Counterpoint: Ranjan Acharya

People & Strategy, Sept, 2008 by Anna Tavis

To conclude, performance management is not a problem that can be oversimplified. Merits of positivism and positive thinking around interventions notwithstanding; we must recognize at least two things: 1) Although much remedy emerges from individual awareness for action, the stronger forces that shape behavior are systemic in nature; and 2) the strengths-based approach needs to be integrated with conscious recognition of what may get in the way of effective performance. Significantly, as we started out reasoning our point of view, we concluded the strengths-based approach, if overused in the worship of effectiveness, will be derailed by environmental, cultural, structural and learning process elements within an organization.

Performance in contemporary organizations is about managing behaviors to expectations that are already set by an organization's leadership. Otherwise, leadership loses its capacity to entice its workforce to the insurmountable and employees are in danger of peaking ahead of him/her occupying a significant role. Strengths are but one view from a prism of soft data that human beings represent. Their overuse or underutilization is a function of both the internal needs of the person and the demands of the situation or environment. If we master the manner in which to appreciate people as a collection of strengths and yet hold room for allowable weaknesses in them, the chances are that we could use strengths in a fungible manner. Role models need to stoke the passion for positive attitudes and self-correcting behaviors. Then, taking the strengths-based approach to performance management may indeed be beneficial in the long run.

REFERENCES

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1996). Creativity--Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. London: Harper Perennial.

Gilmore, J. and J. Pine (1999). The Experience Economy. Boston, MA: HBS Press

Hamel, Gary (2007). The Future of Management. Boston, MA: HBS Press.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Lawler, Edward and Christopher Worley (2006). "Winning Support for Organizational Change: Designing Employee Reward Systems that Keep on Working." Ivey Business Journal Online, March 2006.