Netas’ bell curve? Huh 

How to review performance of mantris when even companies are junking classic appraisal systems

CM Fadnavis’s Mahayuti govt has 42 ministers, up from Shinde govt’s 29. Coalition compulsions, not unlike a rash of promotions in a bid to lock-in veterans. But there are more MLAs from the bell curves of political life to please. Shinde’s looking at a ‘rotation policy’ to make more MLAs ministers. Ajit Pawar speaks of 30-month ministerial terms for some ministries on his beat, presumably barring his own ‘finance’. Management funda buzz of appraisals – ‘periodic review’ and ‘underperformance’ – already has newly minted mantris bristling. And why not, for, what ‘performance review’ has ever been not-annoying or seen as ‘fair’?

Competent performance reviews are elusive across the corporate world. Most companies agree, even if they do little about it, that they’re largely demotivating, time-consuming, and entirely unhelpful exercises. The view via the bell curve is unnatural in 21st century workplaces. The bell curve or Gaussian normal has ‘over-performers’ and under-performers as outliers who fan out at either end of a central hump (bell shape) of averages. The world is mediocre, but there’s nothing like an ‘average’ world or workplace. It’s long been recognised that the bell curve isn’t how the real world stacks up.

A workplace, across sectors, follows more a Pareto distribution (80-20 rule), which is like a ‘hockey stick with a long tail’. That is, a few high values/key performers, alongside very many lower values, the long ‘tail’. Essentially, 80% of ‘outcomes/results’ come from 20% of ‘causes/employees’. Focusing on fixing the glitchy twitchy tail-end, even trimming it time to time, has better impact in terms of workforce competency and improved outcomes. Some, like GE, Adobe and GAP, junked ratings – employees find them irritating. Google pays outsized rewards to retain its top performers, seeing compensation as a ‘lock-in’.

Reviews are flawed as much because of reviewer’s bias, an entire range including unconscious bias. Drawing contrast between two individuals is itself biased, or the halo/horns bias, where a reviewer allows a good or bad trait to eclipse others. And what to say of a reviewer’s pet peeves…or attitudes on gender? Among the least discussed is a reviewer’s desire for a convenient ‘average’ – the bell curve’s legacy. It’s so outdated it’s called HR’s carrier pigeon. Of course, political parties aren’t workplaces. Compensations are, ahem, of varying kinds. Elections are the real performance review. How will CMs play boss-sir? What, after all, is the measure? It can safely be said consensus on KRAs will remain elusive.

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