appraisal of a problem employee

I get a email saying that he is not satisfied with most of rating and therefore would like to close it as part of process. I encourage him to have face to face discussion as even that is part of process. The risk was the differences being surfacing once again.
Suddenly there was a mail from system that today was the last day and I had to have a telecon with the problem employee to close appraisal.
There were few mistakes from my side that I corrected. He had no problem with the ratings that were not good but with the comments that I had put. At few places I tried to explain with real examples but he created his own thread and asked in end. Did you mean that? I said No and explained my point of view again. He gave some explanation that a partner Director is not our customer and its okay to reply to him more than necessary. He asked for favor and wanted me to go through each of email and suggest him the changes. I said if he is interested than I could help him in future. But he wanted specific examples of complaints that had come against him but I was willing to give a generic feedback. I could not risk exposure to my poor young teammates from the problem employee. It would have been violation of their confidentiality too.
The guy could not give a time when his task would be complete even after multiple personal queries in person and in mail. He could not update his dependents in team about his work-styles and they would come and tell me that he is still not in office and this could cause a delay in their respective module. His test plan was more or less a english essay and even in that he had left sections for others. I could see his discomfort and suggested in a team meeting that all of the team should help with the test cases. He took it otherwise and thought that his responsibility was only creation of template and add few initial test cases. The work was not starting so I atleast wanted him to do something and thus gave simple task like finding a template, customizing to our need and atleast think and put some test cases.
He said if half the team had complained about him why didn’t the other half also do so. He must have planned for full rejection from team but failed in his goal.
Change management, mentoring and team work are related behavior competency and How could I differentiate on each and bring out instances in each where he failed to bring some positive to the team.
Also he expected people to provide him regular update of progress but he on his part forgot to update his team or his manager.
The little experience ones were able to provide more commitment and better updates then why should I bother to work with difficult people. From learning perspective I should.
Few of his points are valid that given the dynamics of the system should he be performing more that a fresher is expected to do. We should have a separate rating mechanism for dynamic environment. He will quit and then I should not be concerned as to why I could not help it?
Bottomline-- If 1 out of 10 of your team is strongly believing that you have a personal mission to spoil their career then it should not bother you. There are 9 careers that you can mentor and prosper but don’t let this learning go idle. Participate and learn from it. Only they provide you with material to write. Are you a difficult employee?

self appraisal - first round of escalation

Do not miss out on valid points because that will loose some learning experience.

Whatever changes happen , it should be demonstrated well, both to team as well as to higher management. Otherwise people may not realize why this change is happening.

Feedback is for people to give and it is for our mind to take it up or not. Criticism is different from feedback.

Is appraisal done so strictly for each line of referred parameter across or is it applicable for this instance?

All demos done on time. No customer complaint. One people issue only. No attrition despite no onsite, no client, constantly changing work environment.

Negative analysis--
Promise of success enables creating space for one self even at the cost of incumbent.

The appraisal was not balance with over emphasis on a single failure if want to call it so. I would view it as collective failure.

post self appraisal

I remember the traffic cop. The fine will be extracted no matter how.

I could not negotiate.

I could not sell well.

I also lost cool after 45mins.

Even I am convinced that in the last 4 week only there have been improvement and I was playing gotti before that for 1.5 yrs.

How much can you transform in 2 months?

Do I really deserve such negative ,irrational and strict feedback?

Do you truly believe that everyone here goes through such a razor like scrutiny?

What is your story now?

Now can you say you played a game?

Did you get enough masala for a write-up?

Is it that bad? Am I so good? Do I need to tell how good am I?

Can I simply do good and allow people to notice? What happens mostly is people don't notice?

My 360 feedback is screwed and now appraisal is screwed. What next?

Will it matter 6 months down the line? Will I remember it in long run?

Taking into account the wider perspective, what did I learn from this exercise? Don't mess with misses ??

a letter to appraiser before the discussion

There are two styles of management and both might have achieved substantially in the past. I appreciate that you have taken out time to provide feedback based on your perception and style of management.
We have differing outlook towards tools and their need. I need to justify the improvement in productivity and why we should use them and thus it should make sense. There is a time and complexity level before a tool usage starts to make sense.

These styles can converged if handled sensitively. Thus we can create a hopeful story. All can benefit from each other's style of working and achieve our targets more efficiently.

