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Topics in Appraisal
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How to build a better performance appraisal system |
Biology, economics and psychology converge here: improvement is fundamental to
survival, and feedback is fundamental to improvement. Without feedback, survival is
guesswork, extinction inevitable. Evolution shows that
disruption is
normal. Whoever fails to adapt will fail at a rate determined by the depth of
their balance sheet and the goodwill of their last customers. I might have
added, 'and by the largesse of their governments', but post-GFC, that option is
down the drain. The carnage will be epic, but not all will perish. Some will
survive by falling back on the four billion year old rule found by Darwin, the
route of adaptation.
My name is
Archer North. My
roots are in psychology, statistics and software. After working in human resources, I
ventured alone. I enjoyed clients
such as Shell Australia and the
Victoria Police. From them, I
learned that performance appraisal was an endeavour shot through with fear and
loathing.
Performance appraisal is a horror in
many places. Consider this item from the New York Times: "Only one in ten CEOs believe in the effectiveness of performance appraisal."
Good grief. But one in ten. The question is why so many CEOs feel this way. The theory of feedback as a
performance modifier is sound. Feedback is linked to emprical improvements in
performance. A meta-analysis of 3,000 studies linked performance appraisal to an average
improvement
of 0.4 standard deviations. In some cases the benefit was a full deviation
of performance.1
What is my part in this castration of science? Should I shutdown and shutup? Naw. I will fix performance appraisal and put it on the cloud for everyone. Archer North, [last update] January 18, 2017
1. Kluger, A.N. & DeNisi, A. (1996) The effects of feedback interventions on performance, Psychological Bulletin, Vol 119, No 2, 254-284
2. Lawrie, J. (1990) Prepare for a performance appraisal, Personnel Journal, Vol 69, April, 132-136
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