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NY Times, masters of the obvious
Posted on September 12, 2006 8:20 AM
"The Grey Lady weeps with sorrow..."
Where to start with this bit of fish wrapping, let me see. A reporter with the Paper of Record scribbled out an article discussing performance reviews. The writer's first name is Kelley, and I think Kelley's a she, so we'll go with that until some large hulking brute built like a Kenworth kicks in the door of my studio apartment and says he's Kelley.
At which point I will weep openly without guilt or shame.
Back to Kelley, mistress of the masters of the obvious. Here's the insight a professorship gives you into the business world...
“I don’t think a lot of people enjoy getting negative feedback, and there aren’t a lot of managers who enjoy giving negative feedback,� said Edward E. Lawler III, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and the director of its Center for Effective Organizations."BusinessWeek has proclaimed Lawler one of the top six gurus in the field of management," sez his homepage. Yeah, this guy's a fountain of wisdom. I could have told you the same thing about feedback when I was fourteen and losing yet another mowing job because some sandal-wearing Earth mother didn't tell me the weeds I'd just vaporized in the July sun were some kind of herbs.
Kelley goes on to plumb the depths of forced performance ranking, where managers have to put people into a certain number of rankings, and not everyone can be in the top half. Good old Jack Welch perfected this at GE, way before he got caught in flagrante delicto with a lady reporter, earning himself a low ranking from his wife (Yikes!)
Oh, and here's one touchy-feely solution that will last in the real world about as long as a snowflake in Iraq...
MARY JENKINS, a co-author of “Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead� (Berrett-Koehler, 2000) advocates a system in which employees themselves seek feedback from people they work with or who have skills they seek, then review a self-designed growth plan with their supervisor. She is using this approach at Genesys Health System in Michigan, where she is vice president for organizational learning and development.I'll agree with Kelley that performance reviews aren't going anywhere, so I hope Mary wasn't planning to retire based on the strength of that book on flushing the performace review. This is where your typical backstabbing low-life scum-sucking credit-grabbing lying bastard weasel manager gets to lay the groundwork for firing anyone in the department.
Think about it kiddies, you ever get an awesinine performance review that didn't list some areas for improvement? Uh huh. Fail to meet that unseen bar and it's back to hoping Ralph's hasn't stopped the 8 for a dollar ramen noodle sale.
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