Targets should be clearly defined and set in beginning. Bottom-line should be clear and achievable. Priority needs to be set for development teams and urgency of each item has to be properly defined.

What is your expectations? Is it clearly defined in beginning? Or is it a moving target, ambiguous and constantly changing? If you assign 5 task with equal priority and we have limited resources and time then all cannot be completed in time.

I will take feedback from people I have interacted to boost my confidence and strengthen my self-belief. Its not an assurance for approving my style of management but to encourage you to look and appreciate that even this works.

One style of management is freestyle and its encouraging for research and dev kind of projects that will allow creative freedom to learn with high level of motivation and drive.

Second style of management is very methodical and process rich and is required for timely completion of projects above a certain size (both team and duration).

Your recommendations were direct with disregard to individual's preference and style of working. This created one major conflict.

Self-Appraisal -- first cut

There are no expectations set but evaluation is based on some assumed expectations. Prioritization should be top down and it should clearly be mentioned that this is your first priority and this is next. You cannot say that all is equal and use your discretion, How can I if I don’t know what the top really wants. The clarity of vision coming from top cannot be blurred and ambiguous. Thus bottomline would be clearly defined and I will know what top achieve and then will plan accordingly.

The dynamics in solution work environment does not allow you to respond in a structured way. The request in system are random in nature and far in between, you also cannot predict their entry and exit points but you are expected to bring some structure to it.
It may seem to you that your intervention has helped bring order but I can claim that final work product lifecycle could have been reduced by a month without it.
The reason being increasing the team unnecessary just because others did not have work and giving task in random way to resources who did not take similar work in last one year, avoided it is how I would put it. One senior resource is a good individual contributor but is uncomfortable in working with people much junior.
We were putting effort on feasibility and would have graduated to completion just after that. But then more people and one senior person conflict with team and manager and too much micromanagement too soon spoilt the party. Unnecessary tension is not well received. Even I would have passed on the tension but other people issues were nipped in the bud.
Should a solution development team be accountable for failure to market or sell their product features?
Should email be used as a stick with recording every one-to-one conversation and also the warnings with CC to all? Is that mark of respect or distrust? You are essentially telling the superiors that this guy is taking a risk and if something goes wrong then only he is responsible for the consequences and I want to wash off my hands because I had already earned with this email? In solutions you need to take calculated risk based on certain assumptions which you know will not work against you.
My key strengths were empathy. Do you think empathy alone can achieve so much?
There is a separate forum for discussing 360 degrees, why should you have its inputs here?

dinner is off

The technical lead did not have dinner for the past few nights. He called for an update. I was sitting on the chair and he was standing and was dramatic in his exclamations that client demo work was very important. Also emphasized the fact that he has been missing meals for the last few night. My fault? Incidentally he was going on leave for a day before going onsite for demo and the work responsibility was mostly assigned to a young engineer who lost his temper the other night because he was not allowed to go to dinner with his brother and said not so nice things. Thus was the reason for the update and the warning that the more senior engineer will not be working with young one if he continued to give his piece of mind. An additional update was late approval of his travel plans because neither his manager's manager, nor her manager, nor her manager knew who would take the decision. And he luckily got hotel reservation at 11:45Pm in the night.
How would you handle the hot potato?

Positive vibes

I was in real dilemma as my boss had articulated the problem with a difficult employee as inter-personal issue. It was a clear case of professional misconduct but could be due to smokey company policies that do not allow stringent action it may have been easier to carry along.

Moreover a dear friend of mine had advised to generate positive vibes in an atmosphere that could otherwise go haywire and it seems to have worked because we did not touch sensitive areas as I drew the emphasis on positive successes that we had in the past and that this was only due to strict deadline that true character came forth.

Anyways even he is part of team and thus it is my responsibility to make environment friendly for him as I do for the rest. He simply falls into category of vulnerable sensitive puppies as I sometimes feel that me too.

Personally there seems to be no angst so its easy to accept.

Professionally the person needs to work on his office timing and adjustments to team structure, a great shift from individualistic approach and I have to ensure that that happens.. How I don’t know? But I don’t think it will be a big deal.

