Pay and Play LO4682

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@compuserve.com)
07 Jan 96 23:43:00 EST

Sb: Pay and Play LO4632

Roxanne offers an appealing distinction between performance appraisal and
feedback. I am not a student of appraisal systems, and this is new to me.
I am still trying to understand the distinction. My difficulties may be
caused by the process we use at work which may be a hybrid. If you
noticed a lot of qualifiers, it's because I am groping.

What I think you are saying is that the rating process -- assigning a
grade -- is the problem. Coducting a 'situation assessment' of a person's
work is part of the feedback process, and is ok. Once the description of
the past occurs, then it is natural to evaluate. A valuable distinction I
learned from educators is that between assessment and evaluation. In their
terms, assessment is the collection of data, evaluation is the value
judgement on the work. In your terms, the feedback (assessment) is ok,
but the grading (evaluation) is destructive. Is that correct?

I think the important distinction you are making is that reviews are
dysfunctional if they occur in such a way that the manager and employee
are cast in parent-child roles. You are replacing that process with a
peer review process or 360 degree process. Is this true or not? And you
are avoiding literal ratings of performance.

I still do not understand the distinction between judgement and feedback.
It seems to me that feedback, by its nature is going to result in some
level of judgement. If it is handled carefully and professionally, the
judged person will feel that it is a constructive experience. Otherwise,
the judgement itself will loom over and overwhelm any potential good that
could have occurred. Isn't this a difference in execution? Isn't the
intent the same in both cases, just one is executed far more
constructively?

Also, by its nature, feedback should normally be more positive than
negative, assuming, of course that a person is doing reasonably well at
their job. Is the positive feedback to be eschewed as well as the
negative?

When you say we should quit doing performance review, and instead we
should do some other process, I am unclear what it is we have stopped
doing. What you describe as performance review feels a lot like what I
would call feedback. What you describe as peer review, also feels to me
like performance review.

I understand that the process can be executed well, or it can be executed
poorly. Are you eliminating poor execution, or literally eliminating
something fundamental about the process?

Rol Fessenden
LL Bean
76234.3636@compuserve.com

Some of the original response from Roxanne:

- Performance review focuses on fixing the person, rather than fixing the
system.

- Performance rating suggests that employee performance can be validly
measured, which is very rarely the case.

- Performance review causes an individual, rather than a team, or
organizational focus and works against team efforts.

- This focus on individual outcomes suboptimizes organizational performance.

- Although performance review is often intended to motivate improved
performance, employees often report the process to be demoralizing and
demeaning.

- Performance ratings create a spirit of competition among employees and
discourage cooperative efforts.

- Performance _ review_ focuses on the past rather than the present and future.

- Performance review reinforces the imbalance of power in traditional
organizations.

- Performance rating often causes employees to do whatever is necessary to meet
the stated standards or objectives, even if it means shipping bad product or
falsifying reports.

- Performance rating causes chronic problems of hiding bad news and kissing up
to the boss.

--
Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com>