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Can Average Players Become Exceptional Ones?
The starting point for a performance measurement system is to recognize that IT people are different from one another. As the top technology executive at a city in the Southeast explains, "I find that leader-type individuals have different goals and needs. Some want to manage and lead, some want prestige and external recognition, some want cash-type rewards."
"The thing that separates average from exceptional technology professionals is usually the soft skills, not the tech skills," adds the IT chief from a $150-million home health care company. "Project management, time management, people management -- all those are critical development areas for techies who want to exceed performance requirements and get promoted."
But many human resources departments are not flexible enough to tailor systems to truly meet the individual needs of high performers. We need to stop "batch processing" IT employees (i.e., doing an assessment of skills early on in their careers and then leaving them to their own devices) and start collecting more real-time information about what is actually happening in the workplace.
David Lewin, a professor of management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, explains the danger of single-assessment performance measurement systems. Companies, he says, "tend to identify fast-trackers or high potentials early on." These fast-trackers are then offered targeted opportunities for development.
The downside, he adds, is that those not designated as fast-trackers are, by inference, on the slow track. "Once someone is labeled as 'nonfast track,' that label tends to stick." Lewin argues that development programs should enhance the capabilities of employees who can move into the exceptional category.
Yet some respondents argue that efforts to turn good employees into great ones are largely futile. "Contrary to popular belief, average performers never achieve the exceptional category," says one IT executive at a $500-million commercial transport business. "You can develop good employees through development programs, but not exceptional employees. Their habits and personality have been well formed."
But a CIO at a government agency looks at it differently. "Experience has demonstrated that most employees, when provided with clear, concise expectations, will rise to an acceptable level of performance," he notes.
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