Performance - at what point is it just personality

[performance123]

Senior role blah blah… here we are again doing performance calibrations where we discuss/justify the ratings for our teams.

So much of what is discussed is subjective and opinion-based and quite frankly down to personality. If that makes them a bad fit for the role it’s not their fault, surely!!! It’s their line manger’s fault for putting/keeping them there.

Sure there are metrics against some so-called SMART goals but at what point is it just down to personality or natural human behavior?? It’s like “all your normal human reactions are either invalid or inappropriate purely because we’re in a corporate environment.

Some is controllable clearly but some is surely the human element right??

Absolutely. It should never be a surprise that your EOQ/EOY rating is not good.

It is still the case that the human element matters and you can’t just judge stuff off quantitative metrics. It is more than just personality differences.

You get really introverted people who perform incredibly well in roles that involve a lot of social contact. You get extroverted people who do not perform as well. People have different personalities, but they still need to perform in the job role.

This is much closer to what I've been trying to articulate.

We have behaviours that we measure against for the HOW and we have performance goals that we measure for the WHAT. Combining those two ends up with a rating.

But time and time again in our calibrations we have the LMs rating everyone super high on both as a kind of reflection of their own leadership which is bullshit. Then when you dig deeper to find out why so strong on the WHAT, you hear them talking about goals that were not stretching and quite frankly are just "as expected" responsibilities of the role. Then you dig deeper into the HOW and 9 time out of 10 it comes to personality, dressed up as a behaviour (or not). And usually ends up about how "likeable" someone is. Of course behaviour at work is important, but it feels like there's a distaste for somewhat normal human reactions and emotions, and like we're all just expected to be "professional" or "mature" robots.

It's just corporate BS. Sorry I'm totally disillusioned with it all right now!!

OP it sounds very much like you work for the same organisation as me, or somewhere very similar.

I came to start a thread on something similar.My manager passed my probation well ove a yr ago.
Said my colleagues didnt like me though.
Could be differences in working styles as it is a creative industry.
So many percieved wrong doings mentioned by my colleagues some so trivial.
They know i have a hidden disability.
Sales are up and customers are v happy though.
Ive tried my best to be the right fit.
We dont get reviews as manager is too lazy or just wants a quiet life.
Im way more invested in the job than the others.
Why dont they put me on a PIP if im so bad/my face doesnt fit?
Ive had zero absences,contribute plenty.
Still im not part of the clique.

I agree about being expected to be robots.
Creative people rarely behave like that though.

@performance123 you are spot on and it’s why when you analyse the stats you frequently end up with clear indications of disparities based on race, disability and working pattern. It’s “unconscious bias” in action.

You also find that people can be put in a box and as their manager it can be hard to persuade others that when you are looking at the relevant period something that happened 2 years ago is not a factor.

Yes @Sisterpita that’s it.

As much as it’s supposed to be objective and factual it really rarely is.

Current boss is literally marking anyone down if there is even the smallest vaguely negative thing mentioned OR if people basically don’t act in a way that he prefers. So that on top of colleagues bigging up people in their teams to make it look like they themselves are high performers has made for some ridiculous discussions.

I don’t know what the answer is and I know there’s no magic wand when it comes to performance management but ugh ugh ugh.

At my place I have to calibrate the team on a bell curve. 10% have to be low performing, no more than 10% are allowed to be high performing and the rest are in the middle.
Then of course the low performers get cut when there are cuts or benched or reassigned and at the next session (currently every 6 months) we go through the process again.
it is peak corporate bullshit.

for context the team I lead are responsible for finance reporting, they all do the same thing day in day out, they meet the expectations of the role, there is nowhere to progress to in the roles they do, it’s all routine stuff.

Totally agree with you. It’s corporate bummshit. And Calibration sessions are loved by the biggest bullshitters. The loudest voice pushes their staff forward. It’s rarely data driven and some manager just relish a gossip about more junior staff. They are the most awkward point in the year and I don’t think they produce the right answers either. I’d happily do away with them and have data driven performance and just calibrate without the standing around discussing people subjectively. Often even feels 2 faced to me and promotes favouritism.

@DecoratingDiva we don’t have “forced distribution” but we also have a nice “recommended” bell curve.

@Direstraightsagain YY to the two-facedness and favoritism. Exactly the same in our succession planning discussions too.

I don’t know what the answer is but it is all bollocks.

My favourite part is the pretence that these completely subjective decisions and classifications are in any way objective or evidence based.

@performance123 do we work for the same organisation? The logo is a blue animal. Or maybe not. I just Googled and this is some standard performance BS.

The how is supposed to be a list of clearly documented behaviours provided by HR not made up things that come down to 'personality' but any behaviour thing is always subjective... it's ridiculous.

I’m dealing with this now. I have one person on my team and she lacks skills and has a terrible attitude to work. I wasn’t responsible for her hire as I inherited her when I began.

For me it’s down to her personality. I’d much rather she have no skills but was open to collaborating and learning, but she refuses to communicate, refuses to take directions, refuses to work to deadlines, refuses to use project management tools and unilaterally decides to go off and do other things.

Each time I’ve tried to get things on track she blows up at me, accuses me of bullying, backpedals, then goes off sick. Returns to work at the pattern begins again. I cannot understand how she’s ever held a job anywhere.

So for me it’s down to personality. If an employee has the right approach to work they’re happy to learn and grow into the role. If they’re closed off and throw tantrums just by being asked to do their job they’re not likely to develop and you’ve got a problem on your hands.

Performance has to be about delivery, always. I've seen too many big personalities who are not good at delivery and they don't last long.

It's totally that

Whoever plays the political game well enough

Also, where I work, the person in charge is only there because he's the best of a bad bunch. And he's very poor!!

The other thing that I can't stand is all the fake whooping and celebrating the tiniest little thing. And if you don't do it you're seen to be negative. God I can't wait to retire.