Performance Appraisal - Excellent Opportunity for self auditing and formulating career plan

'Appraisals! Time to look for hikes, praises, promotions ...'. We like it or not, we all go through performance appraisal in different organizations. Existence of an appraisal program indicates to an employee that the organization is genuinely interested in their individual performance and development.

We can take it as a exercise to self improvement or waste of time. Performance appraisal can have a profound effect on individuals motivation and satisfaction - for better as well as for worse.

The latest mantra being followed by organizations across the world being – “get paid according to what you contribute” – the focus of the organizations is turning to performance management and specifically to individual performance.

In my view, Appraisal

• Offers a rare chance for a supervisor and subordinate to have "time out" for a one-on-one discussion of important work issues that might not otherwise be addressed.
• Offers a valuable opportunity to focus on work activities and goals, to identify and correct existing problems, and to encourage better future performance. Thus the performance of the whole organization is enhanced.
• Offers an excellent opportunity - perhaps the best that will ever occur - for a supervisor and subordinate to recognize and agree upon individual training and development needs.
• It is about building career plan with our managers.

Whole problem with appraisals come when appraisers are not able to create a proper relationship with appraise, and trust level is missing. Instead of constant feedback through out the year, few hard comments are provided at the end of the year. Also, failure from appraisers to make their appraisees understand the importance of appraisals and the objectives. Appraisals is not only about quantitative numbers and bonus ....

For Appraise - "Don’t blame the messenger for the bad news”. Appraise should try to understand that their managers are trying to help them to grow and succeed, as their success is linked to organization success. Areas of improvement will help them not only in coming year, but also through out their careers. Instead of being defensive, appraise should try to understand the feedback without any prejudice. Also, need to understand the importance of appraisal. It is all about feedback for improvement. We need to keep in mind is - not to blame others for our non-performance, not to lose our patience at criticism etc.


The most difficult part of the performance appraisal process is to accurately and objectively measure the employee performance. From the appraisers point of view, there are few points to keep in mind -

• Should not confront employees directly with criticism. Encourage open-ended questioning techniques that encourage the employee to identify their own performance problems.
• There are individuals who will not admit to anything that appears to reflect poorly on them. With ego defences on full-alert, they will resist the process of self-auditing very strongly. In such cases, appraisers may have no choice but to confront the poor performer directly and firmly with the evidence they have.
• In providing any feedback - especially negative feedback - appraisers should be willing and able to support their opinions with specific and clear examples. Vague generalizations should be avoided.
• Appraisers must carefully scrutinize their own perceptions, motives and prejudices.

N R Narayan Murthy - Amazing Thoughts

Some of good and enlightening articles about him -

Life lessons from Narayana Murthy

• Valuable advice can sometimes come from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors.
• Entrepreneurship, resulting in large-scale job creation, was the only viable mechanism for eradicating poverty in societies.
  

Convert Ideas into Wealth
Entrepreneurs don't start with a lot of money. They must aim to convert their ideas into wealth. What the entrepreneurs need to do is to convince venture capitalists to invest in their ideas.
Mantra for success - "There's no mantra. If you are passionate about what you are doing, then you are bound to succeed. Just don't follow a set formula; take it as it comes."

India is not doing enough

India’s potential lies in her IT reaching out to the masses

Working late in Office

Absence of Victimhood

Reading through Priyanka Gandhi Interview on April 27th 2009, one statement commenting on "Absence of Victimhood", stuck me completely.

She said - “Minute you realise that you're not a victim and that the other person is as much a victim of that same circumstance as you, then you can't put yourself in a position where you are anyone to forgive someone else. Because your victimhood has disappeared. And to me, people ask about non-violence, I think true non-violence is the absence of victimhood. The sense that somebody else is doing harm to you. Whatever is happening to you is happening because of your own circumstances, you are creating a lot of that suffering. And anybody else who does something overtly, like kill somebody you love, or hurts you, beats you, that is also an action that is happening because of their suffering.”

I completely agree. Most of the problems pertaining to hatred, violence and revenge are due to the feeling of Victimhood. As soon as we open our eyes and hearts and realize that there are so many people around us, who are much much more victimized by curcumstances, we are at peace.

Victim stance is always morally right, neither responsible nor accountable, and forever entitled to sympathy. Hence, important is think, from different angles and come out of victimhood feeling. As soon as we do that, we are light at heart and understand things from all the angles.