As I said in yesterday’s post, one of the hoped-for outcomes of annual appraisals is improved individual performance. The assumption is that ranking and rating people will provide the impetus for improved performance.
Fact:
Evaluation does not provide what people need in order to improve. In order to improve, people need information–specific examples of behavior or results, along with the impact of the behavior or result.
Examples from months ago aren’t helpful. Either the person won’t remember the incident, or they’ll wonder why the manager waited so long to bring it up. A reasonable person might conclude that his manager doesn’t want him to be successful. After all, if there was something he needed to do differently, why did the boss wait until the rating period to tell him?
Bell curves, ratings, and rankings do not improve organizational performance. In fact, they can damage performance.
Most people believe their work is above average. It’s called the Enhancement Effect. Telling someone he is below average results in a defense response, so he won’t be really hearing the rest of the message.
Stack ranking drives competition, diminishes sharing relevant information and sets people against each other. So one persons performance might improve, but at the expense of overall results.
Anonymous feedback destroys trust. People will try to guess where the feedback came from… and much of the time they’ll guess wrong, resulting in damaged relationships.
People accept feedback when these four things are true:
The source is reliable
The receivers trusts the givers intentions
The receiver has a chance to clarify (being permitted to put a written rebuttal in a personnel folder doesn’t meet the intention of this point)
The process is fair–both how the feedback is developed and how it’s delivered
Most appraisals fail on multiple points, even when managers have good intentions.
Up next: the third assumption behind performance appraisals, improving individual skills is the best way to improve organizational performance.
