Morality in Learning Organisations LO17772

Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com)
Tue, 14 Apr 1998 21:28:55 -0700 (PDT)

Replying to LO17763 --

On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Rol Fessenden wrote:

> I can not speak for all people who use ranking. However, for me (I use
> triage), the intent is not to fire half the people. Having reviewed the
> series on ranking and assessment, I can find no reference to anyone who
> wanted to do anything like fire half the people. Some, including me,
> claim that termination is appropriate for a few people, but very, very
> few. Not 50%.
>
> Actually, a strong performance assessment process prevents or reduces
> firings. The real intent of ranking or triage is to identify those people
> most in need of management's attention.

OK, so instead of firing the bottom 50% you're going to offer them extra
help. But if those people are performing within the system, that extra
help isn't going to do any good, and it may even do harm in the sense of
actually *increasing* the variability of performance as a result of
getting people to fix things that aren't broken. All it amounts to doing
is moving the funnel based on where the marble last landed.

[Host's Note: This is a reference to a famous Deming exercise. ...Rick]

The point is that ranking *can't* tell you who's performing in the system
and who's performing outside it. And once you've identified those
performing outside the system, there's no need to rank those peforming
inside it.

If someone is performing outside the system, it is ultimately their
*PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY* (try to envision the phrase in billboard-size
type) to improve, even though you may provide them with help. But if
someone is performing *within* the system, then improving their
performance is *management's* responsibility, *not* the individual's.
Let's put it even more bluntly: the person performing within the system
has *ZERO* personal responsibility for improving his/her performance,
because he/she has no *personal* control over the system. Of course, if
management does try to change the system, the employees have a personal
responsibility to participate in the change, and if the change moves the
system so that they're performing outside it, they have a personal
responsibility to move back into it.

"I'm going to help you, but ultimately *you're* responsible for improving
your performance" is exactly what you need to say to someone who's
performing outside the system. But it's exactly the wrong thing to say to
someone who's performing inside the system; in that case, it's exactly the
same thing as saying "I'm going to help you, but ultimately *you're*
responsible for the number of sixes I get when I throw this die." --

Eric Bohlman <ebohlman@netcom.com>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com>
Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>