One of the better ones

Posted by Mary Skiller via Amazon on 4th Oct 2011

There are probably a dozen or so books on this subject that are equally good, and I'm not sure that any book is significantly better than the others in that grouping.
I happen to like this book, and use it in my HR work and in my company. Its length and to-the-point style make it ideal for busy managers, and it is indeed about as practical as it can get.

Its strength though, is that it breaks out of some of the conventional thinking about performance management and appraisal. For example, it points out that performance problems can indeed be attributed to weakness in an employee, but may also be caused by problems in the actual system of work. In this respect it draws from systems thinking and takes into account some of the criticisms of Deming, Scholtes and others.

My favorite part has to be the idea of "no blame", and that the purpose of performance management and appraisal is not to punish or even to reward, but to identify barriers to performance, and work together with the employee to remove them, no matter where they come from. Since the goal is better individual performance which contributes to organizational performance, I think this is practical indeed.

There's a positiveness to this book. If you think performance management and appraisal are excuses to kick [behind] and blame people for failure, then don't get this book, get a whip and chair.

This review is for the first edition of Performance Management - A Briefcase Book