Why do people still persist with annual performance reviews?

I am yet to meet someone who actually likes performing annual performance reviews.  There is a whole heap of literature out there explaining why the traditional annual performance review with your direct manager is a poor way to handle staff performance and yet it still seems to be a standard at so many organizations.

What’s wrong with annual performance reviews?

First of all let’s start with the frequency.  Would you only talk to your children once a year about their behavior?  No, I didn’t think so.  So why do it with employees?  Is an annual review really going to encompass everything that you did over the entire 12 months, or is the focus really only going to be on the last two or three months?  Discussing performance with employees should happen weekly, fortnightly or at the very least monthly.

Performance reviews are generally conducted by your direct manager, who more often than not, are not trained in human resources management and how to conduct objective appraisals and perhaps resent having to give up time out of their busy schedule to firstly monitor and record the performance of each of their employees and sit through the review process.  Since the appraisal process is generally a subjective measure, it is usually subject to bias, whether it be gender, race or even office politics.  A manager may wish to avoid conflict so perhaps may add a leniency bias or may insert a centrality bias where employees are generally clustered in the middle of the rating scale.  While performance appraisal can be adapted to look at purely objective goals, these goals generally only take into account a small subset of the employee’s tasks.  If these goals and appraisal are directly linked to a financial reward, the employee may simply focus on achieving those goals to the detriment of the rest of their tasks.

Often performance management and appraisal is directly linked to financial reward such as bonuses or pay rises, however there is often no budget for bonuses to be paid to all employees, leading to the necessary ranking of employees.  This can then lead to a competitive, individualistic culture within the organization that can hamper cooperation and teamwork.  If an employee receives a negative appraisal and they don’t believe that the process was fair, it can lead to mistrust between the employee and their manager thereby reducing their motivation, leading to the appraisal becoming self-fulfilling.

Is there a better way to manage performance?

Managers still need a way to manage the performance of employees and setting objectives and training goals with employees can increase motivation and job satisfaction.  As with all relationships, the best way to manage it is to have regular, open and honest discussion.  While filling out forms once a year may still be a requirement, performance management must be a continuous process.

360-degree reviews where feedback is gathered from multiple sources: managers, peers, subordinates and customers, while perhaps still subject to individual biases, should be combined to give a more objective assessment.  Employees often have more faith in the process and believe they are treated more fairly if they are given the opportunity to contribute and discuss their performance, rather than simply being lectured to.

Performance management should be a positive experience for both managers and employees.  By working on it as a mutual relationship, it can be beneficial to both the organization and its employees.  The organization will benefit when employee goals are aligned with that of the business and employees will remain motivated and engaged.

Does your organization still do a traditional annual performance review?  As a CIO or IT manager do you even have a say in performance management or is it mandated by HR policies?  Please leave a comment below or contact me on twitter @theroadtocio

 

Why the top 10 skills required for a CIO won’t help you get there

You’ve decided that you want to climb the IT career ranks from a technical role to become a CIO, so you go off and research what it takes to be a CIO.  You learn about leadership, strategic thinking and outlining a compelling vision that aligns the IT goals with the goals of the business.  You take the time to practice and hone these abilities while you sit and wait for someone to recognize your skills and give you a tap on the shoulder.  Right?  Not exactly.  While the CIO is a leader that is responsible for defining the strategic direction and driving the alignment between IT and the business, the skills required are not the same as those at the lower levels of IT management.

Leadership versus management

One way to look at this is to compare the qualities of leadership against the management function.  Abraham Zaleznik first asked the question in 1977 Managers and leaders: Are they different?  Zaleznik believed that managers and leaders were different kinds of people, with managers having to cope with performing more mundane tasks such as administrative tasks and controlling resources to solve problems, whereas leaders were “great” people who were active rather than reactive and dealt more with visions and ideas. 

The views on leaders and managers have changed since 1973, with Henry Mintzberg using the terms leader and manager interchangeably because “managers have to lead, and leaders have to manage.”  What hasn’t changed though, is the view of the tasks and processes of management versus leadership.  Management involves allocating and making use of resources, planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling and problem solving, whereas leadership involves establishing a direction and vision, motivating, inspiring and aligning people in pursuit of the vision.  Organizations require both management and leadership because if everyone is focused on leading, then no one is managing the processes and doing the work.

