The Unintended Consequences of Good Work

Before reading this opinion paper, please read the paper entitled “Avoiding Rating Errors.”

Rating errors are always present to reduce the accuracy and objectivity of performance appraisal systems. It is only natural for raters to want to help some people and not others. Because of this tendency two researchers, Blanz & Ghiselli, developed a rating scale which “hid” the weight of the actual rating from the rater, thereby eliminating much of the “bad” variance in the appraisal rating process.

The Blanz & Ghiselli system was developed and validated for the entire state of Arkansas (Bill Clinton was the governor at the time), and the appraisal system enjoyed some initial success, winning an award from one research publication. While the system remained in place for about four years, some unintended consequences revealed themselves during that time.

First, one feedback participant in management was reported to say, “I can’t tell if I am rewarding those workers who deserve high ratings.” Another said, “The person I wanted to promote did not get the highest rating!” So, minimally, the results of virtually eliminating rating errors did nothing to meet the unexpressed expectations of the raters, who appear to have lost some measure of “power” or “influence” by using the system.

In another large state department which registered complaints from the top manager, it was observed that the manager was functionally or intellectually unable to understand the rating system – but also hated it because he could not control rating outcomes. “Fairness” in this case appeared to exist only in the eye of the beholder and not in the demonstrated fairness of the new system.

So the point made here is that you can do a professionally competent, even brilliant job and still fail. Was the work not sufficiently explained to the users? We believed it was. Was the purpose of “fairness” explained? We believe it was. Was it able to circumvent the traditional “good ole boy network and expectations? Apparently it could not. The system of personal was so inculcated within the state that the system was doomed to ultimate failure – an unintended consequence.