The IDE process at Motorola asked every employee to answer “yes” or “no” to six questions;
1. Do you have a substantive, meaningful, job that contributes to the success of Motorola?
2. Do you know the job behaviours and have the knowledge base to be successful?
3. Has training been identified and made available to continuously upgrade your skills?
4. Do you have a career plan, is it exciting, achievable and being acted on?
5. Have you received candid, positive or negative feedback within the last 30 days, which has helped in improving your performance or achieving your career plan?
6. Is adequate sensitivity shown by the company towards your personal circumstances, gender and culture?
This was done online every quarter and followed by a one-to-one with your boss to discuss how you could improve things together. Every manager in your reporting line could see your results and your own boss would expect to see your action plan to improve your team’s scores over time.
What do you think of this? A draconian measure or a positive statement of a minimum standard of expectation for all employees?
At the time of IDE being implemented, I was struck by the choice of language;
• INDIVIDUAL
• DIGNITY
• ENTITLEMENT
It’s a declaration of what we are choosing to become as an organisation; what we want the experience of being a Motorolan (and yes, that is a thing) to be. It’s universal and unbounded by grade, function or language and culture. It’s a clear message to every manager of the minimum expectation of them in relation to the people they lead. It humbles the role of “manager” to be in service of their employees’ entitlement to dignity at work.
Then there is the “yes/no” answer. No score of 1-10 or five point Likert scale or shades-of-grey adequacy. You either do or you don’t; clear and uncompromising.
The implementation of IDE was often painful. Employees worried about the consequences of saying “no”. Managers worried what consequences would arise from negative scores. Everyone was anxious about the one to one conversations.
>Then there is the “yes/no” answer. No score of 1-10 or five point Likert scale or shades-of-grey adequacy. You either do or you don’t; clear and uncompromising.
A classic bit of corporate bullshittery: Insist on giving employees questionnaires that supposedly enhance their "dignity" and help them feel more comfortable about working for you, but design it all in such a tone deaf way that it only, and very fucking obviously, will create more stress about how they should respond to please your bottom line.
I'm trying to imagine the entirety of my thoughts, dreams and feelings being reduced to binary choices on questions predefined by some corporate wanker - and it being called a dignity initiative.
Even if implementation was painful, did it work well? It sounds good, in making managers accountable and encouraging servant leadership, but I lack the understanding of psychology and unfortunate management to know /how/ it could go wrong, yet have the experience to say as gut instinct, this could go wrong.
Or was it positive but just tone-deaf that they introduced random drug testing at the same time?