Transactional leadership and transformational leadership

A transactional leadership style utilizes incentives and disciplinary actions as motivation for followers, i.e. there is an exchange (or transaction if you will) of reward for performance.  Transactional leadership is reactive, allowing managers to adapt to change to ensure operations continue to run smoothly.  Transactional leaders will often be hands-on and will often be looked upon to lead by example.

Transformational leadership on the other hand appeals more to a follower’s higher calling by providing inspiration and intellectual stimulation.  Transformational leaders are often labelled charismatic with their ability to firstly articulate a vision and secondly to inspire followers to strive to reach beyond their potential to realize that vision.  Transformational leaders may be regarded as innovators and risk takers.

Junior management and senior management

At the lower levels of management, a manager’s tasks are more focused on the management processes of organizing, supervising and controlling, rather than developing vision and strategy.  In order to move into these lower levels of management, you will be required to display resourcing and problem solving skills.  A senior level manager on the other hand will be more concerned with the development of strategy and building a management team capable of realizing their vision.

Although the traditional view of leadership leans more towards the transformational style, the type of leadership employed should be determined by the situation.  A transactional leadership style may well be more effective at the junior level to ensure that operations run smoothly, whereas senior managers are more likely to exhibit transformational leadership traits.

Why the top 10 skills required for a CIO won’t help you get there

As I’ve discussed in the previous sections, the management processes and leadership styles required in IT management are different depending on what level you are at.  The skills required to become a successful CIO, will not necessarily help you to make that first step into management.  While it is a good idea to research and keep abreast as to how the CIO role is changing and what the role may require of you, it is important that you not jump too far ahead of yourself and lose sight of what you need to be doing to excel in your current position in order to make that next step up the management ladder.

So what required skills are common between the CIO and the most junior IT manager?  If a technical IT staff member wishes to move into management, should they be exhibiting the same skills that are require to become a successful CIO?  Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.

Career path to CIO

When setting out to achieve a career oriented goal, it seems like a logical step to sit down and work out what your career progression will look like in order to achieve that goal.  Since I’m sure that I am not the first person who has decided that they would like to move from a technical role into the upper levels of IT management, I thought it wouldn’t be hard to find what that career path from a technical role to the CIO would look like.  Unfortunately all my searching seemed to come up with were stories of people who went from a technical role, to some sort of management role, and then became CIO, or simply a list of the 5, 8, or 10 skills needed to be a CIO.

If I want to progress my career in the school system, the military, or even the public service, there is a set path of progression up through the ranks that can be mapped out.  So why then is it so hard to find a simple path to the position of CIO?  The answer lies in the fact that from the top down, no two IT departments have the same organizational structure.  The CIO may have a place in the boardroom reporting directly to the CEO, or they may be like my current employer where the CIO reports to the COO, or IT may still fall under the finance department.  There may be multiple C-level IT executives with the recent invention of the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Digital Officer (CDO).  A smaller organization may only have a single layer of management below the CIO, or there may be many layers of management with a convoluted organization structure, such as Cisco, who in August last year were reported to have 419 presidents and 2,420 directors.

So does this mean that those articles where people somehow got into management and then rose to the level of CIO is the true path to follow?  Yes.  And no.  While it is the case that someone in a technical role will most likely have to weave a path through the various levels of IT management, there is nothing to stop the business from hiring a non-IT person for the CIO role, such as David Weymouth who was named as Barclays CIO after he was COO of Barclays’ business banking division.  In fact there are numerous debates raging online regarding whether the CIO should come from a technical or a business background, which will likely be a topic for a future post.

Since there is no set career path to become a CIO, I’ll provide what I see as some logical steps to take in order to reach an executive management role in IT from the point of someone that is currently in a technical support role.  Although I’ll cover this in more detail in future posts, the most important thing to remember when seeking a promotion is that you will not be promoted on the promise that you will perform at a higher level, you must demonstrate that you can do your current job well while displaying some of the qualities necessary for the higher position, bearing in mind that the management and leadership skills required will be different at each step.

Step 1 - Team Leader

The team leader’s position adds some managerial responsibilities to what is essentially still a technical role.  On the management side, a team leader will be responsible for the correct resourcing, such as managing rosters, managing and improving technical processes, and be the point of communication between the team and management.  A team leader drives performance on the technical side through leading by example and coaching or mentoring junior members of the team.  In an organization where a team leader position does not exist, you need to not only stand out technically, but be proactive in seeking responsibility and taking any opportunity for greater engagement with the business.  Examples of this would be to take responsibility for the delivery of projects and working with other departments to ensure that the project will meet or exceed the business requirements.

