Counterpoint: Ranjan Acharya

People & Strategy, Sept, 2008 by Anna Tavis

COUNTERPOINT

Ranjan Acharya

Joseph George Anjilvelil WIPRO, Ltd. Bangalore, India

The refrain of positive psychology comes through strikingly on reading Marcus Buckingham's proposal to replace remedial, paternalistic, infrequent and outdated performance management systems with strengths-based, employee-driven, community-generated designs. That such a refrain should sound somewhat familiar is due to the flood of visionary writing that recently has engulfed our managerial senses, Gary Hamel (2007) being one of the more radical protagonists.

Since the premise is that strengths seem to determine performance accomplishment, we think it useful to dip into some reflected wisdom from our experience. There is a strand of trait-based thinking that permeates the strengths-based fabric of performance management. So, why is it, we wonder in our part of the world, that our workplace neighbor can be expected to repress his emotions with his colleagues and yet yell his heart out at a cricket stadium? We think that emotional restraint is not merely a function of inner personality traits, but a veritable interaction between the person's inner need and the situation in which it is to be exhibited. Hence, what may be a sure strength may at times be suppressed, and in turn give rise to multiple strengths based on the role one is expected to play in a work context. The samurai warrior need not, therefore, keep smashing every conceivable person on the street to prove his or her combat prowess.

Human beings are known to be amazing learners, and learning accentuates some strengths, while suppressing others with several possible variations in behavior. Hence the question before us becomes, "Do strengths by themselves facilitate requisite behaviors?" Of late, we also have begun to appreciate that behaviors are not so much caused by learnt consequences, as much as by the perception of consequences, and most significantly, by the antecedents to that behavior. On not being able to achieve sales targets, and consequently being negatively rewarded, a sales manager's commitment to the next year's planning exercise is moderated downwards. The antecedent for this consequence that lay in planning is now the more causative influence of this behavior. Over time, the certainty of the consequence and its immediacy qualifies one's choice of behaviors. The faster and more frequent such a performance management practice becomes, the more certain and immediate will be the eventual perception of consequence. In fact, certainty of a consequence would outweigh the positive and/or negative nature of any eventual reward.

Marcus quotes national samples from diverse nations such as USA, UK, Australia, China and India to point out that not more than 12% of workers believe that they play to their strengths at work most of the time. Now, for what patterns we read of cultures, say by the Hofstede traditions (1980), we quickly may note that high power-distance and relatively high collectivistic cultures like India and China seem to be no different on performing to one's best than their apparently opposite cultures like the U.S. and the U.K. From Trompenaars' framework, even rules of thumb like Particularism (India, China) and Universalism (U.S., U.K., Australia) seem to be irrelevant differentiators to working to one's strengths.

Additionally, Gilmore and Pine (1999) captured the dilemma of engagement as the challenge of managing employee energy. Is it possible that organizations carry different levels of employee energy, and that not more than 12% need to feel engaged for overall success? Perhaps a survey respondent to the Gallup questions might stop to reflect, Do I know what my best for today should be? To be able to get 100% involvement everyday is not commonplace. Nature would have its ways for such phenomena. Astrophysicists do not come across new galaxies on an everyday basis.

Csikszentmihalyi's (1996) treatment of creativity is what informs us about what really sets apart the also-rans from the ones who tend to arrive. Creativity, as we may like to see in performance management paradigms, can occur only in the interrelations between the three main parts of a system: 1) The Domain--a set of symbolic rules and procedures that distinguishes one domain from another; 2) The Field--composed of individuals who act as gate-keepers to the domain; and 3) The Individual--the person who has a new idea or recognizes a new pattern to change a domain or establish a new one. "There is no way to tell whether a new thought is valuable, until it passes social evaluation." Ringing in a new paradigm is a systemic phenomenon, however incidental or influential individual thought leaders may be to a new practice of systemic proportions. The confrontation of paradigms with performance management based on strengths may be seen when stock market vagaries determine top management behaviors.

Explicitly unambiguous inputs to a defined process of reaching an end that is fixed and ideal are what lie in notions of stability amidst change (Lawler and Worley, 2006). Such processes do not take away from the positive nature of developmental processes, but inherently call for more tolerance for, and competence with, variety and perspective in our lives. Marcus thus makes a timely reminder of emergent online communities. There are more variants of such goings-on in virtual environments. For example, Intranet blogs are a veritable treasure of how employees behave in written expressive formats. Insights into mindsets and generational differences from such avenues are invaluable in mapping the performance contexts of a range of demographic groups. Beyond electronic networks in the form of the Facebooks and LinkedIns of the Internet era, social networks need to reflect the community of purpose, process and people sensitivity.