Thursday, November 25, 2004

Performance Ratings and Near Misses

I love Aviation lingo. My favorite is the phrase "near miss". It really means that two planes "nearly hit one another". But a "near hit" sounds bad and in the world of feel-good public relations intent on manipulating the psyche of the common person we get- "near miss". Sounds better, feels better but is really the opposite of what has happened.

Now that it is performance review time in my company, I can see how aviation lingo has crept into human resources. We have a phrase too - it's called the Individual Performance Rating (IPR). It identifies how you did vs. your objectives and then translates into your year end bonus.

IPR is the "near miss" phrase in our company since we apportion a fixed bonus amount ("the kitty") to employees based on their IPR. But the average of the IPRs cannot be greater than 100% so supervision "balances" IPRs to 100%. So your performance rating is not individual it is really relative- hence IPR becomes RPR.

But like "near misses" we can't say Relative Performance Rating because that would incite competition among our employees who we expect to work as a team. Now that I am a supervisor I understand this dilemna from both sides.

Now when one of my subordinates say's to me, "How can I move my IPR up a couple of points", I don't tell them the truth which is "Well, let's see who we can move down next year so you can go higher". Instead, I tell them, "You know, you just nearly missed the higher target let's work on increasing your objectives next year so that you can contribute at a higher level." In fact, I say this to all my team members and the process can be repeated every year.

Ooops, I gotta run, nearly missed my performance review meeting with my boss.


Wednesday, August 11, 2004

From COTS to CHAOS

I’ve been part of a COT (Critical Operating Tasks) system, the means by which individual performance is gauged, for a number years. Never have I developed or been given a COT that said, “Don’t change anything”. COTs, by their very nature, require a task to be completed that yields a measurable improvement (a change).

The change seldom has an impact only on the changer. And, the higher you go in the organization the more “changee’s” there are in your drop zone. If you are in a support organization (staff function) the change is almost always internally focused. So let’s have some math fun: 20,000 employees with 5 COTs each affecting 10 other employees on average equates to 1,000,000 changes (per performance year!).

Of course, if you work in any type of matrix organization, I am sure there is no COT conflict between work groups and people. And even if there was, I am sure the company has invested in excellent processes and resources dedicated to resolving conflict. And, of course, COTs never change within a performance year either.

COTS are the undiscovered source of stress, waste and distraction. In the aggregate, they destroy more than they create. Customers don’t buy COTs. They are looking for great products at attractive prices. At the end of the day, what do we want to be asking ourselves? “How did I do against my COTs?” or “How did I serve the customer today?”.