Page 263 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

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critical behaviours and the technicians’ satisfaction with the usefulness of the ProMES
system and the usefulness of the performance enhancement meetings (Kleingeld, 1994).
The critical behaviours appear to be generalisable to other settings where ProMES feed-
back is used for enhancing the performance of individuals. The critical behaviours may
also be employed with performance feedback generated from other sources (perhaps with
a few alterations, for example if the weighting method differs from the contingencies
ProMES uses). It does seem essential that the company’s views on employee partici-
pation are in line with the approach chosen here (discussion until consensus, ‘problem
solving’ supervisory style).

CONCLUSION

Implementing goal-setting and feedback systems in practice is not easy. Organisational
context factors determine to a large extent the success of the implementation process.
The fit between the basic values of management and the other organisation members
seems to be decisive for success or failure of the implementation. When problems arise,
in all four phases described, conflicts can often be interpreted as reflecting differences in
these underlying values. The role of the facilitator is essential in helping the organisation
to solve these conflicts. As such, the process is much more critical than the actual design
of the elements of the system.
To sustain attempts towards productivity improvement in the long run, it is essential
that the goal-setting and feedback system is used in an environment which motivates
employees to actively engage in performance improvement activities. The last part of
this chapter addressed the important role of the supervisor in assisting employees in
problem solving and the development of better task strategies.
Looking back to the experiences of implementing goal-setting and feedback systems in
practice, probably the most important issue is that installing these systems implies in fact
a process of organisation development. Other systems to manage the human resources
have to be made compatible to the goal-setting and feedback system if it is supposed to
be there for a long time. Practitioners should therefore realise that the commitment of
many organisation members, and in particular the management, is needed to make the
implementation successful.

NOTE

1. To support the readability of this chapter, we have decided not to use references such as ‘he or
she’ continuously. At the start of the twenty-first century, the number of men in management
positions still exceeds the number of women. Even more so, all supervisors in the case study
we will focus on were men. Therefore, we will use ‘he’, ‘him’, etc. The reader should read
these as ‘he and she’, ‘him and her’, etc. To maintain consistency in the text, the same will be
done for subordinates.

REFERENCES

Algera, J. A., & Kleinbeck, U. (1997). Performance improvement programmes in Europe (fore-
word). European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 6, 257–260.
Algera, J. A., Monhemius, L., & Wijnen, C. J. D. (1997). Quality improvement: Combining
ProMES and SPC to work smarter. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,
6, 261–278.