Stop Comparing Yourself with Steve Jobs

The post tittle has been copied from Dan Pallotta’s blog , and it refers to one of the mistakes, not only of managers or any individual trying to compare himself to an icon or myth, but also can be an error when using the model to evaluate the members of our team, or when running a performance appraisal.

In previous post there are comments about the difficulty for having a standard level of rating the employees, and the risk related to the rater's subjective view. This issue adds one more difficulty to the task, because it can also be linked to setting wrong targets, which will drive to demotivation

Guide the employees in contributing to the organization’s success

The tittle of this post is one of the sentences of a presentation covering the following items:

Identify major determinants of individual performance
Discuss the three general purposes of performance management
Identify the five criteria for effective performance management system
Discuss the four approaches to performance management, specific techniques used in each approach, & the way these approaches compare with criteria for effective performance management system

From this exhaustive work, I’m would like to point out two ideas:

1- When referring to the sources of performance information, the authors propose the manager, the colleagues, the customers and the subordinates, but when describing the qualities and issues of each level, the critic to the information produced by the subordinates is that this can "give power to the subordinates".

Empowerment has been recognized as a strong motivation tool, and one of the consequences, that we must not only accept, but encourage, is the power of the employees as professionals in any level of the organizational relationships.

2- The rater's values and attitudes can condition the result of a Performance Appraisal.

The HR department must create a clear procedure, and give training to the raters, in order to avoid that the mangers could evaluate their people based in their own qualities and performance, just using a mirror instead of an honest and professional method

Creating destruction

In the Cover Story of BusinessToday we can read about Microsof in India:

"We look for talent. Full stop. We don't stick with one sector or not only to high technology," says Joji Gill, Senior HR Director— Microsoft India.

When you want to hire talent, the next day responsibility is to retain it, because you want the hiring process to become an investment rather than a cost

In reference to how do a candidate can become a member of the team, he explains:

"We are not looking for skill sets, but we are looking at what the potential candidate's fundamental DNA is and how we can scale him. The question we ask: 'Is he a Microsoft hire,'" says Gill. And what DNA is Gill looking for? People who have initiative and can work without too much of direction. And, yes, somebody hierarchical will not survive in Microsoft.

"While, some new talent comes through incremental headcount each year, there's also new talent that comes in form of replacing low performers," says Gill. Creating destruction has to be a part of any innovation factory.

I would say that this is not only for companies in the high tech domain, but for any organization not willing to loose knowledge along the time, by retaining only the low performers.

Getting people on board with a higher commitment, and skills matching with the company requirements, is a must for the management in all the levels of the organization. 

If a hiring mistake  arrives, there are several formulae for correcting the disfunction between capabilities and skills versus the current responsibility/position in the company, but at the end it is worth to go for replacement, as soon as possible, and invest, again, in an proper hiring process

Bechmarking for performance

"Hiring Right Person First Time" is the AssessSystems's  proposal for avoiding future performance issues.
The Managing Director, Rob McKay, gives some tips in his blog, on how to use benchmarking for an objective performance appraisal.

 The discussion about having a PA not depending on feelings but on parameters, will always lead to the process to define, to select, the right parameter.

When selecting performance indicators, we are sending a message to the employees about what's relevant for us ( should also be relevant for the company ), so we are opening a box full of possible misunderstandings.

To avoid it we must deploy the indicators step by step, aligning the goals of the company with the ones of the departaments and the one of the individual employees, in order to guarantee that no one single kpi is deviating the attention of the people to pursuit other targets that the expected ones

Why do low performers leave?

Interesting paper about the investigation performed by Trevor, Hausknecht and Howard, named "Why High and Low Performers Leave and What They Find Elsewhere: Job Performance Effects on Employment Transitions"

Working with a sample of approx. 2.500 former employees of an organization, they find that there is a variety of quit reasons, differing both across and within performance levels.

As the result of testing 9 different working hypothesis, they end in a list of reasons, clasified on relative importance for the leaver.

We can consider that they confirm what anyone could expect based on common sense:

The quit reason importance ranking is,

For High performers:

• Advance Opportunity
• Pay
• Opportunity to use skills

For Average Performers:

• Supervisor
• Pay
• Advance Opportunity

For Low performers:

• Supervisor
• Working hours
• Advance Opportunity

Nothing new under the sun, but this time properly supported by statistical tests.