The boss kept on rambling indirectly and the employee was still seeing the specifics and I was watching the show, a rare treat if you allow me say. The boss gave warning as if it was first occurance, it has been something hidden for over a year and now brought into public light and it may be dangerous to leave it unattended as it is not directly addressed.

mix personal angst into professional conduct

I am not here to correct individual behavior or their personal lifestyle. I am here for a purpose and that is to maintain a healthy team culture in which everyone participates and contributes professionally towards meeting team/group goals.
Everyone has personal needs but they should be able to contain them and sort it out personally either through direct interactions or escalations but should not disturb team's environment to further their cause. They should display a maturity in professional conduct and should not corrupt it for personal needs.
I would have left this issue here if the person in question would have been satisfied by giving me negative 360 but I found that the venom has been passed on to the team too and therefore I am providing this recommendation.
He could not adopt to the ambiguous work environment that comes with a solution setup that is happening for the first time. He could not learn what all we were doing and still will show no interest. He was only focused for the task at hand and showed no interest towards various initiatives that I took for team's welfare. He maintained his own timing and did not bother whether it affected team's need or not. He misused company's resources like Cab for personal reasons like cricket match. He cannot pick up new areas of work quickly and takes too much time to adopt to newer technology. He is not able to generate respect in a team of freshers. He is reluctant to ask for help from his teammates and even after being told that there is a teammate who has done so and so and why don't you discuss the same with him and resolve. He demands respect for his years of experience. His suggestions are silly and diverts team attention and directions and thus get ignored like shift meeting from 10 to 10:05. His explanations are silly and non-consistent like sometimes he mentions that he had backache 3 months back so came at 12 today or yesterday he slept at 12 and so he came at 12 today.

I would have still accommodated him but he has been a difficult resource in course of this project.
At the start of the project I had mentioned that he is lead designer for this project and thus all ideas should be filtered by him and should pass on to team only after he had done its impact analysis on coding/testing etc., He said I was not able to communicate the delay so I was not accepting any changes.
The design of his module went on for endless discussions even after I repeated that start putting it on paper so that I can review the progress and finally when it came on paper the coders were uncomfortable because there was no detail to carry forward to code. On one Friday they came to me and I had to ask them to define the design by themselves and go ahead, there was already a delay of 1 week and no more delays could be tolerated by the schedule. The coders defined the designed on paper and even then the final design documentation is very poor.
During the design phase on Friday evening he tells me that he is on training on Monday. I try to persuade him to understand that a delay in design will have severe impact on coding and thus the whole project. He tells me that he will decide on Monday. I go to the coder and tell him that understand the design verbally and go ahead with your coding because I would not know when it will come out on paper. This is after repeated reminder that his design is a dependency.He finally skipped the training.
I had made a mandate in the team that we should restrain from taking leave as it was a critical target driven project for us and we should all finish our as well as help teammates to finish their task earlier. He comes to me on Wednesday saying he is on leave on Friday. I give him a task list that includes design doc, initiate code review and test plan. I saw the document and left it at that because no point reminding How bad it was after the person has said that he has given his best. The review did not start till late in afternoon and I dont yet know how much was complete.

He has not been able to adjust to team's timing,technical requirements nor has been able to help other teammates in their tasks for faster completion.

Even after all this mess the team is moving along towards meeting its goal but I will not be able to absorb tantrums by such resource on a regular basis.

