Appraisals influence behaviour

#Musings #SliceOfLife #Appraisals

After landing in Mumbai on Dec 24th after a short flight, I expected to be home early thinking that the traffic would be less given year-end holidays, rising risk of the 3rd wave etc. The airport did not look busy and after a long wait of over 15 minutes, finally got in a taxi.

The cab was nice - cool, clean and tidy and soon I settled comfortably and got engrossed in my phone.?

However as we exited the airport area, we were thrown into mad, chaotic traffic. Bumper to Bumper traffics as it is called. All types of vehicles and pedestrians vying with each other and inching (actually) ahead.

After a while, the driver took a left turn, well before the actual Saki-Naka turn. The road was equally packed and I wondered why! The driver took a detour for he knew an inside route that would allow us to avoid the Saki-Naka Jam.?

The road did not look promising. Half of it was dug for concreting, but the driver knew the route and took it hoping for a reprieve. In 10 minutes we were in a mother of all jams. Manoeuvring through a T junction, on a road under construction, with metro construction going on and a good measure of busses, excavators, three-wheelers, two-wheelers, hand carts and assorted 4 wheelers was impossible.

The driver was cool-headed and patiently drove through the traffic. After inching through traffic for close to 30 minutes, the route that the driver expected to land us beyond Saki Naka was shut for traffic.

We had to turn back. We were not the only ones. Several others too wanted to take the same route and had to turn around. The driver was extremely dejected but continued to drive sensibly.

Finally, after an hour we were back on the road where he had taken a diversion. So after 1.5 hours later, we were essentially 5 km away from the Airport!

As I was hoping to get back home, the driver consulted google and took another turn onto a road that was a?kachha?road. Well, a road where the asphalt layer had come out completely. Now I was angry and asked the driver why did he choose this route? His explanation - this showed 5 minutes shorter. A good explanation.?

Finally, the route got us out of the inner lanes of Powai onto the main road leading to IIT.

Thereafter the traffic was reasonable. Finally, I reached home a good 1.5 (over 100 % delayed) later than what would have been a normal time. So I was in the car for two as long as the flight, tired and frustrated. The Cab’s algorithm would not have known the reason why we took the two detours and would have billed me for extra travel and time.?

However as I ended the trip, I felt compelled to tip the driver for his efforts. The results as we know were far from satisfactory. So, did he deserve a tip? The driver was not expecting it. I am sure he must have been steeling himself for a reprimand or a bad rating at the least. So, my gesture was reciprocated by a million-dollar smile.?

I have been wanting to share this ever since. How do we appraise our people? Ideally, we should rate their performance or ‘outcomes’ dispassionately. I guess it is possible to be dispassionate when one is distant from the people. When we are working closely with people and have a direct view of their efforts, challenges and despair, we tend to be more realistic.

Aren’t we told to celebrate failures? Well, however nice it sounds, I do not think we are there when we can ‘celebrate’ failures. A close second would be to tolerate failures. However, this has to be done only when we are certain that the failure is despite trying in the best possible manner and not for want of efforts. Tolerating failure for not trying hard enough is a greater ill.

What do you think of this story? Did the driver deserve a tip? Was his appraisal fair? what could have been a better appraisal? How would you have done it??

Now put this in an organisational construct. How would such performance at rated/appraised? Performance appraisal is a serious business. How we appraise people can dictate how will they behave in future. If they would take calculated risks? Essentially, how we rate, influences how our people will behave going forward.