“The World Isn’t Flat”:  Stepping Back to Move Forward with Performance Management

Despite decades of attention and despite having a prominent role in organizations, Performance Management (PM) it is widely seen as ineffective.  While PM is purported to do many things for organizations, it has evolved primarily to drive reward distribution.  This presentation will discuss why this is the case (a question rarely asked in PM redesign efforts) and if this should be the case (a question never asked in PM redesign efforts).  It turns out these questions have surprising answers. 

Armed with the clarity these answers provide, we step back and examine what PM should do for an organization.    We use a strategy implementation and organization design lens to frame PM as part of an organization’s management and control processes.  This lens enables us to see alternatives for PM other than reward distribution.  We then discuss the need for these changes given the wide range of disruptions organizations are facing today.

Finally, we will also discuss the mindset changes HR will need to make as organizations divorce the concept of motivating and aligning employees from the concept of managing their compensation.  Alternative practices will need to accompany these mindset changes and there are good options to choose from with strong evidence to support them.

Presenter Bio

Alan Colquitt is a seasoned scientist and practitioner with more than 30 years of experience improving organizations.  He is evidence-based, relying on research, data, and science to drive decisions about people, people practices and organizational practices.  He is a macro thinker, well versed in strategy development, strategy implementation, capability development, and organization diagnosis, development, design, and change.  He understands the context within which changes in HR strategy, systems and programs must fit. 

Alan has extensive experience studying, researching and developing solutions across many areas of talent management and organization effectiveness:  Attraction; recruiting and screening; employee value proposition; hiring effectiveness; engagement; retention; diversity and inclusion; high performance; innovation; team and alliance effectiveness; leadership (identification, selection and development); performance management; and pay-for-performance.  He also has extensive knowledge of the external HR landscape with decades of experience working with many consulting firms, technology firms, research institutions, and HR think tanks. 

Alan is an author, blogger, teacher and frequent speaker at conferences and special events.  He is the author of “Next Generation Performance Management:  The Triumph of Science over Myth and Superstition”, published in August of 2017. Alan earned his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Wayne State University. He spent 5 years at Procter & Gamble and 27 years at Eli Lilly and Company in a variety of technical HR leadership positions.  He is currently the Talent Planning, Succession Planning and Global Assessments Lead at John Deere.