my cubicle

technical architect and software engineer

There is a TA in team and rest of the team is of SE. The TA was trying to create his own time space and individuality and I was disturbed when it started affecting the team's functioning. I was postponing the dialogue because we were in middle of project and I did not want to disturb the rhythm of the team. Finally there was a code review planned for the day that was before the unplanned leave day of TA and I was enraged that it has not yet begun as there was email from the TA to SE asking for path location of the file even though they sit next to each other. I called the TA and asked him the context of the mail and he showed surprise that why was I so enraged, I asked who owned the review if we kept waiting for the mail reply.
I took him to a room and gave him my piece of mind and I think even he was bottled up so he released his venom too. He has been in team for over a year and has not able to gain respect of the team because the SE's have picked up newer changes and older technologies like J2EE faster than he could adopt. So I was giving him individual role as we had invested him by sending him to onsite training etc., I kept suggesting him that he could take help from any on us that he may have took as disrespect remark as he was TA and rest were SE. He made silly comments in meeting and was not contributing even though I had given him enough opportunity in the beginning to speak up. I would have reprimanded him for diverting team's attention and what I was trying to bring in the team say uniform timing wherein everyone is there so that teammates sont have to depend on each other just to complete their task but he took it as a personal offence to his flexible timing. I asked him why he would take cab that left late in night and he said no one questioned him in his 7 years. I asked him why he did not attend team meetings at 10 in morning and he gave me minute by minute break up and brought in his health reasons too.
Also he was after my planning and his designer role. He has done a bad designing job and still felt that it's okay to delay the project by a week if he gets idea in middle of coding stage. Probably the idea is borrowed from Principal (senior consultant) in the team. And he felt sandwiched between the Principal and me as he thought we had a personal enmity and were causing him suffering using designing and scheduling as alibi. Even pointed out that my written communication was poor as I did not reply to his mail that requested the morning meeting to shift from 10 to 10:05.
He expected other designers to be available at 8:30 in night and he did not mind their waiting them till 12 in afternoon because he was senior.
He kept on challenging me to allow him to be thrown out of the project as his previous attempt to get back to unambiguous and straightforward work environment had failed and he had failed to adjust to a team environment where there are less peers and more juniors.
He was very firm in his belief and could not understand why I kept on insisting on team and its goal and how we can help meet them by participating in them.
As for respect I think in software you get it by deeds than by words because in early stage its a technology intensive industry where in youngsters believe that if you want respect than you have to prove it technically.

unit transfer

I was confused in the project manager role as there is hardly any client interaction and disturbed at my technology(networking/telecom) proximity so thought that I should move into a vertical specific unit for more direct client exposure and revenue bottomline. The resume showed a vendor name that was transforming itself from networking to applications level and the rebranding is still in process so I have to explain the same in the initial few minutes and then they say there is disconnect.
I took my grievance to my boss's boss as the strings of my recent bosses showed no inclination nor support in trying to understand my woes as it is not acceptable practice to make such request. Neither do they have the power.
He mentioned about the recent promotion and how they had done it even though I was not performing the role. For me it did not matter as role entailed no monetary change.
He asked me about my core competency and I said project management blah blah and he said I was too early for that. I started talking about technical skill set I have written few client applications on windows.
He was clear that it cannot be done in the next 6 months. In the mail he mentioned 1 year.
Then I took personal grievance of a senior in group who sometimes loses temper and uses shouting as a mode of communication. He said it would not help him change his decision of timeline even though he would address this matter.

access door and ODC

He was the security officer for the account with a large bank and responsible for setting up of offshore development center. The building was not designed to handle secure access so the small entry door had one part with the magnetic latch and other part was bolted.

The first challenge came with keeping the closed door closed. The facilities wanted the inside number on the access card to provide access to people and there were 400 of them and not everyone took it seriously so they came knocking on the door and guys closest to the door would come and open the door for the door. Sometimes they left the closed door open and there was lot of noise because security officer for the account would come charging in and demand who left it opened.

The second challenge came from individuals who had to squeeze in through the access part of door. The security officer requested the facilities who said it can only be approved by CEO. CEO asked for quote and facilities provided the quote from best builder in town and it was Rs 35K for one door and there were two of that kind. The CEO disapproved the request.

The third challenge came from fire exit as it was a open gateway to other floors and facilities closed it by constructing a wall but then people were worried what would happen in case of a fire and then a door was made that was locked and a key kept in glass enclosure close to the door.

The fourth challenge came from the opening close to door and client on a visit objected that people would just climb and enter ODC. Facilities asked whether they wanted plain or tainted glass and they said tainted.

Newer building that came are still not designed for security aspect as needed by client.

cab request

I wanted to have a common team timings so that some do not have to wait for others if they have dependency.
One of the senior folk who has been around for all his time here was coming by 12 and leaving late and sometimes by cab because the last bus left at 9. He would do so by sending a mail demonstrating that he has left late in the day.
I confronted him and asked his reasons and he started helath etc., I tried to explain that I was trying to bring in a culture wherein people work in day and help each other in common hours of work.
He said no one has questioned his cab request in the past. There are things that one learn beyond 9 for the benefits of the team. In his last project people left by cab almost on daily basis because they were doing another project in day and theirs in the night. The other team members were not available at 8:30 PM.
The other team members said he was not available at 10 AM.

she can shout too

I was struggling with tracking and usage of Microsoft project. My boss’s boss gave a zero gap deadline for the IP creation project. Neither the designers nor the implementators have good skills to execute the idea in decided technology but we said yes. There were few action items that were imposed by my boss on me through her perceptions. I prioritized myself and decided the rest of the information could be retrieved after I did resource leveling in the plan.

