In our book Why Does Performance Management Fail, we have outlined many of these criticisms. We are going to look at a half-way approach to improving traditional performance management, something that you can introduce into your workplace immediately. Before we explain bi-directional performance management, let's look at why it is a good idea. The Nature of Performance Traditional performance management approaches are based on the assumption that an organization's productivity is additive. We are beginning to understand that performance is a result of the system of work, and all it's parts, not just each individual employee.
Employees affect each other's abilities to do their individual job tasks.
One way of conceiving of this is that while the staff member works for the boss, the boss also works for the employee. In practical terms, that might mean creating and obtaining resources so the employee can succeed, clearing out obstacles, addressing problems not under the control of the employee, but influenceable by the boss, etc. We call this bi-directional influence. So while individual performance is influenced by many factors within the system of work, the primary one we can do something about is the boss-employee relationship. It's not to determine pay, it's not to affix blame, it's not to put more paper in the personnel files.