Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead

If you've ever received a traditional performance appraisal (PA), every word of this book will ring true! The sad part is, in a country as technically advanced as the US, this same process has been used in corporations since World War II. Can you name another technology still in use from that era?As a Performance Management consultant I've reengineered appraisal systems based on employee and management needs, so the book's title put me off initially. Performance mesurement and feedback is critical in a high performing organization. But the authors' approach is right on target. Organizations should NOT stop measuring, but measure and feed back accurately within an adult-to-adult context. The data on how humans behave puts traditional PA systems to shame. What a waste of resources!Performance Management systems can be reengineered at little direct cost and return REAL individual, group and organizational performance improvement. I've found that nearly all PA systems are compensation rather than performance focused, and actually keep employees from the accountability the organization seeks. What's worse, these systems are often the only source for employee feedback! Coens and Jenkins capture and dispel all the well-meaning assumptions of traditional Performance Appraisals, while also providing solid PERFORMANCE-BASED alternatives. For example, and with no apologies to the lawyers, individual performance documentation is only needed when there is a serious performance problem, and that is quite rare. Positive performance data is available in other, more productive ways. Why burden the entire organization, demotivate employees, and waste valuable resources when treating adults as adults can actually improve BOTTOM LINE PERFORMNACE? The book is not for everyone, but managers who have always felt sick about using their company's PA process will be delighted to know that they were right all along. People know how to do this, and company bureaucracy just gets in the way.No business has extra people or money. I've effectively used these same principles for years. Thank you, Tom and Mary, for documenting a process for 21st century Performance Management.

This book has more perspectives and detail about the problems with performance appraisals than you would have learned about in 20 years. As a result, the suggestion to abolish performance appraisals comes as no surprise (especially since that's the title) and the logic is appealing, as well. To get rid of performance appraisals will be difficult in most companies, because people will not be able to imagine what the alternatives can be. The book's rich detail about the problems, and then the many suggestions in it for how to develop replacements fill those gaps. If you are like me and dislike performance appraisals, get this book to help you to migrate away from them. Since I never liked performance appraisals, I abolished them years ago in our consulting firm. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the mechanisms that I had substituted for performance appraisals were consistent with the authors' recommendations. I am a big believer in complexity science, and like to see organizations operating in more free form ways. You have to eliminate strait jackets like performance appraisals to get to that point.The thrust of the alternative is to place the responsibility with each person in the company for their own development, but be sure that they get access to the resources and feedback they need to improve. This is also very revealing because people vary enormously in how interested they are in improving. If you put the ball in their court, you will learn a great deal about the future potential of the people in the organization. Some will try very little. Some will try a lot. Many will not follow through. But you will have opened a doorway through which the most motivated to improve can go as far as they want. That's terrific!The only part of the book that I disagreed with is that the authors think that all performance measures are bad. In my experience and in my research, I find that performance measures that people set for themselves that they think are important are extremely valuable for focusing and stimulating performance. The authors seem to think that employees will always focus on goals that help their little area rather than the whole company. That occurs only when people don't understand how the whole business works. That's an education issue, not a performance measurement issue. After you have read and begun to apply this book, I suggest that you also think about where else in your organization you have bureaucratic practices that stifle innovation, hurt morale, and slow down progress. Then, use this book as a model for how to undo those harms as well. In many companies, processes for controlling capital expenditures and authorizing new product development often have these effects. As a result, little experiments are inhibited that the company can afford to fail in by processes designed to keep from making big mistakes with billions. Free up everyone to feel good about themselves, to become better, and to cooperate m

