An article on NPR this morning spoke of the new style of performance evaluations, aimed at the edgy Gen Y's and beyond who craved continual feedback, and were comfortable sharing that feedback in a collaborative environment. I don't buy it.
It's possible that performance evaluations can be a useful tool, both for the people who want to improve and the people responsible for managing them. It's possible that a cyclic review, normally held on a one to two year basis, provides both checkpoints (what should I be working on, trying to achieve) and feedback(how'd I do in the prior cycle, how can I do it better, this time around). I've seen it happen. Let's see -- I worked about thirty years, give or take, and during that period I got an evaluation about every year, sometimes twice a year. I seem to recall getting what I'd call a useful evaluation - three times. Round it up to five, it's still not a big number. I managed a group for about ten years, doing three to eight evaluations each of those years; I can recall doing what I'd call a useful evaluation perhaps five or six times during that period.
Yet during that period I did have many times when I wondered how I was doing, both because I wanted to do it better -- I wanted to be regarded as really good at what I did, the go-to guy for certain abilities and methods -- and because I wanted to advance in my career -- get paid more, get a more challenging or more interesting job. At the very least, I wanted to be sure that I wasn't regarded poorly, one of those people who got lopped off, next time budgetary cuts came (or, as the year passed, just because that was what we did every year). When I was a manager, I had people who I wanted to tell that they were doing well, or not, and in either case I wanted to give them the tools to improve. So the concept about needing feedback and evaluations, I buy.
What I don't buy is the idea that everyone of a certain age, or culture, wants the frequent feedback, or wants it the same way, or is comfortable sharing this with others. (My financial status, sexual daydreams, secret barbecue recipe? Sure, you can have it. My last performance evaluation rating? Take a hike. ) I think that it varies by person, and by environment. I'd have happily gone for years without an evaluation. I'd have been willing to just ask how I was doing as needed -- more often when I was feeling bored or insecure, less often when I was happy or challenged. Otherwise, skip it. Others might, probably would feel differently. Do what works for them, same as you do what works for me.
Organizations, though, don't respond well to custom performance evaluation schedules and styles (or anything else), so the way it was done for one was the way it was done for all. Fads would sweep through the organization -- I recall two years when, as the manager, I had to draw a circle and segment it into quadrants, where each Q was a desired characteristic, then color it in to show how much of that characteristic the person manifested; it'd take me fifteen minutes a person, and they'd barely glance at it -- but woe if my manager found out I'd blown one off! -- and you had to do it whatever the current way was. Certainly, doing it that one way does make it easier in some respects -- managers can't as easily blow off doing the evaluation because its hard or makes you face an Inconvenient Truth about someone. I recall one manager of mine telling someone who wanted specific things he had to do to get promoted simply telling him to 'keep on keeping on', because the truth was, promotion was a combination of specific skills and how the manager felt about the person -- but the evaluation booklet didn't allow for that. Neither do big, structured organizations. Insight, we don't got. Forms, methods, procedures, we got out the wazoo. Methods tailored to work specifically with you? Fudgeddaboutit.
Evaluations are about people, not schedules, or forms, or fads. People.
2 comments:
The military just puts people on a "promotability" ladder, mostly based on performance, but sometimes on seniority, or because they happened to be in the right place at the right time to be able to get the sexy project de jure. Then, when they had the list of "who is better than whom", they would simply lay that list onto a bell curve.
Where you sat on the bell curve is how you would get written up. Seems to sort of work. Useless for feedback since it only came once a year.
As far as evaluations between yearly performance reviews went, there really wasnt much of that. I kept my book in my breast pocket of what I did and who told me to do it, and once in a while the powers that be would try to mess with me. My only defense was the documented truth in my little notebook...something my sergeants and Warrant officers had little use for.
Ahh...if I only had known in the early days what I know now, I would have retired as a chief.
Heck, I was selected for captain and got out anyway... and I still don't know how to play that game. Wish I had, though.
Post a Comment