Brief for Joel Hardings, Manager. You are the manager of a team of five associates at a strategic consulting firm called Papa’s
You are the manager of a team of five associates at a strategic consulting firm called Papa’s
Strategies, Inc. Recently, you had a performance review meeting with one of
your associates,
Mark Slaughter. You feel that the performance review meeting, which has the potential to be
awkward or painful, went pretty smoothly. Mark did a relatively good job throughout the fiscal
year. Accordingly, you gave him an overall score of
3 out of 5, where the score of 3 at the firm
places Mark among the top 30 percent of employees. The meeting ended in a jovial atmosphere.
So, when you heard from HR a couple days ago that Mark had filed an appeal that challenged the
overall score you had g
iven him, you were rather surprised.
How could this be? Mark received a good score and shows much promise. Plus, he is a fellow
extrovert whom you expected to voice any concerns and complaints even if not explicitly asked
to do so. You strongly prefer tha
t you sit down with Mark face
–
to
–
face to solve this issue as soon
as possible to avoid feelings of awkwardness and resentment whenever you bump into him in the
hallway or interact with him for work
–
related purposes. Fortunately, the HR department offers
th
e option of having the two parties meet each other face
–
to
–
face in a room with an HR
representative to make sure heated arguments or other ugly things do not occur. You contact the
HR department immediately upon receiving the notification of the appeal. Th
e response is swift,
and a meeting is held that afternoon.
Before leaving your office to attend the meeting with Mark, you want to make sure that you have
written and organized all your points to make during the meeting. The following is the list you
have
for Mark:
•
We (i.e., Joel and Mark) agreed that each performance dimension you were rated on was
highly relevant to your job and career. So, the performance ratings could not have been
unfair for measuring irrelevant things.
•
We also agreed that the way in
which each performance dimension was defined and
understood by us was concrete, specific, and measurable. Accordingly, the ratings could
not have been made significantly inaccurate via poor understanding of each performance
dimension.
•
Sometimes you
were a little late with deadlines. This issue of deadlines was one of the
reasons that your overall scores were not higher than the 3 that I gave you.
•
During the performance review meeting, we went over each performance dimension
together, the score that I
assigned for each dimension, and how the overall score was
calculated based on the individual scores for the dimensions. In going over these details
just mentioned, you never raised any concern or complaint. In fact, you seemed to agree
rather wholehearte
dly with the details.
•
My ratings for the performance dimensions in your appraisal were accurate because the
scales used were sound and the items were appropriate, as we both learned during the
performance management training session that both of us attende
d. Also, the rater
(myself) had gone through extensive rater training to minimize any bias. Finally, I have
absolutely nothing to gain by describing a biased or inaccurate picture of your
performance.
•
I closely supervise you in the same office where I get
to observe your performance
regularly. My ratings for the performance dimensions in your appraisal were thus based
on accurate and thorough information.
•
I’ve been documenting Mark’s performance on a regular basis on a notepad. So once
again, my ratings are
based on accurate and thorough information collected over time.
Appeals Process Role Play
—
Subordinate
Brief for Mark Slaughter, Associate
You are an associate in a team of five associates at a strategic consulting firm called Papa’s
Strategies, Inc. Recently, you had a performance review meeting with one of your managers, Joel
Hardings. The performance review meeting, which has the potential
to be awkward or painful,
went pretty smoothly. You did a relatively good job throughout the fiscal year. Accordingly, you
were given an overall score of 3 out of 5, where the score 3 at the firm places you in the top 30
percent of employees. The meeting
ended in a jovial atmosphere. But this supposed happy
ending was only maintained because you had managed to keep your frustrations under complete
control.
Your frustrations do not really stem from the lower than initially expected overall score of 3.
Gran
ted, it would have been much more desirable to have received something like a 4. Also, you
do not really question Joel’s accuracy as a rater
—
he did go through extensive rater training
program, and you find it admirable that he would put in the extra effort
to better ensure accuracy.
The overall score you received was likely quite accurate.
The real source of your frustration is the insufficient future orientation in the current
performance management system. Last year when the performance review meeting en
ded, you
were disappointed that Joel did not a very thorough job in helping you set goals to achieve
over the remaining 11 or so months until the end of the fiscal year. Joel seemed to say some
things about specific, challenging goals and how they could
help you be more effective. He then
went over a couple of examples that pertain to your situation. But he seemed to be in a bit of a
rush to get done with the meeting and get back to his desk. Similarly, you feel that Joel did not
give you much of a devel
opmental plan. He once again went over one or two examples of how
you might create maintain your own coaching system. In turn, there was little (but not
nonexistent) ongoing goal setting/adjusting and coaching. Rather than helping his subordinates
achi
eve goals, Joel seemed to be more interested in evaluating how his subordinates were doing.
