I was on business travel last week. I spent my weekend in Toronto, Canada and had planned to write a blog from my hotel room. But the weather was so excellent, that I did not want to miss the gorgeous view of the Niagara Falls. I ended up sight-seeing Niagara and Toronto Downtown. I did not want to miss penning this week's blog. So here goes ...Come fourth quarter of the year, it is the time for performance appraisals. Given the positive sentiments in the market, I am hoping that there will be some pay-hike. So I chose to write in this blog about the "unsung heroes" who belong to the category O70 in the TNOB spectrum.
TNOB is a favorite acronymn in the world of performance management. Employees in an organisation are sorted into percentiles - Top10, Next10, Others70 and Bottom10. This is what makes up the TNOB acronym. This sorting is used during performance appraisal for creating differentiation in the pay. Pay the high performers more than the low performers. When an organisation is sorted in this manner, the management's attention is mostly on the T10 and B10 and the bulk of the organisation, categorised as O70, is usually ignored.
T10 folks are the cynosure of the group. They hog all the limelight. Their pay is highly differentiated when compared to the rest, that they are placed well above the market. It would be a curse to lose the T10 talent to competition because of compensation. Since they are the tourch bearers of the group, the management has to consciously work on their career growth to ensure they are promoted for higher responsibilities. T10 undeniably takes most of the management's attention.
B10 also get equal attention from management, but for opposite reasons. They are the problem to be dealt with. B10 have to be put on a performance improvement program with the hope that they improve their performance. If there is no significant improvement, they have to let them go. The management then has to hire fresh talent to replace the attrited B10 employees.
N10 gets some attention as they are the potential T10.
However the most ignored and the most populated group is the O70. This group constitutes 70% of the organisation and it is a pity that they do not get the necessary attention. They are the work horses for the group. They do the bulk of the work for the organisation. Without them, the group cannot meet its goals. Many unsung heros are part of this group. This group is the most vulnerable for attrition as well. So why does this group not get the attention it demands ? Is this group taken for granted?
I believe that the root of the problem lies in the performance management process used to come up with the composition of the people in TNOB. In a technology driven company, innovation and technical brilliance is given more weightage than the project execution traits (like meeting Ontime,Quality and process standards). Innovation is critical for an organisation to differentiate itself with the competition. But what is forgotten is that, good project execution is the key to productise this innovation. Good project execution skills do not get the necessary recognition they deserve.
Going by this process, an individual, who is innovative and technically brilliant, gets rated high even if he lacks project execution skills. On the other hand a person who is excellent in project execution skills is not rated high because he is not as innovative or technically brilliant like the other. The innovations and technical brilliance is more visible to public than the project execution skills. The innovator, by way of writing papers or filing patents, gets public acknowledgement of his traits.For the person who is good at execution, his accomplishments are hidden in the score-card of the project that does not have as much visibility in the public forum that the innovator has.This visibility gap is further widened by the management when they glorify the technical skills over the execution skills.This builds a bias in the organisation that is more favorable to the technical person and so during the performance rating process he becomes the undisputable T10.
The solution to this problem, is for the management to use the right and the same set of metrics that is critical for its success, to the performance evaluation of the individuals as well. If On-time execution is a critical metric for the organisation's success ,then the employees who execute projects well, should be rated high. The management should also make these individuals more visible in the organisation. When this is done, the work horses do not remain dark horses anymore. This would help the managment to motivate others in the group with similar skills. The management should devote attention to the O70 population to assess the further performance improvement expected out of them. These assessments should be clearly communicated to them by their respective supervisors. The supervisors should spend quality time setting stretch goals for the O70 people.They should provide means so that O70 people can excel. The supervisor should recognise the accomplishments made by the O70 people in the team meetings. All these management activities will pave way to create a middle ladder that is as visible as the technical ladder and the management ladder.
Have you ever noticed that a person who is considered T10 remains T10 for many years even when he moves up the rank? The management should be wary of the bias that is built around the T10 folks. Every year the management has to critically look at the T10 performers to assess if they have truly over-performed to retain their coveted ranking.They also need to consciously look for people who were in N10 and O70 last year to see if they deserve to be in T10 this year. A rigorous performance appraisal process and critical evaluation is key to ensure that the right people form the TNOB spectrum. This goes a long way to build a healthy and competitive organisation with lower attrition.
Happy Reading,
Ram
3 comments:
The problem is simply one of bucketing people in the 4 categories without a consistent metric. The issue is not necessarily with TNOB, but with the fact that process deployed ensures that your top performers are not T10s, rather the O70s. Or mildly put, there are T10s in your O70s.
Therefore, the solution is to ask the critical question - why is it that "intelligent" and "capable" supervisors [ you need to ask yourself if the adjectives are accurate ] rely on the same set of T10s irrespective of their throughput and performance levels, OR why is it that an O70 not a deserving candidate for rewards.
The most uncomfortable part of the response is the one that deals with us - supervisors. Are we the T10 supervisors at all ? What is the insecurity in determining that a T10 of the past is not the T10 of this year ? What does this fall in ranking mean to me as Supervisor in the eyes of my boss ? Does my boss even believe in helping me sort through these conflicts without me being branded one way or another ?
These are the implicit complexities in the jungle of performance reviews. I have seen this administered with success to a great extent in Pro Sports, like Tennis and Golf - aka seeding.
Try informing the world of Cricket that Sachin Tendulkar gets a B contract from BCCI because he failed in the past season. You will hear the arguments that pretty much address your queries.
Right or wrong - the halo does exist. We can, instead focus on getting our O70 uncommon rewards. This is much more palatable and feasible, given the political compulsions of Organizations.
You are absolutely correct in pointing out that management needs to set up metrics that reflects what they value and use it consistently. Actually if you set up your metrics properly, the process of putting people in the right categories is a simple mathematical exercise. A few years ago, I actually did come up with one such solution. The problem was that the list so generated did not match what management wanted to see as the TNOB list. A set of arguments were advanced to justify changing the list so that it was what management wanted to see. That process is repeated every year to ensure that the T's stay T's to the O's loss.
A manager who uses the TNOB method must understand that the objective of the exercise is to get every person to the point where he/she is an O or an average performer.
hi mama,
this was even more interesting.
if u can visit mine,
http://cmahariniks.blogspot.com/
regards,
harini
Post a Comment