Managing Without Performance Appraisals. - Brief Article - Review - book review

The research is clear. The outcome is consistent. We know with certainty that the most powerful leadership tool for improving productivity and increasing employee satisfaction is regular, frequent and balanced performance feedback. Emerging data show that feedback is a key driver for continuous learning, creativity and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

How then does something with such potential for success create so much dissatisfaction, lowered morale and genuine disruption in the workplace? Any one of us who has been on the giving or receiving end of a performance appraisal sadly knows the answers: The transition from theory to application is disjointed, and the practices used to facilitate and support feedback are flawed.

Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins attempt to help us understand why things go wrong in the performance appraisal process. They readily admit that Abolishing Performance Appraisals is one of numbers of books slicing and dicing the practice of performance appraisal. But several things set this effort apart.

The material is very well written. The authors' style is crisp and clear, making it unusually readable. Three discrete sections bring logic and order to an encumbered--and sometimes confounding--management system by reviewing the traditional causes of failure, examining the core reasons for conducting appraisals and describing the transition to alternatives.

From the beginning, we are warned that the objective of the book is not to provide solutions. Rather, the goal is to reformulate our thinking and modify our assumptions so that we are prepared to forge a new environment. In this new work culture, partnership is the cornerstone, supervisors have the latitude to provide feedback in the form most appropriate to their individual situations and employees take full responsibility for themselves.

While this scenario sounds Pollyannaish at best (and completely naive at worst), the authors attack the issues with such energy and enthusiasm that it's difficult to dismiss their approach out of hand.

Coens and Jenkins say their research indicates that performance appraisals are conducted for as many as six reasons: 1) improvement, 2) coaching/guidance, 3) feedback/communication, 4) compensation, 5) staffing/development and 6) termination/documentation.

The fundamental problem, the authors maintain, is that using one process as the delivery vehicle for so many complex activities is impractical as well as dysfunctional. And, they continue, no amount of tinkering can solve the problem. They dismiss as futile efforts at using 360- degree performance appraisals, performance management, management by objectives, etc., because, they aver, the only true solution is wholesale abandonment of performance appraisals.

The chapters analyzing the relationship of performance appraisals to the six functional areas are especially well done. In fact, they are so compelling and the authors are so ardent that at times you want to say, "OK, I surrender. I promise never to use performance appraisals again." And just to keep you interested, at the end of each chapter, the authors cleverly conduct a comprehensive review of traditional assumptions and lay out alternative assumptions that amplify and clarify their thinking and logic.

Section three sets out a 14-step methodology for making the transition from traditional performance appraisals to alternatives. This is the most disappointing part of the book. Even though the sequence is nicely designed and carefully constructed, there is no resolution. The authors justify this lack of closure by saying that there is no existing model that resolves the issues they have identified. They state that each individual organization must find its own answer. They warn that this process is intensive in terms of time, effort and cost, and that there is no shortcut. The combination leaves the reader frustrated.

In their defense, Coens and Jenkins do give ample warning about the endpoint. Approached with that knowledge, Abolishing Performance Appraisals is a useful addition to the performance appraisal literature.

Steve McIntosh, Ph.D., is president of Tartan Consulting and a founding partner of the Southern Leadership Institute, headquartered in Bonita Springs, Fla.

Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead by Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2000, 300 pages. List price: $27.95. ISBN: 1576750760.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Society for Human Resource Management
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group