Performance Without Appraisal

Posted on October 1, 2005 by John Hunter

In response to the Alternatives to Stack Ranking? post on the popular Mini-Microsoft blog.

I’m also taking some time to contemplate on Deming’s points and assess how Microsoft is doing against them.
…
What I would deeply appreciate is real-world experience from people living with stack ranking alternatives.

I strongly suggest chapter 9 (Performance Without Appraisal) of The Leader’s Handbooks, by Peter Scholtes. You mentioned Deming. When asked “If we eliminate performance appraisals, as you suggest, what do we do instead?” Dr. Deming’s reply: Whatever Peter Scholtes says.” (page 296).

Abolishing Performance Appraisals by Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins also provides great practical examples.

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Actually, I just noticed the previous post to the mini-microsoft blog pointed to us.

I keep looking at the books about how to grow beyond using industrial-era performance reviews (yes, anti-stack ranking books are out there). I don’t think I’ll be able to fit the books in so they’ll have to wait until I get back. But I am printing out for reading later some various anti-stank ranking articles I found, especially this one over at Curious Cat:

* Total Quality or Performance Appraisal: Choose One by Peter Scholtes.

The comments on the mini-microsoft blog shows performance appraisal continues to be an emotional topic. People on opposite sides of the debate are very passionate.

I admit it took me longer to accept Dr. Deming’s thoughts on performance appraisal than other ideas (and that is even with Peter Scholtes being a friend which gave me the opportunity to discuss the idea with him). So I understand it is not an easy concept to accept. Management Craft has also been focusing considerable energy on this topic recently.

This is the 100th post to the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog.

Previous Performance Without Appraisal post.

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7 Responses to Performance Without Appraisal

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  6. WillG says:
    July 28, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    I work for a giant company and we have started the mid-year review cycle. Oh, how I would love to use the Deming model to not have all of this work to do. However, the fixed review cycle does give me the empirical data to help me make decisions when it comes to employee ranking and bonus distribution.

    I wrote a five-part series on Manager 2.0, and incorporated this very topic of Dr. Deming’s. The article can be found here: http://managerqanda.blogspot.com/2008/07/manager-20-part-iv.html

  7. Haupia says:
    October 14, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    I am looking for a performance management matrix that I had years ago. It has the standard 5 or 6 columns across w/ “exceeds”, “fully meets”, “does not meet”, etc. Down the side are the standard job requirements such as work quality and quantity. The descriptions in each cell were the expectations of a superhero such as “can jump buildings in a single bound”, “needs a running start to jump over buildings”, “runs into buildings”. Familiar to anyone and know where I can get a copy?

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