Performance Appraisal Exercise
Please read this sheet. There is no need to contact your partner before the in-class exercise.
DO NOT SHOW THIS SHEET TO ANYONE.
ROLE FOR BURKE, MANAGER
You feel that you get along fine with your assigned staff. You have always been pretty much of
an idea person and apparently have the knack of passing on your enthusiasm to others assigned to
your jobs. You believe that the team atmosphere you foster with your staff makes them highly
productive, and explains why there has been no significant overtime by your staff; they simply
make better use of their time than do other groups.
You believe in developing your staff people, and you always give them strong recommendations.
You feel that you have gained the reputation of developing your people well because they
frequently go out and get much better jobs. Since the attrition rate is high in your profession, you
feel that the best way to stimulate morale is to develop new staff and to demonstrate that a good
person can get somewhere. Recently, two of the outstanding seniors working for you have turned
down outside offers after discussing their career opportunities with you. You are planning to
recommend them for manager. If fact, you feel that there is a good chance that one of them
might get your current position, as you predict that your early promotion to partner is imminent,
and certainly well justified. The normal partner clock is a minimum of five years, but
outstanding managers like yourself have been invited after just three and a half years.
The other managers in your office do not possess your enthusiasm. Some of them are dull and
unimaginative. During your first year as manager, you used to help them a lot, but you soon
found that they leaned on you, and before long, you were doing their work for them. There is a
lot of pressure in this job, and you feel increasing pressure to spend time at home, so you do not
have the time to do their work. You were promoted because of your ability and your production,
and you don’t intend on allowing other managers to interfere with your career progression. Since
you no longer help the other managers, your productivity has gone up, but a couple of them seem
a bit sore at you. Working at home is a good option as the interruption factor is minimized and
you can accomplish a great deal of work in a more efficient manner.
Since the firm has some dead wood, Stanley ought to recognize these people and assign them the
more routine jobs. Then they would not need your help and you could concentrate your efforts
on the challenging jobs that you have and enjoy. At present, Stanley passes work out pretty
much in the order it comes in. Because you are efficient, you get more than your share of the dull
jobs, and you see no reason why the extra work should not come in the form of “plum” jobs.
You suggested to Stanley that more routine work be turned over to other managers.
You did one thing recently that has bothered you. One of your “routine” clients changed the date
of an important meeting. You should have alerted Stanley, but it slipped your mind. Stanley was
out when you learned of the change, and then you got involved with another client problem and
forgot all about the matter. As a result, Stanley had to make a special out-of-town trip, and he
was quite sore about it. You apologized directly.
Today, you have a performance evaluation interview with Stanley. It should not take very long,
but it is nice to have the partner tell you what a good job you are doing.