It’s time to make a change

It was one of the biggest news the past week: “Accenture is getting rid of the annual performance reviews and rankings“. To me it was music for my ears! I would love to believe they’ve decided to change because they’ve read my previous post on “Ticking boxes yearly process“. (One can only hope!).

And now I have to quote something Pierre said which really explains precisely what I believe as well:

“Employees that do best in performance management systems tend to be the employees that are the most narcissistic and self-promoting,” said Brian Kropp, the HR practice leader for CEB. “Those aren’t necessarily the employees you need to be the best organization going forward.”

Although everyone should ultimately feel responsible for their careers, if we are talking about big organisations as Accenture is, ultimately the ones that get better visibility are those who work on it, not necessarily those who are doing the work for the company. I strongly believe a company’s performance should be measured on the results of the team working as a whole, it’s not good to have a system that encourages self-promotion – in most cases (I guess in a sales oriented environment you might need a bit of that). But having gone through this yearly ticking boxes a few times along my career, I can see what it does to people. It becomes a me me me exercise and I’m the best in town. Rather than encouraging people to share ideas and work collaborative on them together, it will encourage individuals to hold on to what they believe it’s a good idea and sell it internally in order to get more credits.

After all the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Aristotle)

If there’s no benefit in promoting just the individual and the recognition comes from what the teams those, there will be more encouragement towards:

* Ensuring the good mix of the team – It doesn’t matter if you have a team full of stars, it matters what your mix can achieve when working together (I’m sure you can think of some football teams where they have really good individual players but then they don’t win every championship).
* Ensuring the objectives are shared and known by all individuals – These should be happening as per standard – but oh well – we know it doesn’t. It’s a lot easier to contribute and give ideas when you know you’re contribute towards something.
* Ensure more communication within the team and between teams – Which again should already be happening, but as stated above, if there is no benefit in working together and sharing, you will hold the information to yourself to use in your favour
* Works towards bigger projects and objectives – Having all the points above, the company will be able to address bigger projects or more complex objectives as everyone can feel part of the delivery and work together to achieve it.
* Do things out of the box – Ultimately it’s all about sharing ideas and how to do things differently and better will also ultimately help the company to grow.
* Having regular feedback will help individuals get better – If something drives me mad is the lack of feedback – honest feedback to help you grow. Many times it feels the employee needs to chase to get some feedback, which tends to come only via the annual forms. When they finally get the feedback and have the chance to do something about it, it will be too late. Most likely these individuals will end up leaving the company.

Some downsides of these approach
* Really good individuals and very hard-working might slow down because they might not feel directly recognised – but then again they can always help the team – and if they keep on working really good within different teams, if the feedback is consistent cross projects / objectives – I’m sure they will still be recognised in the end
* Promotion path might not be as straight forward unless supported by some kind of regular process
* I have to admit I can’t think of any other downsides, but hopefully you’ll be able to share some

Really curious on how will Accenture and other big companies change the approach and be able to recognise employees on a regular basis, especially around promotion and monetary recognition. If they also change the process to be more dynamic than once or twice a year would be really interesting! Looking forward to see what happens next

* Pierre’s full interview here

What’s your view on this process? Really looking forward to read different opinions.

Me, myself and I

In our society it seems we are becoming more selfish, it’s all about me me me and me. We only remember about the others and to work together when something really bad shake us down. Since companies are the reflection of the people that work there. They are the reflection of their emotions and their behaviors. In the struggle for survival everyone fights for their own skin. Many times indeed it becomes a political jungle, everyone wants more power and be well perceived, because that what guarantees a promotion up to the next level. So why would you think about the others?

No company whatsoever would publicly recognize this as a culture: work your ass hard, understand the network, promote yourself and you’ll get there. (Although there are some well known companies where a candidate may not be hired, because he’s not arrogant enough, but let’s assume these are the exception). But this is there. I thought for a long while it was just a cultural thing from south European countries. But it’s just as simple as this. Human nature.

And then it comes the time for Performance feedback, which is supposed to be all about meritocracy and who has contributed the most for the success of the company. Ah! How many lone workers out-there, the team players feel let down by the results because someone else was recognized? Because he was not visible enough? I’m sure many.

I’ve always struggle with this: “should I spend more time showing that I work or should I work?” It’s also important to recognize the backstage guy, who has done a lot of the work, and without whom the team would have not performed well. Even the guy that serves your morning coffee with a smile. Did you thanked him? Without him, you would have no coffee, neither a smile. How would that have affected your work? Yap, little things that we can’t take for granted. Therefore it’s important to recognize everyone’s role.

On this topic, I’ve just read an article (for the full article click here)

Instead of being the one to share good news, let others receive the public glory. Sure, maybe you really did do all the work. Yeah, maybe you really did overcome every obstacle. Okay, maybe you really did lead a diverse, cross-departmental, multifunctional, high-performance team.

It doesn’t matter.Give someone else the glory. Pick a key subordinate who played a major role. Pick a person who could use a confidence boost from public acclaim. Everyone already knows you were in charge, so celebrate the accomplishment through others.

Stand back and let your team shine; the fact you lead such awesome people reflects well on you.

So next time, don’t forget to say thank you and recognize others as well. (ahhh the old saying: treat the others the way you would like to be treated). Again, one of those obvious thinks I’m sure every manager knows and applies, right?