Author Archives: Ren Tseng

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579198281053673534

Jack Welch, who was the CEO of GE and is the founder of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal to support Microsoft’s new evaluation system for employees’ performance. The concept behind this system is called “differentiation,” which allows the company to find out how much difference in goal setting and culture exists between employees and the company. Through evaluating the employees’ performance twice a year, and letting their employees know where they stand in the company, company officials believe that transparent grades—just like how well students do in a class— would advance a company’s mission and strengthen its core values once they can get rid of the bottom 10 percent.

After reading this article, I began wondering to what extent differentiation can be applied to employees of a professional bureaucracy, such as teachers working for a city’s department of education or professors employed by a university. In New York City, for instance, teachers are being evaluated under a new system imposed by the state Department of Education after the city failed to reach an agreement with the teacher’s union. The system ranks teachers on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 meaning “ineffective” and 4, “highly effective.” After a series of observations, along with their students’ performance on standardized tests, each teacher will receive a grade from 0 to 100 at the end of the year.

While any system designed to improve worker performance is good for a company, I wonder who is really responsible for designing these assessments. Is it the teachers? Principals? Or outside consultants who may have studied a teacher teaches, but who themselves have never actually taught? Obviously, there will always be some push back when it comes to evaluation, but when assessments are imposed by faceless bureaucratic institutions that do not seek the input of employees, these evaluation systems always run the risk of being met with fierce resistance.

I also wondered about just how effective it is to arithmetically grade teachers based on how they arrange furniture in a classroom, for instance, or whether their students always call each other by name? It seems that even differentiation, while quantitative, acknowledges that much of how a worker functions in his or her workplace is also qualitative and cannot be expressed in the form of a letter or a numerical grade.

While thinking about last week’s discussion, I recalled a story I had read some time ago about an experiment involving monkeys. A scientist put four monkeys into a small cage with limited food for a week. Then, the scientist hung a bunch of bananas on top of the cage. One reached out for a banana immediately, but was hurt by a big pot of hot water that fell down on him. The other three monkeys were also burned by hot water when each climbed up to get the bananas. In the end, all the monkeys could do was sit at the bottom of the cage and stare up at the bananas.

A few days later, a new monkey, hungry for days, replaced one of the originals. When that monkey spotted the bananas hanging from the top of the cage and tried to climb up to retrieve them, it was stopped and warned by the other three who had been burned before by the water. A few days later, yet another monkey replaced one of the three originals, which was when the scientist noticed something interesting-the two originals and the one newcomer had banded together to prevent the latest addition from trying to grab the bananas. The experiment went on until none of the monkeys were physically hurt by hot water, which had also been removed. Even though the fresh bananas still hung from the top of the cage, none of the monkeys went anywhere near them.

Just as the monkeys established a culture of cooperation and communication among themselves, even though the threat of being splashed by hot water no longer existed, so too each organization develops its own way of incorporating certain values and behaviors into its own culture. The danger, though, is in establishing a culture that is so rigid that workers are unable to react accordingly to rapid changes from the outside environment. This situation is challenging for anyone who has worked in an organization his or her entire life, or for a newcomer who tries to change culture or restructure the organization from within. In the case study from last Thursday’s  discussion, Dr. Lopez’s leadership and management skills ultimately saved Hammond Community College from being forced to close. However, Dr. Lopez did not gain the support of faculty and staff, with more than half signing a petition expressing a lack of confidence in her leadership skills.

Obviously, this must have come as a shock to Dr. Lopez, who assumed that everything had been going well at the college. With 15 minutes before the faculty meeting, what should she do? Should she go in with a scowl on her face, slam down her papers on the desk and berate all of the faculty members who gave her a vote of no confidence? In the heat of the moment, this of course is a tempting choice. But sitting down and having a talk with her detractors after the meeting, once she and everyone else have cooled down, is a better starting point. This was the scenario that all five groups agreed upon last week. In doing so, Dr. Lopez needs not so much to identify her opponents and supporters as to understand why they feel the way they do. Assuming the letter was not confidential, it seems as if the faculty was unafraid of expressing their opinion to Dr. Lopez. Thus, Dr. Lopez should seize this opportunity and let faculty and staff candidly express to her why she does not command their confidence. Such a situation may be awkward for everyone involved, but Dr. Lopez should give faculty and staff the opportunity to speak frankly as she listens and, later, reflects on their assessment.

Just like the monkeys who did not question whether the pot of boiling water was still next to the bananas, Hammond’s faculty and staff resisted thinking about the positive changes Dr. Lopez, an outsider, brought to their school. In short, they were stuck in their old ways. In light of the letter she received from the faculty, Dr. Lopez should still question her own impressions of herself and consider how the feedback of those who work with her daily might make Hammond Community College an institute where everyone—including faculty, staff and students—has confidence in her ability to serve as president.