Valuing people

Valuing people

I was nudged to look at Psychometric systems, both Myers Briggs which I see as offering one insight into yourself and Belbin which more orientated to managing teams. Perhaps one reason they’re important is based on the insights one of my ex-managers shared with his team,

“You’ll be good at what you enjoy! What’s not going to happen, is that I sit you down in front of your manager who’ll tell you what you’re bad at and then we attempt to remedy your weaknesses through training; that’s how you build mediocrity”

One of my Old Managers

Shame he was shagged by his global management who introduced a system of stack ranking which means no-one will admit their weaknesses and managers recruit for the permitted talent spectrum.

Myers Briggs helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses and this know what help you need, If you build teams where people do what they’re good at and are encouraged to rely on the complementary strengths of others, you teams will perform well and even those perceived as adding the least value may be critical for success. No man left behind! As Belbin’s theory says, we can’t all be Plants, i.e. too many of some skills/personality types diminishes team effectiveness.  …

Confusing

While there is not a lot of theory for HR professionals, one piece of good practice is to separate performance management systems from pay assessments in order to encourage employees to admit their weaknesses. I wonder why no-one does this? …

Hiring Smart

This passed me by on my LinkedIn feed. They quote Steve Jobs as saying something allegedly wise against micro-management.

I wonder when he said it because I remember saying something similar in the 1990’s (while Jobs was at Next). It’s just as well that I wasn’t blogging or asserting copyright, although I might be richer than I am if I had. (It is however, merely a corollary of the “Theory X, Theory Y” model which was first stated in the “Human Side of Enterprise” by Douglas McGregor, published in 1960, which I commented on here …. , I also comment here … and also here … ) So even I was a bit late.

I was hugely amused by the comment suggesting that Jobs didn’t actually pursue this strategy! …

Abolish Performance Reviews

I recieved in my inbox an article on Adobe’s experience on abolishing their annual appraisal process. One reason was cost, they calculated it took the equivalent of 40 FTEs to run the process which illustrates the distraction of management time. The article quotes quality guru W. Edwards Deming who says,

It nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and politics.”

They replaced their previous stack ranking system with a more flexible and empowered system, divorcing formal performance from salary/bonus decisions.

It proved to be more popular with managers and staff, with one employee reporting

… that a feeling of relief has spread throughout the company because the old annual review system was “a soul-less and soul crushing exercise.”

One side effect was that involuntary terminations increased but voluntary terminations reduced, It ought to be a happier place to work. …

Stack Ranking

Many company’s, particularly US owned, staff evaluation schemes are based on ranking their staff, and additionally rewarding the top 20% and firing the bottom 10%. (This idea comes from the US, probably from GE; firing people because they are not as good as someone else is illegal in the UK and much of Europe.) Basically it is not about continuous improvement, it’s based on a world view that thinks people are lazy and need fear to make them work hard. Fear of not getting a bonus, or fear of dismissal. This cynicism and hate will never build a successful firm. …

Maximising Creativity

For various reasons, I decided to see if one of the early people motivation theories was still currently in use. This is the “Theory X, Theory Y” model. It was first stated in the “Human Side of Enterprise” by Douglas McGregor, published in 1960. This is listed on Amazon as out of print, but they do quote a price and shipment date, and has been reviewed in the last year by Sheila Ale. The top “Google, search site” offers http://www.businessballs.com, which holds an article about the Theory XY model here….

The model poses two forms of management behaviour, one is hard arse (X), the other enabling (Y). Theory X can be characterised as a directorial approach based upon a deep cynicism about staff (or people), which is described in the businessballs article, as based upon the view that people don’t want to work and have to be “forced” to do so. Theory Y was first described to me as “if you look after your people, they’ll look after you”. Again quoting the businessballs article “The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving organisational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population”.

I find it interesting in that once one reduces Theory X to its minimal components, it comes as no surprise that only underachieving enterprises permit Theory X to be the dominant management culture. Belief in your staff leads to competitive performance, it is this which is the essential part of the theory. For top performance, believe in, enable and liberate your people; we no longer live in a production line economy.

ooOOOoo

In simplistic terms, I suspect that Theory Y only works when people are enjoying what they do. If they’re not, then Theory X might be the only way to get any productivity. When someone’s in the wrong job, Theory Y gives leeway for taking advantage of the organisation’s culture.

Posted by Sylvia on December 13, 2004 at 01:17 AM PST

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