Why too much Data may be killing the talent?

Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured, gets managed”. 

When a top management guru says something like the above the world definitely stands up and takes notice. Everyone realizes the fundamental truth and pull up their socks to make sure that they measure things they want to manage. Do exactly that, see the results and exclaim.. Oh! the old man was right. They pass on the gyan (/dʒəˈnɑːnə/,Sanskrit) to their friends, organizations, juniors, superiors and even strangers. Suddenly everyone in the world knows it and believes (based on empirical evidence and highly decorated anecdotes of success of course) – one must measure things one want to be managed. If it is not measured, it cannot be managed.

Peter by this time was left thinking as to when did he really say, “What cannot be measured, cannot be managed”.

Somehow he became the unwitting villain and opposite of Einstein who said, “Not everything important can be measured, and not everything that can be measured is important”

For some strange reason management especially business & personnel management decided to derive more out of management gurus than the scientists. No wonder many managers still think that their profession is closer to art than to science.

It could be their lack of science knowledge even though its science that drives and will continue to drive organizations that need personnel management around the world. 

The distinction between measurable and meaningful was lost sometime in the last 2 decades. Success of organizations, is now being increasingly measured in terms of quantifiable attributes like revenue, ROI, PE, % of the pie, $ mining in an account etc. Not that anything is wrong with that. In fact it is all justifiable and prudent in a given context.

I am more referring to measuring an individual within a “business as usual” organizational setup. The HRs love to call it performance measurement. I prefer to call it “Appraising Blinders”.

Remember how marks scored in an exam were once the hallmark of judging a student’s strength and capability, till the question was asked, “What if a student scores 20 out of 100 and I score more than everyone else. Does that make the student an idiot?” or what if everyone scores 90+, will that make everyone a genius? 

May be the test was just tough to begin with or in the case of latter - super easy. Then the grade point average system evolved for comparatively ratings students within a defined group. It is almost universally accepted to be a better evaluation even though many institutions still follow the absolute metric or are slowly transitioning. 

Why is this better? 

Because it leaves some subjectivity in it even though, it relies on data.

Organizations today follow the absolute marks approach.

How many papers were published? What was the client engagement score? How many defects were logged? How many hours were spent? Blah, Blah Blah!

Blah Blah!

All because there are ways to measure the above does not mean these parameters are meaningful to judge an individual’s capabilities.

Someone in an easy project may be able to bring 5 ideas to the table concerning someone else’s project. On the other hand someone in a really complex project may be able to bring just two for their team. Comparing number of ideas here is like comparing honey with beer because they are both golden. 

So what am I saying?

Should we abolish performance appraisals? According to some yes! I beg to differ though. It is needed! No one wants other to free ride or share fruits of a toiled harvest without making a worthwhile contribution to the result.

I am just asking to stick to the basics.

• It is better to compare the nature of the job than the job itself.

The word nature makes it more subjective. Mature organizations should set clear expectations in terms of a identifying a job complexity keeping in mind the business landscape. Some jobs may be inherently easy however; a micro-managing client will make it much different experience from a client who just looks at the output. Factors like what is the client relationship with the vendor, the processes at work, number of teams etc. should feed in to really say whether writing the BRD of an online product for client A say, is more difficult than writing BRD of the same online product for client B. Another example would be a BA doing an analysis and had been with the client for several years as against another BA doing a similar analysis with a relatively new client. It adds a dimension to measurement and is more granular than just writing the BRD. 

• Group individuals for comparative assessment based on similar nature of the job (not projects, not teams, not jobs, but the nature)

I just gave an example of comparing beer with honey. One way to avoid it is to make sure individuals are grouped based on the nature of the job. There is no point comparing QA analysts just because they are designated so even though one may be manual testing and the other automating for the same project. 

• The manager (appraiser) must satisfy two basic tenets
• Must have seen closely the individual or team in a work environment

If the appraiser does not see – literally, the person in action, then it’s a classic case of Chinese whispers. The level of contribution (or lack of it) will most likely be generalized in conversations and feedback. By the time the info is collated for the peer group, everyone will seem to be standing on the same podium. The only differentiation would then become “frills” i.e. what was done “over and above”, like whose draft exceeds 20 pages and who remembered to run a spell check on numbers.

• Must understand closely what the team or the individual is supposed to do

Even if there is indeed a person who “sees” the individual closely may end up being biased because he/she doesn't truly understand what really goes into accomplishing the task. How many times, have you been told to do “this” and you murmuring “duh, been there, done that, didn't work”?

These two tenets bring out another important point - It is not necessary for the manager (or guy on the next echelon) to be the appraiser. It could be anyone, even a peer.

I am not saying there are no challenges in this approach, and that it does not rely on data, however it brings the subjectivity back. Talent cannot be measured in numbers alone and any attempts at such a methodology, will eventually hit back by losing the very talent organizations are trying to measure and preserve.

I am sure you would have felt like Calvin many times during appraisals.

“The world isn't fair, Calvin.”

“I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?”

It’s time we changed the world.