What a refreshing article! We also believe that the issue is more with the execution of appraisal than the process as such. Completely agree with the onus on year round discussions and ensuring there is a balance between development and reviewing performance. The major challenge seems to be getting everyone to value the time spent reviewing development or performance throughout the year - reducing the need for the end of year tick box that devalues the entire process. Until we can get such discussions to become valued as business as usual the problems will continue. Perhaps the key is making it employee driven, love the thought of more collaboration.

Hi Jackie (we met a year ago)- I really enjoyed your post, particularly the importance of involving the executive and the principle of 'What gets measured gets done' our challenge is of course making sure that it is done well as opposed to just complied with! Sheila from our team is enjoying working with one of your team Mehmet, feeling the benefit of a joined up and collaborative approach in Rexam

This is an interesting debate, my layperson questions are - has ethical leadership been defined? you refer to what it isn't with Sir Fred Goodwin ie are there generic ethics that people would be expected to follow or are they more company or industry specific? If the latter, perhaps 10 years ago an ethic or principle may have been to encourage risk taking whereas now it would be the opposite? Zero harm leadership is a value in one organisation I work in (appropriately - offshore wind farms) - would that be an ethical leadership approach. I suppose I am struggling to see the difference between ethical leadership and value based leadership - am I wrong? For authentic leadership - for me that is more about being true to yourself, being consistent and being aligned with personal values or principles whereas are ethics are external to you? Would welcome your comments. Also I dont know if it is me but I cannot view or access the leadership image above

An interesting read, congratulations for making this work in practice. My question would be how do you get round the fact that some managers may a) feel threatened by furthering someone's career, potentially beyond their own and b) encouraging managers to actually make the time to coach and have these conversations in a meaningful way? Would be interested in your views

I read this article with interest and felt it was worth commenting as I am not sure that I support the assertion that the purpose is primarily about evaluating an employee's worth. I can entirely see why it would be viewed with cynicism if that is seen to be the purpose.

My view is that a performance appraisal should be about motivating and empowering an employee to deliver their maximum. It should be a culmination of a series of meaningful performance discussions over the course of the year and acts as a punctuation point, where previous performance is evaluated and future performance objectives are agreed. This is not about somebody's 'worth' personally or financially but about their performance to date and future potential.

I appreciate it may be semantics as the language of this article reads a little strangely, however I think it s misleading to put the term Psychological appraisal in this list. Perhaps the author is talking about personality and behavioural evaluation tools which could give indication of people's behavioural preferences but this is not the same as assessment. In fact using something like this to evaluate performance could be viewed quite negatively in the eyes of Employment Law.

Please feel free to disagree with me, it is good to promote debate I guess!

I think this is an excellent article and piece of research, as is so often the case much of it may seem like common sense but this isn't actually all that common! The NHS is a people driven organisation yet it is subject to continuous top down change which needs excellent leadership, communication and most importantly people management. Real conversations between individuals, cohesive teams and supportive human interaction.

Performance management forms a huge part of this but as a supportive, developmental and connected process, not a simple adherence to KPI's and targets. In the words of Stephen Covey we want effectiveness not efficiency for our NHS and this paper has some really great examples of how to do this.

I am in complete agreement with both this article and the Comments - it is about culture change in many cases and this should start from the top, unfortunately it is often undermined from the top with lip service being paid to this activity. Managers and Board's need to recognise that people interpret the value they place on appraisal/121 etc as being commensurate with the value they place on them as individuals. This is why it correlates with engagement and with business results.

Time is an issue - and somehow people management tends to drop off the priority list, the problem is this is actually reducing productivity and effectiveness long term.

Hi again

Yes I can really see the distinction in the behaviour you discuss and also Mr Lizard's point and I think it raises new challenges for the individual, manager and organisation - interested in your view.

As an individual - you need to be engaged/driven/proactive/self motivated to make this work. This is great if you are an empowering manager but the behaviours could lack visibility and there is danger of 'loose cannons' all over the organisation working for themselves not others.

As a manager you have to be able to engender respect and give space while still remaining connected and I guess coaching skills to ensure the individual is heading in the right direction. Clear goals linked to the org strategy are going to be vital to ensure efforts are focused in the right direction.

From the organisations point of view - equipment, culture, skills and inspirational company goals and targets are needed...

Just initial thoughts - not fully thought through but am thinking there are subtle behavioural competencies that may need shifting to enable this to work effectively.

Good food for thought

Great article, great combination of evidence base and pragmatism

Perry - I love this article, particularly your reference to shades of VERY grey having spent quite a lot of my career in an extremely grey german organisation. Just one point though - what is the difference between social business and good old fashioned teamwork?