Conference 7.286::digital

Don rated the US Country performance at 5.  Yet to his surprise 
when he looks at the performance ratings of the 70,000 people who 
make up the US County he's astounded to find only 10 people are 
rated 4's and less than 10 are rated 5's.  He believes we have a 
serious "Performance Management" problem.  This must also be 
addressed immediately.  No longer will personnel "get in the way" 
of managing non performers.  If people are "let go" because of 
performance reasons, managers will be able to hire replacements.
HE'S ASKED ALL MANAGERS TO RE-EVALUATE THEIR PEOPLE BY THE END OF 
MARCH.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I am not sure what scale they are rating folks on. I believe that
ESDP rates their folks on this scale:

	High					Low
	 1         2         3         4         5

	1= Walk on water
	2= Doing job and helping with innovations.
	3= Doing job
	4= Doing job with a lot of help
	5= Failing on the job

Soooooooooo,

If Don is going by the above scale, we are ok with only 10 low
performer out of 70,000 in US Country. If it's the other way
arround, we are REALLY hurting!

What do you think?


Calvin

    Calvin..listen up...he's rating us ALL "5's".  We're failing, and 
    it's easy to understand why we are blowing it.  I just hope that
    the thousands of people who think they have to be a "1" are prepared
    for a big shock.  I wonder how many VP's will get a 4 or 5?  There
    should be at least a few.
    
    In technical terms, I think what we are about to see here is the
    feces passing rapidly through the rotary ventilator!!!  
    
    The market share thing is interesting, as I just read a report this
    morning on how a major mass storage competitor is offering to replace
    Digital RA90's, etc, free-fur-nuthin with a years free service thrown
    in!!  And they are beating the crap out of us...no wonder!
    
    Anybody still think we have time or money to play footsie with silly
    Human Resources Courses?

    RE: .1 Cal, based on the rest of the context I think he's saying
    that we have a whole lot more people who should be rated at 4 or
    worse and that it's their fault that the country is doing so poorly.
    This kind of statement is usually only made by managers who don't
    have a clue as to what is going on or how to fix it. So I assume
    he's being misquoted. I'm sure there is some rating inflation but
    based on my long ago time in the field I suspect that the lower you
    go in the management chain the more accurate the rating are. IN any
    case it looks like the search for low level people to blame for his
    missing his goals is on. Perhaps I'm wrong but that's what it sounds
    like.

    Other interesting tidbits. W Edwards Deming, one of the top experts
    in quality in the world, used to estimate that 85% of the worker bees
    problems were managements fault. Now that he knows more he estimates
    that management bears a higher responsibility then that. I wonder
    what the 50/50 split is based on? How much of the non-Don 50%
    belongs to other line managers? Who is going to address that?
    
    			Alfred

    I don't see this as an indictment at all of the few hundred or couple
    thousands that should be 4 or 5's.  He's beating the crap out of
    management for not doing their job...and not just in failing to
    properly rate people.  The problem is, I'll bet there's 10,000 "1"'s
    and 40,000 "2"'s, and that is pure craziness.  There should be about
    20 1's.   Anyhow, wanna bet that our glorious management smothers
    this one to death too?

    Re .all
    
    I read this differently. It sounded to me like he was going to start
    some real performance evaluation from the top down. Personally if
    I was a high level manager in US Country and my group hadn't been doing
    very well lately I'd be polishing up my resume.
    
    Note that he makes a big point about recognizing the individual
    contributors and utilizing/measuring them on training.
    
    If I was someone down in the trenches I'd be waving a victory flag
    right now and hope to hell he meant what he said. Sounds like there
    could well be a Stalinist purge of a lot of unproductive administrative
    management.
    
    Just maybe this is the start of something significant; I sincerely hope
    so.
    
    Dave

>    If I was someone down in the trenches I'd be waving a victory flag
>    right now and hope to hell he meant what he said. Sounds like there
>    could well be a Stalinist purge of a lot of unproductive administrative
>    management.
    
	Nah.  Most likely, all we'll see is a bunch of managers 
	here at the CSC wearing "SOS ! Stamp out Stovepipes!"
	buttons...

	Digital.  The great leveller...

	Steve h

    .5 I really wanna believe you.  This could be the breakthough we need.
    
                          b u t
    
    .6 You're probably right.  When I see several of "Z"'s directs fired
       then I'll begin to believe.  When I see have the offices of Stow
       empty, for good, they'll I'll believe.
    
       ...but first we need several months of task forces, meetings,
    personnel committees,...time will tell.

    Who's in charge here?
    Who has been in charge here?
    Who put the E/R policies we have into the state they are in?
    Who approves hiring/now and then?
    Who makes/approves the salary plans?
    Who devised the forecasting process?
    
    "I wonder who...?" 

Re .2:

  Lennard,

	Will you PLEASE get off the human resources course schtick you're on.

	Other than that you seem to have the right idea, but are not expressing
    it any too clearly.  The 5 rating means that the ORGANIZATION is failing to 
    do its job.  The PEOPLE in the organization are doing what they have been 
    told to do, which is their job.  There are very few PEOPLE who are failing 
    to do their jobs as defined.
	The ONLY conclustion possible is that the people have been told to do
    the wrong job.  In other words MANAGEMENT has SCREWED UP!  Especially upper
    management.

