Page 248 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

232 enhancing performance through goal-setting and feedback interventions
ownership of the system). Locke and Latham (1990) question the motivational benefits of
participation, dependent on the existing leadership style or the more general cultural at-
titudes towards participation. Experiences with implementing ProMES suggest strongly
that the participatory, bottom-up approach of this system can only be successful if the
basic values within the organisation are congruent with this characteristic of the method
(see, for example, Kleingeld, 1994). Thus, before starting the phase of system design one
should check whether the basic values of organisation members, especially the managers,
are fitting with the implementation strategy. Algera and Van den Hurk (1997) report on
a feasibility study preceding the actual implementation of a goal-setting and feedback
system. In this feasibility study both the cognitive elements (i.e., how to design valid
performance indicators) and the motivational elements (i.e., are the consequences of
adopting a bottom-up design approach) of the system became clear to all constituencies
involved. As a result of this feasibility study a deliberate choice was made regarding the
implementation strategy.
In the study of Kleingeld (1994), the mutual trust between employees and management
was at stake regarding the possible use of ProMES data for pay for performance. This
problem was handled by a document in which management stated that the ProMES data
would not be used for pay for performance unless the employees would agree that it was
better and more fair than the existing pay for performance procedures. After this issue
had been dealt with the actual design could begin.

PHASE 1: SYSTEM DESIGN
In this phase the basic elements of the goal-setting and feedback system have to be
designed, such as the key result areas, performance indicators for each key result area
and the structure of the feedback data. An example of a key result area is “improving
quality”; a performance indicator that could be used in this case is “percentage of waste
produced”. In structuring the feedback process, one of the most important decisions
has to do with the time horizon of the feedback data. This could vary from one shift
period of eight hours to one month or more, depending on the cycle time of the work
process. Another important question is: Who should get (parts of) the feedback reports?
In practice most often a design team is established to design the basic elements of the
system. Members of the design team should have expertise in the task strategies that
lead to performance of the job at hand. Thus the help of job incumbents is needed. In
the usual design procedure of ProMES (Pritchard, 1990) a facilitator is responsible for
managing the design process. A number of pitfalls can frustrate this design phase (see,
for example, Algera, Van Tuijl, & Janssen, 1995).
A main problem is that the job incumbents participating in the design team are repre-
senting their colleagues for whom the system is to be developed. This can create problems
of acceptance of the goal-setting and feedback system. Meeks (1994) presents empirical
results on the difference between members and non-members of design teams in accept-
ing the goal-setting and feedback system as being a valid system by which to express
performance. As could be expected, members are more positive than non-members.
Another main problem is the time span needed for development of the system.
Experience with designing ProMES systems reveals that between 8 and 20 design team
meetings are required to design all elements of the complete system. Corresponding with