The fact that Joel did not exert a lot of effort in working with his subordinates (including
yourself) in setting goals, creating developmental plans, and coaching
his subordinates really
bothered you whenever you overheard how other associates under different managers were
getting some rather good help in goal
–
setting, development plan creation, and coaching. You feel
that this discrepancy will later hurt your perfo
rmance in the long run.
Despite your extroverted personality, you have been rather afraid to bring up this topic to Joel,
who is so task
–
oriented and always busy. But Joel needs to be taught a lesson. So you made the
decision to file an appeal form to the
HR department about the appraisal you got recently.
Specifically, your claim is that your overall score should be higher than 3 in order to make up for
the lack of development/coaching efforts from Joel. Moreover, the score increase should take
into accou
nt the fact that if you had received proper development/coaching benefits from Joel,
you would have performed better and thus would have received a higher overall score. If this
score increase is not given, you feel that associates working under other mana
gers will get
promoted before you, such that you will later be disadvantaged in future promotion decisions.
Meanwhile, you still find it pretty difficult to raise your frustrations with the lack of help in goal
–
setting, creating developmental plans, and co
aching. In a sense, he intimidates you and comes off
as an ultimately cold, aloof person.
Most recently, the HR department has notified you that you and Joel would meet each other face
–
to
–
face in a room with an HR representative to make sure heated argume
nts or other ugly things
do not occur. You soon leave your cubicle to attend the meeting with Joel.
Brief for Observer
(Human Resources Dept Member)
•
When an appeals process is in place, employees have the ability to question two types of
issues: judgment
al and administrative. Judgmental issues center on the validity of the
performance evaluation. Administrative issues involve whether the policies and
procedures were followed. How much of Joel’s points center around judgmental issues
versus administrative
issues? How much of Mark’s points center around judgmental
issues versus administrative issues?
•
Judging from the discussions that Joel and Mark have had, do you think that a self
–
appraisal opportunity was given to Mark? How important is a self
–
appraisal?
•
Did Joel make the mistake of interpreting Mark’s extroverted personality as an excuse
not to explicitly ask for any concerns and complaints that he might harbor inside? Or, is it
the case that Mark made the mistake of not taking a pro
–
active role in commun
icating his
concerns with his supervisor Joel?
•
Did the performance review meeting, which took place before the appeals meeting, go
over any of Mark’s developmental plans?
•
Were goals set at the end of the performance review meeting?
•
Were Joel and Mark engag
ed in a coaching relationship? If so, to what extent was there
coaching involved?
•
What seems to be Mark’s top concern?
•
How would you make a decision? Can a compromise be made, if one is desirable?
•
Any other observations?
Direction for the
Supervisor
:
•
How
will you start this meeting?
•
What
are the positive things
that
you can say to
Mark
about his
performance?
•
What are the negativ
e things
that
you can say to
Mark
about his
performance?
•
How will you go about getting your “points” across to establish your inn
ocence?
•
It says that
Mark is a fellow extrovert. Yet, he was not completely open in expressing his
frustrations, about which you thus know little about. How do you expect this ironic
behavioral aspect of Mark to affect the discussions in the meeting?
•
What
seems to be Mark’s top concern? Do you believe that he is telling you his real
complaints?
Direction for the
Subordinate
:
•
How
will
you play this role? Are you able to be an extroverted, engaging person who
nonetheless can become rather reserved and uncoop
erative with certain issues, making
the supervisor work hard to bring out those issues to the surface? (Bear in mind, some
people do not
like
having to play
a role in this way but others relish it. If the
subordinate
is willing to play the role in this man
ner, then encourage it. It will give the
supervisor
the
opportunity to
practice
the skills of drawing
out even an extrovert to speak out on certain
issues that the extrovert feels uncomfortable with
. If the
subordinate
s are reluctant
to play
the role
and
thus instead
go for a more forthcoming and assertive style
when it comes to
uncomfortable issues, it is
not a problem and
will not
alter the overall effectiveness of the
case study.)
•
What
are the positive things
that
you can say to
Joe
l about his managerial competence?
•
What are the negativ
e things
that
you can say to
Joel about his managerial competence?
•
How will you go about getting your “points” across to establish your innocence?
•
It says that
Joel is a fellow extrovert. Yet, he is ra
ther task
–
oriented and distant. How do
you expect this ironic behavioral aspect of Joel to affect the discussions in the meeting?
•
What seems to be Joel’s top concern? Do you believe that he is telling you his real
complaints?
Brief for
the Observer:
•
How
effectively
does
the
supervisor build rapport?
•
Does the
supervisor create
an atmosphere that is conducive to having a frank and
open
discussion? If so, how? If not, why?
•
Does the supervisor exhibit behaviors and word
s
that are
con
structive? How?
•
Does t
he
supervisor raise issues? How?
•
Does
the
supervisor use
questioning techniques effectively,
perhaps writing down
examples of good questions and questions that
need rephrasing