Performance Dialogue
Description
Traditional performance management offers companies a mechanism of control-- control over compensation and bonus budgets primarily, but also control over how people are evaluated. This need for control is driven by fear on the part of the company (fear of being taken advantage of, fear of losing control over spending, fear of losing control) and does nothing more than create fear on the part of employees (fear of how I'll be judged, fear of getting negative feedback, fear of having to deliver negative feedback, fear of losing my job). Fear decreases performance. Might as well call it Performance Destruction.
Performance Engagement, on the other hand, is about unleashing performance. It's about liberating employees to perform at their best and reach their potential. Start by not only eliminating any kind of forced distribution, but by eliminating any distribution at all. Stop distributing annual performance ratings of people, period. Human Beings are far too complex to boil them down to a number or single label. Instead, engage employees in real dialogue. Peter Senge defined Dialogue in The Fifth Discipline as "...the capacity ... to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine 'thinking together.'" Dialogue in this context is about mutual understanding, without judgment or holding on to a position. I would take all the energy spent on traditional Performance Management systems and re-direct it into teaching the organization the discipline of Performance Dialogue.
(alternative names: Performance Engagement; Performance Liberation)
First Steps (extra credit)
I don't think an organization can make a shift away from traditional Performance Management without first shifting the culture to one of trust and transparency, which is a topic for another Hackathon. Assuming an organization can make that shift, Performance Dialogue become a 3 step approach. First, managers and employees engage in dialogue about what's important to achieve over a given time period. This might be annual, to line up with a corporate planning cycle, but it could also be variable based on varying cycles of work that need to be done. Second, define and refine the outcomes to be accomplished. Managers are tasked with defining tangible outcomes (the what, but not the how) based on the dialogue in step 1. Employees are tasked with responding to each outcome with an assessment of how clear it is (it must be crystal clear to the employee), how challenging it is (it must be challenging yet believably within the employee's control), and how causal it is (there must be a visible link between the outcomes and the goals of the larger organization). Based on the employee's ratings, the manager may have work to do in refining the outcomes. Third, managers and employees both qualitatively assess the outcomes at completion (not annually, but rather when the outcome is completed). The assessment, done independently by both manager and employee, would answer 3 questions: What was successful; Where did I fall short; What did I learn? On an annual basis, review and celebrate the collective successes and summarize the learnings to take forward, particularly into professional development plans. If someone is consistently not having successes, both parties are accountable for understanding why. Trust the managers and employees to arrive at mutual agreement when the outcomes are not getting successfully completed.
September 30, 2012 at 7:10am
Mike,
As I mentioned in my Week 1 Summary blog, your observation about fear on both sides is unfortunately spot on. I also agree with what you say about rating. Rating is driven by the second purpose of a traditional performance dialogue, namely rewards. The first purpose, a dilalogue about development, which should be the main one, needs no numercal rating and ranking. Combining these two purposes in one dialogue is hopeless. Revealing and discussing own improvement areas is not the most rational thing to do from a reward perspective. Boasting about own competence and success definitely is.
Any thoughts on what "Performance Dialogue" as a model would mean for other parts of the broader Performance Management process?
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