Review, no more!

18.08.2015

Here is a really interesting article which just goes to show that ‘conventional big corporate thinking’ can be the very thing which can cause you more problems than it solves.

We have designed performance management systems for clients over the years, but our belief has always been that the ‘once a year’ approach is fraught with problems. The ‘grade on a curve’ or rank ordering approach is very much a Jack Welch (of GE fame) philosophy which essentially means that you are constantly looking for the bottom performers so you can fire them.

Now, I would argue that any performance management process should always discover those who could do better, but the ‘perform now, feedback now’ approach is hardly new (although apparently it is to Accenture). It does require a heavy handed bureaucratic system, which is, for the most part, gamed by participants. The fact that Accenture have taken this long to figure it out tells you all you need to know about large bureaucracies. From the article (if you don’t want to read it) is this little gem….

“The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating,” Nanterme said. “It’s all about selecting the person. And if you believe you selected the right person, then you give that person the freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and to lead with some very simple measure.”

So there you go. Get the right people and give them the freedom and authority to do the job and you are off to the races. Simples.

You can read the Independent article “Accenture: One of the world’s biggest companies to scrap annual performance reviews” here.