Page 179 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

160 The Disney Way

As the late W. Edwards Deming, considered the architect of total quality
management, once described it:

The effects are devastating. Such a system substitutes short-term
performance for long-term planning, wrecks teamwork, and nur-
tures rivalry. It builds fear and leaves people bitter or despondent,
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unfit for work for weeks after receipt of the rating.

Performance appraisals are highly subjective; they depend on the evalua-
tor’s personal attitudes. Suppose, for instance, that an employee has missed two
days of work in the previous year. One supervisor might give relatively great
weight to the absences, especially if the missed days have been recent, and rate
the employee as “average,” while another supervisor might completely ignore
the missed days and assign an “excellent” rating.
Other factors, too, enter into the assessment of a worker, and they are
often situations over which the individual has no control. For example, an
employee may have the necessary education for a job and be a hard worker
to boot, but further on-the-job training may be needed for the person to
perform at the desired level. Some people are hired for jobs for which they
do not have the appropriate education; others are evaluated on results that
are heavily dependent on factors over which they have no control. Effort
and commitment are really the only parts of the equation over which an
employee has complete control, but it is impossible to isolate the effects of
these factors.
In the final analysis, performance reviews may tempt a worker to try to
please the boss at the expense of either fellow workers or, more importantly, the
customer. Such efforts can undermine teamwork as well as job performance.

There Is a Better Way
What are the alternatives to traditional performance appraisals? We help
companies devise individual development plans that foster an environment
of understanding and a commitment to personal growth. If you think about
it, the word development sends a much more positive message within a
company than does the term appraisal. A company that wants its workforce
to be productive—and what company doesn’t?—will find that individual
development plans are more conducive to achieving that goal.