`If everyone thinks alike, then someone is not thinking’, said George Patton, the eccentric American General of the second world war.
Here is why I remember this quote a lot these days. Donna Morris created history when she revolutionized the Performance Appraisal Process at Adobe. And before she could turn around, a dozen other companies had followed her lead. Today, it has become a fashion to let go of your traditional Appraisals and abolish the Bell Curve.
I get a nagging sense that either people are not thinking or are acting in concert, conspiring against the Bell Curve. And I have reasons to believe that it is the later. Let me explain why.
- The foremost myth about appraisals is that it is an evaluative tool. The fact is that it is actually a developmental tool that we used for evaluation. Evaluation is a part of Appraisals but that’s not the only thing. The major emphasis is on feedback, future work and development planning. But very few managers take time and effort to give feedback and plan development of their subordinates. Their excuse – `I don’t have the time’ and the reality – `it’s too cumbersome, too awkward to give feedback, don’t want to disturb the apple cart’ and so on.
My first argument is that Appraisals is a developmental tool which is misused for evaluation. Because the focus has changed, the significance is lost, it has reduced to being a ritual and most managers even avoid it. - Evaluation is a subjective phenomenon that makes managers uncomfortable. They want everything objective not realizing that nothing about human behaviour is objective. No amount of training can take the subjectivity in their evaluations away. Gallop survey says that in rating performance, 65% variation is attributed to rating style and only 21% to actual performance. Tremendous efforts and money is spent on neutralizing this inter-rator difference. Many times, their push for objectivity results in creating highly complex KRAs, process, templates, forms etc., eventually only becoming victims of their own devise.
This is where the Bell Curve comes in to normalise rating differences. But managers don’t like it because it gets them to adhere to norms, quotas and so on. And this is a key lead to deduce that managers avoid the bell curve - Performance rating is a relative entity. But Manager’s rating is `absolute’. It is about rating performance against set goals. But when it goes in a larger pool of the department, business unit or the organization, it no longer remains absolute, it becomes relative. It gets compared to others in the department, unit, organization. Thus it becomes subject to change.
Now see how the trouble starts. Because the rating has to change anyway, because manager has no control over it and because he has to face the brunt of that change, he decides to save his skin by rating his people on the right side of the scale. By doing this, he maintains his image, gets respect, becomes a hero. He passes the buck onto a committee that `normalizes’ these ratings. This committee constituted by HR becomes the villain and manager, a hero. - Managerial behaviour of using right side of the scale creates huge skewness in the curve. Higher skewness results in increased alterations which causes more heart-burn to subordinates which in turn creates more trouble for managers. Manager disowns this problem and points towards HR.
Having considered these facts, I want to assert that the Bell Curve is not guilty. It is the line manager and perhaps a non-thinking HR who is the real culprit. We have used Bell Curve for decades with no complain. Just because we are not able to deal with risk averse manager it is wrong to make it a scapegoat. I want to further warn that protecting line manager this way will legitimize his misbehaviour, creating a bad culture. It is insane to protect bad behaviour and penalize a good tool or the entire process.
By abolishing the Bell Curve, HR folks are not solving any problem. They are only changing the location of the problem. What makes them imagine that a managers who never gave feedback even once a year are now going to do it twice or four times? Or leaving managers to decide the quantum of benefit is not an adequate solution.
I strongly recommend that the Bell Curve be reinstated. The real problem is bad managerial behaviour and impoverished, helpless HR. Here are three solutions for you.
- If there is a huge skewness in the bell curve, accept it as is. And if your compensation is linked to the Appraisals, it will result in reduced quantum of benefit. For instance if on a normal Curve you were to give 15% average increments, on a skewed Curve it would come down to 8%, for the same budget. This will hit them where it hurts. If managers are forewarned of this consequence, they will fall in line. I have done it with my clients and it has worked like magic.
- Let them also know that following the Bell Curve is in their best interest because it will eventually result into fewer or no changes. This will ensure harmony, stability in the team. Give recognition to managers doing it right.
- And finally, instead of educating managers on reducing appraiser’s bias, creating objectivity etc, train them on dealing with subjectivity and creating transparency in rating.
I hope the reader, who is the ultimate judge, makes a more informed decision about the Bell Curve. I wish we think before we follow someone blindly. What worked for Donna Morris in her culture may not work for you. And hence I find General’s quote above, very apt.
