{domain:"www.qualitydigest.com",server:"169.47.211.87"} Skip to main content

User account menu
Main navigation
  • Topics
    • Customer Care
    • FDA Compliance
    • Healthcare
    • Innovation
    • Lean
    • Management
    • Metrology
    • Operations
    • Risk Management
    • Six Sigma
    • Standards
    • Statistics
    • Supply Chain
    • Sustainability
    • Training
  • Videos/Webinars
    • All videos
    • Product Demos
    • Webinars
  • Advertise
    • Advertise
    • Submit B2B Press Release
    • Write for us
  • Metrology Hub
  • Training
  • Subscribe
  • Log in
Mobile Menu
  • Home
  • Topics
    • 3D Metrology-CMSC
    • Customer Care
    • FDA Compliance
    • Healthcare
    • Innovation
    • Lean
    • Management
    • Metrology
    • Operations
    • Risk Management
    • Six Sigma
    • Standards
    • Statistics
    • Supply Chain
    • Sustainability
    • Training
  • Login / Subscribe
  • More...
    • All Features
    • All News
    • All Videos
    • Contact
    • Training

Do Your Measures Make Employees Mad?

Or motivate them...

Mike McDonald
Thu, 03/01/2018 - 12:01
  • Comment
  • RSS

Social Sharing block

  • Print
  • Add new comment
Body

Fear. Anxiety. Stress. Anger. Not exactly the emotions we’re hoping to invoke in our employees, right? Not exactly the key to motivational management, anyway.

ADVERTISEMENT

Unfortunately, those are the emotions many people feel when it’s time to discuss their work metrics. Employees dread the idea of their manager reducing them to a number. A number that might be accurate and important but doesn’t accurately reflect all they bring to their job.

And no matter the niceties of how it’s all delivered, people get defensive and deflated. Why?

“The very act of measuring communicates distrust, power, control, and dehumanization.” That’s what one fellow student said when the topic of performance measurement came up in my Ph.D. class.

He was right, and he was wrong

He was right because measurement can be dehumanizing. Managers, intentionally or not, end up using measurements negatively in an attempt to motivate people. But it doesn’t work. Instead, it makes them fearful, stressed, anxious, and mad; it makes them feel like they’re never good enough.

He was wrong because measurement itself does not mandate those effects. And employees want measurement.

 …

Want to continue?
Log in or create a FREE account.
Enter your username or email address
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
By logging in you agree to receive communication from Quality Digest. Privacy Policy.
Create a FREE account
Forgot My Password

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/01/2018 - 09:58

sorry Dr Deming, they're still not listening

Two thoughts come to mind as i scanned this.  1) It's the process, not the workers.  2) internal motivation from love of the work is the best kind -eliminates 'carrot & stick' mentality - see Herzberg’s Motivation Theory, 'one of the most replicated studies in the field of job attitudes’.   

  • Reply

Add new comment

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.
Please login to comment.
      

© 2025 Quality Digest. Copyright on content held by Quality Digest or by individual authors. Contact Quality Digest for reprint information.
“Quality Digest" is a trademark owned by Quality Circle Institute Inc.

footer
  • Home
  • Print QD: 1995-2008
  • Print QD: 2008-2009
  • Videos
  • Privacy Policy
  • Write for us
footer second menu
  • Subscribe to Quality Digest
  • About Us
  • Contact Us