First, let me reveal a potential source of bias - I've been practicing employment law, primarily from the management side, for more than 27 years and I have known Tom Coens for almost 20 years. Having revealed my potential biases, let me say that I found this to be an insightful and provocative book. I found the chapter on 'Dispelling The Legal Myths and Dealing With Poor Performers' particularly helpful and I am recommending the book to Human Resources Directors and employment lawyers with whom I work. As Tom and Mary point out, a myth prevalent at companies around America is that performance appraisals are the bedrock of defense against employment lawsuits. While it is true that objective, carefully considered, employment appraisals can be helpful in the defense of lawsuits, such appraisals are often the exception rather than the rule. As Tom and Mary note, unfortunately the press of business, the "halo factor", politics, disinclination of managers to discuss criticism and sheer laziness often compromise the effectiveness of performance appraisals both for their primary purposes and for the secondary purpose of utilizing such documents in the defense of lawsuits. In fact, it is not unusual in my practice to have the following conversation with a client. Client: We can't take it any more. We need to fire Employee X ASAP. He has been performing below par for years, but the bar has been raised and we can't afford to carry him any more. Me: Let me guess, Employee X is in a protected category and has gotten "satisfactory to good" performance appraisals for the last several years because Manager Y did not want to step up to the plate and tell him the real problems with his performance. Client: How did you know? Tom and Mary effectively address this problem and, better yet, give practical solutions to documenting performance and discipline while providing alternatives to excessive reliance on the performance appraisal system. I highly recommend their book.

What a wonderful gift Coens and Jenkins have given to us! As a Human Resource Director at a large, Midwest manufacturing facility, I see first hand the impact of performance appraisals on both the company and the individual. I have never felt comfortable with the appraisal process, but always feel responsible for assuring its proper implementation. Despite my best efforts, the process never works as it is intended. Numbers continue to get in the way of meaningful conversation, ratings are rarely accurate, people continue to feel bitter and betrayed, and managers, in general, are uneasy with the process. This book has done several things for me. First, it validates my discomfort with performance apraisals. Secondly, it explains why I feel the way I do and thirdly, it lays the foundation for the "new thinking" that's required for an organization to develop sound alternatives to performance appraisal. The authors draw effectively from the myriad of research by respected change agents such as Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Alfie Kohn, Peter Scholtes, Philp Crosby, Douglas McGregor and others. From the opening dedication ("To all the supervisors and managers who care about people and who have tried their best to make performance appraisals work") to the book's closing call to action by T.S. Eliot, ("...to make an end is to make a beginning") this book spoke to me. Coens and Jenkins have created a lasting and important contribution to the serious debate about the effectiveness of performance appraisals.

This is an important and well written book. The authors, Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins, think it is time for organizations to begin treating employees like the adults that they are. There is too much patriarchal and paternalistic hand-holding, and way too much time spent monitoring, evaluating and judging individuals. The authors advocate dropping the ritual of performance appraisal as a vital step, in itself, and for the "undercurrent" that appraisal represents, towards freeing the human spirit in organizations. This undercurrent "hangs like a cloud, pervades the workplace atmosphere...." It is the "personnel policies, human resource practices, and most importantly, the organization's unseen culture (values and beliefs) about people. It sends messages that people are not interested in working or improving the organization, messages that people are children who need to be directed and controlled in an atmosphere much like a traditional school." This is powerful stuff.Coens and Jenkins want us to get busy on working together towards improving processes and the system of delivering value to our customers, and give up the quest for finally pinpointing, once and for all, who the "1"s, "2"s, "3"s, etc. are in the organization. They want us to quit thinking that a person's value and performance can somehow be reduced to a number. They explain how this is a fallacy and illusion, given the impossibility of separating out the individual's contribution from the contribution of the system or environment that she works in, inherent measurement and judgment biases, and organizational politics. More importantly, such reductionism is degrading and demoralizing to the individual. And "we trivialize an individual's work, often involving heart and soul, from something unique and wonderful into a cold and sterile numerical rating that purportedly signifies the person's total contribution."The approach the authors take is to first surface, then examine, and ultimately attack the assumptions underlying appraisal, and then to build alternatives from "newer, more hopeful assumptions." They are thorough and convincing in making the case to abolish performance appraisal. W. Edwards Deming, who mentored Jenkins, was often asked, "But if we eliminate performance appraisal, then what will we replace it with?" He would reply, "Try leadership." Whereas Coens and Jenkins would surely support such a true and succinct response, they also offer specific guidelines and methodology for an organization to wean itself from the nonproductive and harmful anachronism of performance appraisal. For example, they describe how to effectively "debundle" management concerns, such as motivation, coaching, counseling, retention, discharge, goal setting, pay, promotion, and discipline, which are often packaged as part of the appraisal process. I highly recommend this book for anyone who values dignity, respect, and trust in the workplace, and who believes that holding such values is crucial in stri