When I worked at IBM at the beginning of my career, I had a mentor. He met with me one time for 24 minutes. One of his metrics on his annual performance management was to “Serve as a mentor,” and I am sure he checked off the box as “complete.” Of course, the intention of having that on the annual form was to develop young consultants.
Cognitive biases distort ethical decision-making. These biases include psychological and organizational factors, which divert one’s attention from the ethical implications. Leaders need to improve their understanding of how these influences impact their perspective; yet, very few do. Their own cognitive biases – as well as the incentive systems they create – negatively hide the ethical dimensions of the problem and promote breakdown behavior.
At Sears Roebuck in the 1990’s, management gave automotive mechanics a sales goal of $147 hour. The intention was to increase the speed of repairs. However, the result was rather than work faster, employees met the goal by overcharging for their services or “repairing” things that were not broken.
I have heard of a similar situation at a call center, which tracks the number of calls per hour taken. When management observed one of the top performers, they realized he raised his “number of calls taken” by picking up and hanging up the phone multiple times without saying a word!
In these performance metric driven environments, leaders know their intentions but must also assess the behavior that these metrics incentivize. Just look at the pressure at accounting, consulting and law firms to maximize billable hours – their incentives may lead to unnecessary tasks, expensive projects, and creative bookkeeping – all to reach their metric goals.
Do your performance metrics incentivize ethical breakdown behavior?
