It’s Time to Go Old School in HR
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Frank Roche
[Photo credit: Library of Congress]
We’re still waiting here in Philadelphia for the Phillies to clinch the World Series. (In typical Philly luck, we’re having a Nor’easter and there’s a no joy in Mudville.) All that extra time on my hands meant that I could look through hundreds of pictures in the Library of Congress’s archive. Lo and behold, I found this picture of a Fred Lauder, who played baseball for Philadelphia in 1912. That’s right, it was 96 years ago. In fact, professional baseball has been around since 1869.
The remarkable thing about that is that baseball is still pretty much the same game for nearly 140 years. Imagine that, rules that work for more than a century. Compare that to some of our HR programs, pay approaches, and performance management “systems” that come and go with the seasons. It doesn’t have to be that way.
I say it’s time to go old school in HR. How about getting back to basics? Things that work?
Wouldn’t it be great if you were the one who stood up for doing the right thing in HR and your ideas stood the test of time? Here’s my contribution: Great businesses don’t need performance reviews. Albert Einstein wouldn’t have done better work if his performance had been reviewed. Ditto Isaac Newton, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Ernest Hemingway, Bill Gates, Christopher Columbus, Louis Pasteur, Galileo, the Wright Brothers, Harriet Tubman, Beethoven, Katherine Hepburn, Lao Tzu, and Michelangelo.
I say go old school and start working with adults. Why don’t you be the one to make the leap, start managing and quit “managing performance”? In the old school, people know what to do and how to do it. A crummy performance management “system” will never be a proxy for that.
TotallyConsumed
Oct 28th, 2008
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Mahatma Gandhi, et al, were all people who checked in with peers, loved ones and cohorts on a regular basis to discuss ideas, analyze results, measure progress and yes – even review their performance.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one Frank; when it comes to HR, old school means performance reviews and performance management, not the absence thereof.
Ron Ulrici
Oct 29th, 2008
Frank, you brought tears to my eyes today. Deming knew this truth – he thought performance appraisals were degrading and counter to productivity. Down with trends and the flavor of the month – I bet that the people that created Stonehenge didn't have performance reviews and they accomplished something superhuman. Count me in – I'm standing up today and everyday for Old School!
dave
Oct 29th, 2008
Am I missing something, or is the picture actually from 1902 and not 1912?
Wally Bock
Oct 29th, 2008
Fine post, Frank. If you're talking about eliminating the performance appraisal systems we've got in most companies, then I'm with you. BUT I'm not for eliminating performance appraisal, at least not the direct, many-times-a-day evaluation that happens between supervisor and team member. Without that you get neither correction nor improvement.
The HR-run system sits atop that daily work. The HR-run systems we have in place are not just ineffective, they're often toxic.
So it turns out that we're mucking it up on both ends of the process. On the front lines, we're not selecting people with a shot at success to be supervisors. We barely train the ones we select and only a fraction of that training concentrates on the simple communication skills necessary to coach, counsel, encourage and correct. We don't hole supervisors responsible for their daily supervision work and we give them no support. Then, we stick some superstructure of an annual one-way system atop the whole thing and expect it to work.
Frank
Oct 31st, 2008
Hi Wally….I'm being an agent provocateur. I'm really into multiple contacts per day by qualified supervisors. I'm against bad managers administering a bad system. I've always liked your take on leadership…and you know how to make that happen. I'm glad you're out there showing the way on it.
Frank
Oct 31st, 2008
Overenthusiam on my part…corrected the math ;-(
Frank
Oct 31st, 2008
Thanks, Ron. You and me, buddy. I like Old School.