跟没用的年度考核说再见 A blast of common sense frees staff from appraisals

Last week I did the most unexpectedly uplifting thing I’d done in ages. I was in need of cheering as I’d just sat through a documentary in which the brilliant, bulimic Amy Winehouse drinks herself to death — but never did I think I’d find such solace in a video clip showing the head of Accenture talking about his latest management initiative.

最近，我遇到了一件大快人心的事，我对此完全没有意料到。当时我刚耐着性子看完了一部关于艾米 楠橠斯(Amy Winehouse)的纪录片，片中讲述了才华横溢，却患有暴食症的艾米最后酒精中毒而死。就在我急需让自己开心起来的时候，没想到在看埃森哲(Accenture)掌门人谈论最新管理措施的视频时会让人心情那么舒畅。

In the space of a minute Pierre Nanterme said something wonderful: he is going to free all 330,000 of his staff from the charade of the annual job appraisal. “We are not sure that spending all that time in performance management has been yielding such a great outcome,” he told the Washington Post. “Once a year [I] share with you what I think of you. That doesn’t make any sense. People want to know...愠洀 I doing all right? Nobody’s going to wait for an annual cycle to get that feedback.”

皮埃尔圠泰姆(Pierre Nanterme)在一分钟的片长里讲到了一个绝妙的主意：他准备将手下33万名员工从年度工作考核的形式主义中解放出来。南泰姆告诉《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)：“我们不确定花在绩效管理上的那么多时间是否产生了那么大的效果。（我）一年一次告诉你我对你的看法，这毫无意义。人们想知道……我现在做得怎样？没人想等到一年以后再得到反馈。”

The most extraordinary thing about this blast of common sense is that it comes from Accenture, which over the years has delivered some world-class, paradigm-busting drivel. It was Accenture that brought us the embarrassing “Be greater than” hieroglyphic in its name.

这番常识性的长篇大论中最不同寻常的地方在于，它出自埃森哲。该公司多年来传播了一些世界级的、标新立异的蠢话。正是埃森哲在其名称里嵌入了表示超越的象形符号“>”。

Not only does the company itself spout waffle, so too do its higher officers.

不仅这家公司本身爱说废话，其高层也是如此。

It was Accenture that came up with the slogan: “High performance. Delivered” — that is so long on guff and so short on grammar.

正是埃森哲想出了这条口号：“高效能，实现”——真是废话功力超强，语法水平超烂。

The fact that this company has now noticed what has been apparent to every office worker and every manager in the western world for a couple of decades, gives me great joy. This is very exciting indeed. Performance reviews will soon be over for all of us.

西方世界的每个上班族、每个经理早在几十年前就知道了的事情，埃森哲现在终于注意到了，对此我感到非常开心。这确实令人兴奋，我们所有人很快就可以告别绩效评定了。

Accenture is not the first. Earlier this year Deloitte started to dismantle its extraordinarily cumbersome appraisal machinery, which takes 2m hours a year to churn out one appraisal for 65,000 people. If you think of that in terms of opportunity cost and assume that even the most junior Deloitte people hire themselves out for 100 an hour, the firm has been wasting at least 200m a year on a system that rewards the wrong people, demotivates almost everyone and spreads boredom and cynicism all around.

埃森哲不是第一家提出取消年度工作考核的公司。今年早些时候德勤(Deloitte)开始废除极其繁琐的考核机制，该公司每年要耗时200万小时为6.5万名员工炮制一份评价。如果你考虑到机会成本，并假定德勤就连最初级的员工的时薪都能达到100英镑，那么这家公司每年至少浪费了2亿英镑在这一评价体系上，它奖励了错的人，让几乎所有员工失去工作动力，而且到处传播厌倦和悲观情绪。

Do you notice something strange in this? Both of these companies have large consultancy divisions that sell “human capital solutions”. Over the past few decades both have been charging fat fees in return for stuffing their clients with dreadful appraisal systems. Just like their own.

