A few months ago when I posted on Reality TV and Performance Feedback I thought for sure that would be the first and last time that I posted anything relating to realty TV. But as it turns out, there's just way too much material to pass up and I want to thank Bristol Palin and her performance on Dancing With The Stars for this reminder. Believe it or not I'm not going to trash her or her mother (and trust me this takes a fair amount of restraint as a card carrying liberal from Cambridge, MA). We'll save that for another post. Instead I'm going to thank Bristol for highlighting the value of 1:1 performance coaching and for reinforcing my view that 360 feedback should NEVER be part of pay for performance plans.
Performance Coaching
Okay, let's just be honest here – the first few weeks of the competition she was horrible. Like close your eyes I'm embarrassed to watch you horrible. In her defense, here was a woman who literally had no performance experience competing against folks, while not all dancers, who certainly have performed before. She should have given up or been voted off earlier than the finals (we'll get to that point in a minute) but you know what? She actually improved. Quite a bit in fact. Why? She had two things that we as HR Pros should take note of:
The desire and motivation to improve. Love her or hate her, she had both and I would argue that most people in our organizations are motivated to improve. I mean who really wants to fail? Where we as HR Pros fail though is not being able to recognize this desire and motivation and actually help someone get better. Why? Because we're conditioned to "manage performance" which often means writing something down so we have the documentation to fire you when you inevitably fail again. Pretty motivating isn't it?
Which leads me to the second mistake. We don't take the time to actually coach someone through, step by step, what they have to do to get better and let them practice. Practice – which means making mistakes and learning from them. This takes time and a tremendous amount of patience. No, she wasn't the best dancer but I'd argue she showed the most improvement of anyone on the show. And If I could hire her instructor Mark Ballas tomorrow, I would.
360 Feedback
All the flap over Palin reaching the finals convinced me once again that 360 feedback linked to rewards or pay is doomed to fail. I wish it worked but it just doesn't. Case in point: while much improved, Palin was still nowhere near being one of the top performers on the show. However, the fan voting, a form of 360 feedback, propelled her to the finals. Bias, lack of understanding of the task being performed and someone just wanting to stick it to ya' are all reasons why 360 feedback fails. Or in this case, having a famous mother. And, of course, linking 360 feedback to pay makes it all worse and you run the risk of undermining the credibility of the whole system. Now, when it comes to 360 feedback used as a tool for coaching, I'm a huge fan. At least in the case of coaching, you probably asked for the feedback, and since there's no incentive other than to get better, you're likley to get the honest truth.
So, the next time you're thinking of rolling out a new HR initiative scroll through the reality TV options – you're likley to see if your idea will actually work!
Editor's Note – Andy Porter is a VP of HR/OD with Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Some days, he indeed does wear short shorts around the office (call it a morale booster). Other days, he spits some mad game on cheese. No really – he's somewhat of a cheese aficionado. But more importantly? He's changing how his company approaches people management and performance management. Just ask him what happened to Merrimack's annual performance reviews.
Andy, I like your point on how important good coaching it and recognizing desire and motivation. However, I am not sure that HR shoulder that responsibility. That is a management/leadership/supervisor issue. I think the role HR plays in that is making sure managers have the ability to recognize desire and motivation and the skill sets to deal with it.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Andy, absolutely awesome post! I agree on all points, especially the one about not using 360 Feedback to influence reward decisions. Though I would hope that managers in organizations use a more structured feedback approach than fan voting, sometimes those processes come to exactly that.
And I agree with Michael, too, that the burden of recognizing those who are motivated to improve, and then providing the specific feedback and coaching to do so, is the responsibility of managers. Unfortunately, I don’t know many managers who a) understand that this is part of their responsibility or are told that it is, and b) are any good at it, either because they haven’t been effectively coached themselves or because they just should not have this kind of interaction with biological matter. I believe it IS HR’s responsibility to enhance manager capability in this area, if at all possible.
Hi Andy,
I get your concerns with use of 360 feedback as input into pay for performance. Do you also have concerns then with using customer/client (internal and/or external) feedback as input into pay for performance? Specifically as it relates to satisfaction with the service.
Bruce Kestelman, Leader/Consultant in Organization Development and Coaching, Architect of Great Work Places and Customer Experiences