of The Leader’s Handbook.

  continue reading: Performance Appraisals – Is Good Execution the Solution?
• Continuous, Constructive Feedback

  The correct strategy, communicate and coach continually. Have defined process that are clear to everyone. Have clear expectations for what people are suppose to do and have methods to make problems visible so they can be addressed...

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• Applying Quality as a Business Strategy at Hallmark Building Supplies

  Hallmark Building Supplies has profit sharing for all and doesn’t do annual performance appraisal. They attempt to let the market dictate pay and take pay out of the performance discussions. To manage performance they seek to “coach while the game is going on” (and mentioned the importance of people being receptive to coaching). Cooperation between sales people has increased since they eliminated commissions.

  Everyone is trained on the purpose statement, it is not just something that hangs on the wall. We use it to make decisions on a regular basis.

  continue reading: Applying Quality as a Business Strategy at Hallmark Building Supplies
• My Willing Worker Award

  Data very similar to that provided by the Red Bed Experiment is used everyday in businesses to reward and punish people. Data is used to blame those who fall short of expectations and reward those who have good numbers. In the Red Bead Experiment we know the numbers are not a sensible measure of value provided by the employee. But in our organizations we accept numbers that are just as unrelated to the value provided by the employe to rate and reward employees.

  There is a powerful need to improve the numeracy (literacy with numbers) in our organizations. It isn’t a matter of complex math. The concepts are fairly simple…

  continue reading: My Willing Worker Award
• The Lazy Unreasonable Man

  My view of myself places me in both of these camps (lazy and unreasonable). But, honestly, I have become more reasonable over time and while it makes me less difficult to put up with I think I am less effective...

  continue reading: The Lazy Unreasonable Man