Technology has advanced drastically and has created many solutions for various communities, nations, and people. But human innovation has not occurred at the rate at which technology has been innovated and at the rate at which technology has impacted communities and nations.
Why hasn’t reinventing the way we humans think, behave, and create taken place? What is holding us back? We have mirrored actions and ideologies of how things have been done in the past, especially in the work place. Performance reviews and metrics are used on humans to measure them. Performance is normally used to measure how vehicles, machines, and computers operate and last for. Vehicles, machines, and computers have predictable warranties or shelf life and the same cannot be applied to humans.
Companies and organizations are continuously making a mistake in reviewing how humans perform. The laggard concept of a factory production line in producing more has been romanticized, glamourized, and implemented in the modern work force. The concept of “churn and burn” and the concept of reviewing humans as though they are machines leads to defamation of their characters, their skills, and leads to dehumanizing them.
Humans are designed to re invent every 3 to 6 months. Reinvent in the way one thinks, behaves, creates, executes, and discovers. Take for example, if you get burnt out eating the same dish everyday for a month, you would obviously crave for a change. That is the same concept of what happens at the work place – Humans get burnt out doing the same task with imposed one sided expectation. It suppresses creativity, individuality, and innovative ideas. Thus, resulting in disengagement, so called “under performance”, and a shift in focus occurs. A shift in focus is actually a good thing because it shows that the individual has the grit to grow. But here is what most organizations, teams, managers/leaders do when they find their employees “stray away”. They track it in the form of a bad review saying their humans are not performing. Hence, they are given 3 ultimatums.
- Willful resignation or a volatile environment is created to push the employee out ( This is a double edged sword where both scenarios allows the manager/leadership to leave a bad review on the employee)
- A panel appeal is given where the employee is shot down with ludicrous accusations based on one sided expectations and a singular story
- Getting fired
The above three scenarios defames the character of the “reviewed” and dehumanizes them as it does not create an environment and opportunity for one to thrive in a humane manner.
It becomes our social responsibility in how we cultivate humans, transition them, and enable them. Tracking the issues that you have with your employees and not analyzing it from a 3 prong perspective creates bias and works against your leadership style and against potential of employees. How do we reinvent performance reviews at the work place you ask?
- Create an “Innovation Space”
- An innovation space allows one to put creativity and curiosity into action. Sometimes, information and communication is controlled and prevented from reaching the reviewed. Hence, resulting in the “reviewed” from having limited or altered information
- Implement the 3 prong perspective
- Dig deeper into how you have enabled your employee with confidence, transparency, and ownership. When these 3 factors are present, a transparent dialogue will always take place throughout. This is not one sided, leadership/management has to be willing to innovate themselves in a 3 prong perspective as well. Additionally, when employees are assured they can take ownership of the goals they want to achieve and are given the reins, they gain confidence. Confidence = Growth
- Practise aligned and unified expectations
- Expectations that are one sided creates a volatile dictatorship. When you hire someone and expect them to do tasks that alleviates your job, you are starting on the wrong foot. Expectations involves the employee and the employer. Hire someone who thinks big, someone who is willing to create opportunities to take your team out of the weeds, and someone who creates a path for those who aren’t hired yet.
- Expectations that are one sided creates a volatile dictatorship. When you hire someone and expect them to do tasks that alleviates your job, you are starting on the wrong foot. Expectations involves the employee and the employer. Hire someone who thinks big, someone who is willing to create opportunities to take your team out of the weeds, and someone who creates a path for those who aren’t hired yet.
When you create opportunities for others to take ownership from an expectation free zone, you are enabling employees’ potential. When you create a job based on a “churn and burn” perspective and from a perspective of modern day factory production line, you have set someone for failure from the beginning.
When you reinvent how you review your employees and how you realign them, you create a more welcoming space. Rethink, recreate, and re-purpose.