Part 5: Rethinking of Performance Management

The dark side of performance management

Performance management offers us the opportunity to improve our work continually. But there are several ways that the process can go completely off the rails and make it more difficult to achieve our goals. In other words, there’s a dark side to performance management.

Stress

Stress is the first dark aspect of performance management. Psychologists point to the difference between good stress and light pressure to perform one or two steps beyond what we think we can do. And corrosive stress. The heavy pressure affects our feelings about ourselves and our work. Corrosive stress can lead to all sorts of negative behaviour toward others, like anger and aggressiveness. And negative behaviour toward ourselves leading to everything from health issues to drug and other dependencies.

Measurement

Another dark aspect of performance management is the obsession with measurement. Organisational cultures that prize performance measurement above all else can create a climate of fear when workers inevitably fall below their expected…