Step 2 – Junior manager

At this level you may be the manager of a service desk or a small team, such as a team of SysAdmins.  While this is likely to be a hands-off managerial role, you will still be expected to have a deep technical knowledge and be capable of mentoring junior members of the team.  At this level the emphasis is more on the management function rather than leadership: implementing strategy rather than developing strategy.  A junior level manager is focused on making effective use of resources, planning, budgeting, controlling and problem solving.  A junior manager may be responsible for delivering small projects delivering value to one or two business units.

Step 3 – Senior manager

At the senior management level you may be in charge of a large team or a number of teams, such as an IT infrastructure manager or operations manager.  Senior managers are expected to both assist with the development of strategy and to drive the implementation of the strategy as well.  Senior managers require less of a specialized technical knowledge, rather they need to have a broader base of technical knowledge as well as strong connections to the business in order to ensure that the services that IT delivers assist the overall business to achieve its objectives.  Senior managers would be responsible for delivering large projects that will deliver value to the entire business.

Step 4 – CIO/Executive manager

The number of executive managers will often depend on the size of the IT department.  In a smaller IT department this may simply be the CIO, or in a larger organization it may include a number of C-level executives along with a number of IT directors or presidents.  The executive level of management is skewed towards the leadership function, rather than the management function, responsible for establishing an IT strategy that is designed to assist the organization to achieve its business objectives and to motivate, inspire and align people in order to deliver on the strategic vision.

While there is no set career path, hopefully the above steps have provided you with an idea of the career steps that can be taken in order to reach the position of CIO.  Keep in mind that there is no single path to take and the path will vary based on an organization by organization basis.  In future blogs I intend to cover in more detail the steps that I am taking to reach each level of management along with discussions on the management and leadership skills needed at each level of management and how they differ.

The road to CIO

Welcome to the first post of The road to CIO blog.

Although there are a number of CIO blogs out there, these are generally aimed at those already in CIO or IT management positions covering topics regarding leadership or playing buzzword bingo with the latest technology trends.  Although this site will cover some of those topics that are relevant to IT Management, it also aims to provide information on how to move from a technical position to the upper levels of IT management as I document my journey from a network engineer to a CIO.

There currently appears to be a lack of good information regarding a defined career path for IT staff into IT management.  Perhaps this is because the concept of the CIO role itself is a relatively new idea where previously the management of the IT department would fall under finance.  Whereas someone with a business degree may go on to get an MBA and become COO or CEO, or someone with a finance degree may go on to become a CPA and move into a CFO role, the path for an IT professional is much less clear.  This blog aims to fill that gap.

About me

I am a network engineer who has spent the last 12 years or so working for ISPs, systems integrators/consultants and in the enterprise space.  I have a great job as a senior network engineer at an end user organisation, with plenty of flexibility regarding work hours and working remotely, which is especially important with having three kids under the age of 4.  I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering (telecommunications) and numerous IT industry certifications.  I’m currently balancing work and family commitments with a master’s degree in management (information technology).

So if I’m happy with my current job and they provide the flexibility that I need, it begs the question as to why I would choose to undertake this journey.  Is it for money?  While the money could always be better, the answer is no.  The reason is that after 12 years I’ve come to the realisation that I don’t want to do IT support for the remainder of my working life.  I don’t want to be approaching age 65 and still be doing on-call after hours support, or working for a systems integrator and worrying about booking billable hours.  So for me the obvious answer is management.

Will I ever reveal my real name?  Unlikely.  Since the whole point of this blog is about changing roles I do not intend to jeopardise my chances of getting a new position or damage the relationship with my current employer by publicly advertising when I apply for new roles.  Do I have a timetable in which to achieve this goal?  No, in fact it is likely that I will never get there.  Now this may seem counterintuitive when the whole premise of this blog is based on becoming a CIO, however my main priority in life is my family and not a personal quest to become a CIO.  I will certainly do what I can to get there, however I will not sacrifice everything to do so.

I hope that as this blog grows that my thoughts and commentary will provide useful information to those interested in moving from a technology based role to an IT management role, and in turn will encourage others to share their knowledge and insights with me.