Hi guys, some time ago I wrote several blogs explaining why we should get rid of performance appraisals. The first blog of the series can be found here. From this one you can find all the others. In this blog I want to explain why many of our managers fail. Our companies expects that managers will deliver the full range of employee coaching needs. They are responsible to oversee the appraisal process, giving feedback, rating employee, set improvement goals, development plans, pay-raise decisions. etc.
Companies expect that Managers will become super mens/women that are able to do all these tasks without problems. Unfortunately our world is becoming more complex than ever and we need different approaches to enable managers to do a great job. Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins on their book: “Abolishing Performance Appraisals” refer that companies have two basic assumptions about managers capabilities:
The Manager has the attributes and skills to be an effective coach
The Manager have the knowledge to assess and guide improvement.
During the last years companies introduced systems like 360 feedback to help managers but at the end is always the manager who is responsible to collect and deliver the feedback. With the feedback in his hands the manager is responsible to oversee the learning, coaching and improvement related to performance feedback. Organizations assume that managers have the people and communication skills, the ability to teach, the leadership skills that the intituitve talent required to effectively counsel, guide and coach employees.
The previous principle requires that managers have the knowledge of each employee’s performance and know exactly what are the causes of any deficiencies, at the same time managers have the technical expertise and the teaching skills to train and guide improvement efforts, unfortunately most of the cases managers are not able to fulfill these requirements. If we take a look into our personal life we do not look for a single person to fulfill all our coaching needs. If we need help with diet we go to a nutritionist, if we need help with sport we go to a personal trainer and so on. So why in our companies the manager is the GURU that knows everything? Why don’t we look for different resources for different topics?
The previous assumptions made sense in a previous business world where managers were coming from the ranks. They did their job for some years they learnt it really well and then they were promoted. With all their knowledge they could provide useful insight how employees could perform better. The world changed, organizations are more flat, previously managers were responsible for few employees now days is not uncommon to have managers with 40 or 50 direct reports with this new reality companies need to be able to create a network of self-managed teams.
The previous emerging trends signal the need to change the way we look at and serve people’s coaching needs. The new role of managers should be creating environments that support this network of self-managed teams and where “technical training and overseeing the work is given way to create a sense of purpose and general direction and facilitating learning in a collegial environment.”
This blog post is part of my new book that you can find here. If you are interested in being a beta reader and provide me valuable feedback, please subscribe the newsletter below. I will keep you updated with the latest status and the first drafts of new chapters.
