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Around the third or fourth century, the Chinese philosopher Sin
Yu complained that the Imperial Rater of the Royal Court was showing
favoritism in his ratings. It has been an uphill battle ever since.
Most people throughout history have despised appraising or being
appraised at work. What’s despised isn’t so much the idea
of a performance appraisal. Judging other people’s performance,
after all, is almost instinctive, and most of us probably sense
the need for performance appraisals in organizations. What’s
despised is the way it’s done, which is usually badly.
Long ago I played Captain Appraisal and took audiences on a "time
capsule" tour of at least 2,000 years of human foibles in the
ways, some quite bizarre, that performance appraisals have been
done. They include two of the most problematic yet enduring ways--ratings
and rankings. When you can get an audience to laugh about the matter,
you know that a deep-seated frustration has been tapped that needs
venting.
Performance ratings, although almost universally loathed, still
exist. When will we ever learn that dishonest ratings are inevitable
because they’re so easy to fudge and so tempting to fudge when
they’re tied to consequences such as bonuses and promotions?
I’ve seen a rating distribution with 98 percent of the people
rated "outstanding," the only people who "stand out"
being those who didn’t get the fudged rating.
Rubber bands and bells
History is replete with doomed rating schemes and policies intent
on foiling the Imperial Rater and placating the ghost of Sin Yu.
A few examples are "rubber-band rating scales," periodically
stretched in trying to keep ahead of ratings creeping upward; the
"cracked bell," where ratings are forced into a bell-curve
distribution; and "group fudge," in which it’s hoped
that a truer rating will emerge from a circle of raters. These and
other schemes are all part of the futile search for the Holy Grail
of Honest Ratings.
When will we ever learn that dishonest ratings
are inevitable?
Some organizations use rankings instead of--or in addition to--ratings.
Rankings aren’t even performance appraisals, however, because
appraisals in their correct form don’t rank people, but instead
compare the performance of an individual against the expectations
of performance by that individual. The worst flaw of rankings, though,
isn’t that they’re not really performance appraisals but
that forced judgments are required, and forced judgments will always
have an arbitrary and unfair element to them. Thus, besides being
invalid, rankings could also be considered an unethical practice.
Where does all of this leave us? Some critics argue for abolishing
performance appraisals altogether, but that’s not a viable
option. Performance appraisals are an integral part of managing
performance, and unmanaged performance simply can’t be allowed
to happen. The process of managing performance is essentially one
of holding people accountable for their performance. It starts with
the setting of performance expectations and ends with sanctions--rewards
and penalties--on appraised performance.
20 questions
If we want to be responsible and get good performance, therefore,
we’re stuck with performance appraisals. What we sorely need
is a more tolerable and honest way of doing them. One alternative
that has been successfully pilot-tested by this Captain is asking
a series of questions about performance. The questions require yes-or-no
answers. Since performance has two parts--behavior and results--the
questions must relate to each part. For example,
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Did you exceed any of your objectives?
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Which objectives, if any, were clearly exceeded, and what were
the extra gains?
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Were any unexpected and very tough obstacles encountered?
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Are there any skills you want and/or need developed?
In all, about 20 short questions are needed, some of which are
required to identify any star performers.
While 100 percent honesty in performance appraisal isn't possible
no matter how well it’s done, answers to yes-or-no questions
ought to be closer to the truth than ratings are. Here are four
reasons why.
First, answering yes when the true answer is no is more than a
fudge; it’s a big, bald-faced lie, which requires considerable
audacity to make, and isn’t likely to be made.
Second, appraisals should be reviewed and certified, and people
should know that the appraisals are being checked. This reduces
the incentive to distort what they’ve accomplished.
Third, many of the answers are readily verifiable. For instance,
you can verify whether an objective has been met or even exceeded
by comparing the documented results obtained with the criteria that
were stated in the written objective. As for the more sensitive
and more subjective questions relating to behavior, there should
be a paper trail showing any problems that the company and the employee
have been working on as part of the performance-management process.
Fourth, a person’s performance is often visible to colleagues--and
it would likely take a conspiracy of two or more people to conceal
a falsehood. This is possible, though not likely.
Whether yes-or-no answers are themselves indeed the answer to
a 2,000-year-old vexation is open to further debate and experience.
In the meantime, remember to put performance appraisals in perspective.
While they’re necessary, they’re less critical than the
setting of performance expectations from which everything else follows.
This article has been re-posted on The Nielson
Group website with permission from Workforce Online and the author,
Gary Brumback. For more information go to www.workforce.com.
Gary B. Brumback is an industrial/organizational
psychologist who has spent much of his long career working on performance
appraisals. He can be reached at GBrumback@aol.com.
A note from Gary: My article is drawn from a book I wrote
last year, Tall Performance From Short Organizations Through We/Me
Power. It includes the appraisal questions and how to use them.
It also includes a condensed version of the Capt Appraisal tour.You
might or might not be interested in posting a reference to it. The
publisher is 1sBooksLibrary. It's dirt cheap at $7.50 + S/H if ordered
thru the publisher at toll-free 1-888-280-7715 or thru e-mail via
bkorders@1stbooks.com.
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