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Performance Management or Madness?
Feb 12Voltaire said madness is “to have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.” Like thinking that an annual review actually changes behavior, for example? Or that seven-good-things-you-did and three-you-didn’t is balanced? What do you think about the effectiveness of performance management programs?
We’re working on a book about performance management right now with a possible working title of How to Get Rid of Performance Reviews Once and For All. We also thought about calling it How to Build a Performance Management System You Can be Proud Of. What we call it will depend on feedback from you. We’re doing the research, but it’d be great to hear what you think about your system — the good and the bad.
We’ll reveal some early research here next week. Whatcha think about a title?
About the Author
Frank Roche
Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.
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“Performance Management” strikes me as similar to “managing creativity” , internally contradictory and actually dangerous when done without comprehensive thought.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/teacher-incentives-demotivate-houston-teachers/
I will give a recommendation to include Dr. Deming’s thoughts on Performance Appraisal rather than a title suggestion.
My blog post today, Illusions – Optical and Other, is related to this topic, though in a way that may not obvious to some. Performance management suffers greatly from people beliefs that are not supported by evidence (ascribing causation where it does not exist…). Peter Scholtes: Leader’s Handbook provides an excellent guide to how managers can manage performance and as the 9th chapter of his book indicates (Performance without Appraisal) performance appraisal schemes are not the answer.
Can’t wait to hear more. The actual words “Performance Management” imply negative performance that needs somehow to be controlled and reversed.
Personally I vote for the first title.
MPB: That is the oxymoron, isn’t it?
John: Excellent post. I’m a big fan of Peter Scholtes’ The Team Handbook…I used that quite a bit at one time when I worked in industry and we were doing quality pushes. So true with Dr. Deming and Sholtes that appraisals don’t work. It’s not how we run our da-to-day lives, but we are told in management that performance reviews are the way to go. Hmmm…
Megan: I’m a little biased toward the first title myself. Good point you make about even the selection of the words…they imply that negativity.
Thanks so much for the comments all. This is an interesting topic…and when we started our little company, one of our tenets is “no performance reviews.” Every day is a way to improve.