Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead [Paperback]

Tom Coens (Author), Mary Jenkins M.D (Author), Peter Block (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1576752003 | ISBN-13: 978-1576752005 | Edition: 1

This is the first book to offer specific suggestions on how to replace performance appraisals with a more effective system that emphasizes teamwork and empowerment. Feedback, compensation, coaching, promotion, and legal documentation are all covered, as well as a variety of new alternatives that produce better results for both managers and employees.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Regardless of from which side of the desk one has experienced the rite known as the performance appraisal, there are many who will welcome the authors' provocative proposal. Coens is an attorney and organizational trainer; Jenkins is a former human resources director at a division of General Motors. They acknowledge the countless books about performance appraisals and note that most suggest ways to make appraisal systems work better. Coens and Jenkins argue instead that appraisals do not accomplish what they are supposed to and that, in fact, they are counterproductive. They offer compelling evidence to demonstrate that appraisals backfire as they examine the five functions (coaching, feedback, setting pay, determining promotions, and documentation) for which appraisals are designed. Then they lay down sequential steps for phasing out appraisals and for designing and implementing separately the alternatives they propose for each function. The authors rate an "excellent" for demonstrating the ability to think creatively and for generally exceeding expectations for books in this category. David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Coens and Jenkins have created a beautiful book about an ugly subject performance appraisal. -- Dick Richards, author of Artful Work. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1 edition (September 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576752003
• ISBN-13: 978-1576752005
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #417,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Abolish Bureaucracy to Encourage Improvement! March 4, 2001

By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This book has more perspectives and detail about the problems with performance appraisals than you would have learned about in 20 years. As a result, the suggestion to abolish performance appraisals comes as no surprise (especially since that's the title) and the logic is appealing, as well. To get rid of performance appraisals will be difficult in most companies, because people will not be able to imagine what the alternatives can be. The book's rich detail about the problems, and then the many suggestions in it for how to develop replacements fill those gaps.

If you are like me and dislike performance appraisals, get this book to help you to migrate away from them.

Since I never liked performance appraisals, I abolished them years ago in our consulting firm. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the mechanisms that I had substituted for performance appraisals were consistent with the authors' recommendations.

I am a big believer in complexity science, and like to see organizations operating in more free form ways. You have to eliminate strait jackets like performance appraisals to get to that point.

The thrust of the alternative is to place the responsibility with each person in the company for their own development, but be sure that they get access to the resources and feedback they need to improve. This is also very revealing because people vary enormously in how interested they are in improving. If you put the ball in their court, you will learn a great deal about the future potential of the people in the organization. Some will try very little. Some will try a lot. Many will not follow through. But you will have opened a doorway through which the most motivated to improve can go as far as they want. That's terrific!

The only part of the book that I disagreed with is that the authors think that all performance measures are bad. In my experience and in my research, I find that performance measures that people set for themselves that they think are important are extremely valuable for focusing and stimulating performance. The authors seem to think that employees will always focus on goals that help their little area rather than the whole company. That occurs only when people don't understand how the whole business works. That's an education issue, not a performance measurement issue.

After you have read and begun to apply this book, I suggest that you also think about where else in your organization you have bureaucratic practices that stifle innovation, hurt morale, and slow down progress. Then, use this book as a model for how to undo those harms as well. In many companies, processes for controlling capital expenditures and authorizing new product development often have these effects. As a result, little experiments are inhibited that the company can afford to fail in by processes designed to keep from making big mistakes with billions.

Free up everyone to feel good about themselves, to become better, and to cooperate more freely to improve the organization!

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dignity in the Workplace November 22, 2000

By Michael Lovitt

Format:Hardcover

This is an important and well written book. The authors, Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins, think it is time for organizations to begin treating employees like the adults that they are. There is too much patriarchal and paternalistic hand-holding, and way too much time spent monitoring, evaluating and judging individuals. The authors advocate dropping the ritual of performance appraisal as a vital step, in itself, and for the "undercurrent" that appraisal represents, towards freeing the human spirit in organizations. This undercurrent "hangs like a cloud, pervades the workplace atmosphere...." It is the "personnel policies, human resource practices, and most importantly, the organization's unseen culture (values and beliefs) about people. It sends messages that people are not interested in working or improving the organization, messages that people are children who need to be directed and controlled in an atmosphere much like a traditional school." This is powerful stuff.

Coens and Jenkins want us to get busy on working together towards improving processes and the system of delivering value to our customers, and give up the quest for finally pinpointing, once and for all, who the "1"s, "2"s, "3"s, etc. are in the organization. They want us to quit thinking that a person's value and performance can somehow be reduced to a number. They explain how this is a fallacy and illusion, given the impossibility of separating out the individual's contribution from the contribution of the system or environment that she works in, inherent measurement and judgment biases, and organizational politics. More importantly, such reductionism is degrading and demoralizing to the individual. And "we trivialize an individual's work, often involving heart and soul, from something unique and wonderful into a cold and sterile numerical rating that purportedly signifies the person's total contribution."

The approach the authors take is to first surface, then examine, and ultimately attack the assumptions underlying appraisal, and then to build alternatives from "newer, more hopeful assumptions." They are thorough and convincing in making the case to abolish performance appraisal.

W. Edwards Deming, who mentored Jenkins, was often asked, "But if we eliminate performance appraisal, then what will we replace it with?" He would reply, "Try leadership." Whereas Coens and Jenkins would surely support such a true and succinct response, they also offer specific guidelines and methodology for an organization to wean itself from the nonproductive and harmful anachronism of performance appraisal. For example, they describe how to effectively "debundle" management concerns, such as motivation, coaching, counseling, retention, discharge, goal setting, pay, promotion, and discipline, which are often packaged as part of the appraisal process.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who values dignity, respect, and trust in the workplace, and who believes that holding such values is crucial in striving for true organizational excellence.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking Alternative January 29, 2001

By Carlos Quintero

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Abolishing Performance Appraisals makes a powerful case for removing this well intended yet ineffective ritual organizations have been requiring for decades. Indeed, Coens and Jenkins provide solid reason why appraisals have to go, to be replaced with quality feedback mechanisms including coaching and support structures that enable employees to maximize their own potential. No one reading this book would challenge its basic argument. My primary concern was in the prescription. They recommend you recruit a group of stakeholders as your design team, to explore the problem in your own organization, and to arrive at alternatives that align with your organization's mission. Considering that Coens and Jenkins affirm W. Edward Deming's claim that 94% of performance outcomes are attributable to the system, they are less robust in offering concrete guidelines on what "the system" should look like. This book is excellent in describing the history of the problem and highly persuasive in its message. It accomplishes that goal. If the reader is interested in exploring a system that is a clear alternative, that is simple in scope and provides a strong transition from the current mess, I recommend you pick up Catalytic Coaching - The End of the Performance Review by Gary Markle. Equally thought provoking on the issue, but a stronger set of steps on how to approach the problem.