I did so and also did the crime of leaving office on time and my boss called me and gave me a blast, of course the tone was close to a shout. I just kept on requesting her to keep down the phone.

The whole of next week was in agony starting with Monday where in my interpretations of the event was successfully suppressed and boss gave one more piece of her mind.

I tried to work and also contemplated quitting. I have been also struggling to quit because I have done so many times in past that I don’t feel like doing again.

There were silly comments like why did I put smiley in the mail and how can I know the urgency of the task because I did not have the bigger picture.

In another meeting in the week I suggested a slippage because of design ideas from another grand thinker in the group who is short on temper and long on ideas. She recommended stretch. I recommended her to get somebody else to do the job and she wanted an email on that too. The agony week was more of email week than meetings.

stretch

Stretch is one more word in Industry which means I don’t care about your evenings, neither your weekends nor your religious holidays. I know that we should plan but when it comes to execution than we should put more efforts than planned just to be on track. Re-planning is recommended but date should not change. No matter how much the team should stretch, you have the freedom to give them compensation off but date should be met.

post analysis of a team meeting

Meeting should always have agenda. So that distractions can be parked well. Also the necessary points can be discussed and sorted out with open communications.
No judgements. Did you hear everyone well?

Did you hear them well?
There is a general feeling of unrest because people don’t like change and surprises.
The team wants processes and well defined requirements and all necessary inputs are to be available before work starts.
Well defined requirements.
They want to focus on implementation only and make it as easy and straight forward as possible. No dependencies or changes that may disrupt the deadlines.
If changes happen then it should not affect appraisals.
At POC stage design and testing reviews are not necessary, it’s a overhead but if its put as a task in tracking then it can be followed up.
We are not getting to do what they like to do and therefore resent being part of this setup.
My career is not getting along as I want it to and please do something about it.
I think we are fine with what we do and there is no need for more.


Once processes start they will complain about too much focus on processes like documentation and tracking and we are not able to find time for work.


Why are you feeling upset?
It went into baby talk "I want this" and why don’t I get this and If I don’t get this then I don’t feel good?
I am not wanted by the team and I am alone and unloved therefore my chest should be tight and I am allowed to be aggressive and defend my turf.

Am I really alone and unloved and unwanted? Is it really my self-worth, my self-esteem, my self. I don’t think so. A definite NO. God loves me, friends like me and family is always there for me.

Root cause
I can keep reiterating the below but will it alleviate of their problems.

Why is it not clear that we are all in a business context? Why do we get lost in technology and start correlating our worth to what we know or not of technology?
If we have to survive in this market then we need to add business value to the company because in turn the company needs to generate business value for its stakeholders (customers, shareholders, employees).
What is your business value? Is it worth and equivalent to what you are paid for?
How can you enhance or deplete your business value?

Solution
You can listen more and help them process their insecurities more by asking them to explore and express themselves. Assurance can be about safe career bet and stable career.
Ask them
Are they insecure about their career?
Are they insecure about their peers?
Are they insecure about their financial status?
Are they insecure about their business value? Is it directly related to technology/language or domain etc.,
Is this an unhealthy team setup where you are not encouraged and allowed to express yourself well?Are you heard properly?

loss of business context

I was feeling good and thought my feel good factor will rub against the team but it ended being defensive about addressing personal issues and why they are important to me? The general feedback was I am of importance and I should be treated so. I dont know and dont care about what you say because this is what I have heard and this is what I think is to be true and therefore I want to pursue that.
What is business context and what does it mean to me? Why am I working for this company if they cannot address my personal needs?
In future you could deflect such questions by humor if they are not part of the agenda.
I have ended up having to defend aggressively that we are all here because of this company and this company wants to make money and therefore we should contribute for the same. Personal needs can be accommadated but it requires some efforts and changes that may not be easy to come by.
I started by discussing the variability and constantness in the design and in every phase of software lifecycle and how it can help individual to become experts in their field of liking. And if you like something then you will find the time to pursue that. Was I trying too hard to put across this point because I have tried it before and always had same result where people continue with their angst and it keeps recurring again and again.
How can we work in a team that has constant change and transitions?