你有没有注意到其中吊诡之处？上述两家公司都有大型咨询部门专门兜售“人力资本解决方案”。过去几十年这两家公司向客户兜售了一套套可怕的考核制度，从中赚取大笔收入。他们自己也在采用这些制度。

High performance. Delivered, Accenture claims. But what happens if it hasn’t been delivering high performance at all? What if it has been delivering clunky performance management “solutions” that turn reasonable people into alienated cynics? What then?

高效能。实现了，埃森哲如是宣称。但如果它压根从未实现过高效能，结果会怎样？如果它一直以来提供的是拙劣的绩效管理“解决方案”，使本来合适的人选变成了怀才不遇的愤世嫉俗者，结果会怎样呢？

Should the current management of Deloitte and Accenture say sorry for all those useless annual appraisal systems they have prescribed in the past? Should they go further and repay fees, and compensate for the damage?

德勤和埃森哲现任管理层应就过去它们设计的那些没用的年度考核制度说抱歉吗？它们应不应该更进一步，偿还费用，并赔偿损失？

It would be nice; only it isn’t going to happen. The way in which both firms admitted that their own internal systems were rubbish was very clever. Instead of saying that they were a terrible idea in the first place because they are based on an elementary misunderstanding of what it is to be human, they argued that the problem with them is that they no longer fit the new I-want-it-now world. “It’s all about instant performance management,” said the Accenture boss.

能这样当然好，但它们必然不会。这两家公司以一种非常聪明的方式，承认了自己内部考核制度是垃圾。它们没说因为这些考核机制建立在对人类本性的根本误解之上，所以从一开始就是一个糟糕的主意，而是辩称问题在于它们不再适应这个“我现在就要”的世界。埃森哲的老板说：“当今社会需要的是即时绩效管理。”

This is doubly clever. Not only does it mean apologies are not called for, it means a new stream of revenue as they advise clients to replace the old systems with new speedier ones.

这一招非常高明。这不仅意味着它们不需要道歉，还意味着新的收入来源，它们可以建议客户用更快速的新系统替代旧系统。

It is not yet clear how the new appraisals will work, though I fear they will involve vast amounts of data. Accenture has said appraisals in future will be “all about you”, which sounds superficially promising, but I’m not holding my breath.

目前尚不清楚新的评估体系将如何运行，但我担心它们会涉及到大量数据。埃森哲曾表示今后的评估将“全部关于你”，乍一听仿佛大有前途，但我不会屏息以待。

Deloitte has come up with four things which its own managers are asked every quarter about each member of their teams. The questions (which I have rather improved by paraphrasing) go like this: does this person deserve lots more money? Do I like having them on my team? Do I think they are likely to screw up big time? Would I promote them today?

德勤已经提出了四个要点，其管理人员每个季度都要就这四点回答自己团队内每个成员的情况。这些问题大致如下（我倒愿意换一种更好的表述）：这个人是否值得更高的薪水？我是否喜欢我团队里的这些人？我是否认为他们很可能把事情彻底搞砸？我今天愿不愿意提升他们？

The beauty of these questions is that they are simple and they don’t cost 100m. Better still, Deloitte will insist that all its managers check in with the people they manage once a week. This is so sensible, that one wonders why they have only just thought of it.

这些问题的美妙之处在于它们非常简单，而且不会花掉1亿英镑。更妙的是，德勤将让所有管理人员每周都与手下员工核对一次。这一招实在是太高明了，以至于人们不禁要问为什么它们才想到这一点。

My suggestion is even simpler — to replace annual appraisals with nothing at all. Hire only managers who are able to manage, and who are good at telling people how they are doing, not once a week but all the time. If they aren’t up for this, they should not be made managers. If they are up to it, they don’t need an appraisal system as a crutch. They are better off without one.

我对新的年度考核制度的建议更简单——什么都不用做。雇佣经理时，只雇佣那些能够管理，且善于随时（而不是一周一次）告诉人们表现如何的人。如果他们做不到这些，他们就不该成为管理者。如果他们能做到，他们就不需要一个评估系统作为支撑。没有评估系统，他们会做得更棒。