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Objective and Subjective measures – Objective is better, right?
Everyone knows that in the bad old days, before management got
enlightened, people were evaluated all kinds of ways, and a lot of
subjectivity got into the equation, and with subjectivity came
unfairness. In an effort to move to Fair Land, we pretty much abolished
subjective evaluations. Good riddance!
We
don’t quite live in Fair Land yet, but we’re getting there! At least we
don’t have managers who believe in subjectivity – we all know how
important it is to be objective….right? You bet! Ask your managers if
they believe in subjective or objective measures – they know the right
answer!
Now
that we have that out of the way, let’s go to the best restaurant in
town for lunch. The objectively best restaurant. After all, if
objective measures are best to use for a performance evaluation, they
are certainly best to use for a restaurant selection.
Your
manager likes that steak house – you are suggesting MacBurger. Huh?
“That food tastes like junk” your manager complains, but you know the
importance of objectivity, and you know “tastes like junk” sounds WAY
too subjective.
MacBurger offers more food per dollar invested – score one objective
point for MacBurger. The food gets to you faster at MacBurger –
objective point #2. The MacBurger joint has parking closer to the
entrance – score point #3. Pretty soon it becomes obvious – MacBurger
is the only reasonable choice.
Sure,
I just picked that example to prove my point….it was rigged….so, try the
same thing for movies. Or compare movies to plays. Either way, the
number of minutes of viewing per dollar is a good objective standard to
get you started – you can take it from there…
So, if
objective measures are not sufficient to evaluate a restaurant or a
movie, why do you believe they work for employees? Ah, yes, I forgot –
we want to be fair. That would explain why we measure things that are
easily measured objectively rather than things which are important.
Sure, the good employees are not recognized for their actual
contribution to the company’s success, they are recognized (or not) on
something much easier to measure – which, although virtually irrelevant,
is easy to measure. Oh, I already said that. Yeah, easy is what’s
really important. That’s going to build a strong company. It’s
easy.…and objective….and irrelevant.
I was
just wondering – what if a company on one side of the street (Company 1)
evaluated employees and managers based on good clean objective measures
– and the company on the other side of the street (Company 2) used
objective measures when they were relevant, and did a professional job
of using subjective measures when those were more relevant. Let’s say
that Company #2 had to spend a few thousand dollars defending the
resulting employee shakeout. Let’s say that some employees and managers
were not happy with the new way things were being done, and after
griping for a while and getting nowhere, they quit and went to work for
Company #1.
If you
would be so kind, step into my time machine and let’s go forward a few
years. Both companies are still evaluating folks, one using strictly
objective measures, the other using a combination of objective and
subjective measures, with an emphasis on relevance. The lawsuits have
pretty much stopped at Company #2 as the managers got better and better
at evaluating subjective issues fairly and consistently…. WHAT!?!?
FAIRLY!?!?!? You can’t be Subjective AND Fair!!!! Can you?
Sure
you can. And we can talk about that if you like, but let’s look at some
of the other changes in the two companies. Remember those unhappy
employees and managers that quit Company #2 and went to work for Company
#1? They still work there. As the word got out about Company #2 and
their crazy subjectivity, some of the folks at Company#1 got curious.
Tired of carrying the load for people who looked good on objective
measures but, well, didn’t seem to be doing their jobs, they got hired
by Company #2. As time goes by, Company #1 gets more of the employees
who are most comfortable with its objective measures. Company #2
attracts and retains people who are more comfortable with admittedly
imperfect measures of important things than they are with perfect
measurement of the irrelevant.
Objectively, I suppose the folks at both companies look the same, but I
swear, I can see something in the eyes of the people at Company #2, a
spark, and they seem to move differently, more confidently, and in a
little more of a hurry. Sure, those are just subjective things. The
bottom line, however, is an objective measure of the sum of those
subjective things. Which company do you think has the best bottom line
– even after paying those attorneys a few years ago? Where would you
rather be working? Me too.
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