	Now who loses their jobs when management screws up?  EVERYBODY!  It
    doesn't mater if you've had nothing but 'walks on water' performance
    ratings.  The JOB itself is going away or being changed down to its roots.
    EVERYBODY is going to have to be retrained.  (And human resource training
    is as much training as technical training.)  They are likely to dump the
    whole stinking mess into a blender and pour out a whole new organization.
    A lot of people will get hurt in the process.

	The only groups that MIGHT get away without a lot of shakeup is the
    service groups.  They apparently met their growth targets.  (This may not
    really be good news.  It could mean that our products are so bad that our
    service orgainizations have had to grow just to keep up with our customers
    need to fix them.)

    The HEAT is on!  The message couldn't be clearer from Don's speech and
    what I'm seeing in the field: PERFORM or else you're out!  The concern
    I have is that management will MANAGE us into greater failure instead
    of LEADING us into success.  When you start to "manage" people purely
    by the numbers, you dehumanize people into "production" units.  Where's
    the motivation?  
    
    Don's speech clearly puts the company's financial woes on the worker
    bees' shoulders.  "We're not doing our jobs" is the message I hear. 
    If the problem is 70,000 people not doing their jobs, managing their
    performance may weed out the worst performers, but it won't do squat to
    motivate people.
    
    I hope Don's plan for success works.  I'm disappointed however, that he
    didn't talk once about doing something to help us do our jobs better. 
    
    I wonder, has any of these senior people gone out to the field and
    spend a month or so talking & listening to the troops?  We're clearly
    not selling enough, but do they know why?  Simply blaming it on the 
    troops is pretty lame if not downright insulting. 

    Just a different twist on the 70,000 performance ratings:
    
    	1. A performance rating should be (not always) based on the level
    	   of your job classification and goals. 
    	2. The field is ashamed of "3" - where is it stated  that "3" is
    	   not  doings its job. I assumed a "3" is meeting job reqmt's 
    	   and exceeding in some. Is that Bad! 
    
    Considering the above,  management  is not  rating its workers properly and
    setting goals which will evaluate the employee in terms of achieving
    the busniss goals of the company. Finally, lets not forget the "brown"
    nose workers that will do anything for a "2" or "1". 
    
    As a share holder and employee we owe it help set goals with our manager - 
    that will make us profitable, otherwise we  are at fault too!

    Note that he blamed the organization NOT individuals. That's a
    management problem not an individual contributor problem.
    
    If you have a group of say 4 people and one seems to not be doing their
    job then you could correctly surmise that that person has a problem.
    Let's say two seem to be having problems; still maybe their problem;
    but three or all four then you've clearly got a managemnement or
    organizational problem. Solution, fix the management not the people who
    'appear' to be the problem.
    
    I find it key that he said 'organization' rather than 'people'. Any
    senior manager wirth their salt should be able to tell the difference
    between performance problems with individuals and structural
    performance problems.
    
    Dave

    I received a forwarded message which quoted KO that had many of the same
    statements as .0 BUT the difference was that KO put the problem where it
    belonged (IMHO).  KO pointed to the measurement system as one problem and
    numbers in general as a second.

    The problem with the measurement system is that people can work at cross
    purposes because they are measured on different things.  Want a clear
    example - read the note/replies on CSC charging for internal calls.

    But the more interesting thing was that KO pointed to the fact the managers
    can not be reviewed "by the numbers".  If that is was Don Z. was pointing
    at with his re-evaluate comment then I would be very happy.  If there is an
    organization that is under-performing, isn't the manager's problem.  If,
    however, he is saying that it is the worker bees problem, then I would not
    hold much hope for any improvement either in the bottom line or the
    generally poor morale I see in the field.

    Before you ask, yes, I live and work in the field.

    Lee G.

    Oh boy!  I thought by now there'd be a realistic response to this
    nonsense.  There hasn't.

    A lot of us were around for the rise of Digital to it's peak stock
    price of 199 in 1987.  What do these senior managers think we all did?
    Take stupid pills whose cumulative effect by 1991 took that stock price
    down to 45.

    What knocked Digital down was its inability or unwillingness to adapt
    to change.

    The business cycle is a big part of the problem.  No money center bank
    has been profitable and had increasing earnings.  Zero.  Only First
    Chicago and Bank of America are even profitable.  In the securities
    industry only Morgan Stanley and Salomon are profitable, and we have
    sold anything to these two and probably never will as Morgan Stanley
    and Salomon have investment banking relationships with Sun Microsystems
    and IBM.  The FORBES article reviewing my sector starts "The good news
    for the financial services industry is that McDonald's and Wendy's are
    hiring".  I'll admit that other sectors of the economy as not as bad
    as financial services which in New York City alone has seen a loss of
    75,000 jobs but it's a factor beyond Digital's control.

    Here are a few that are under Digital's control:

    Overall spending in information systems is down and what's even worse
    is shifting from the categories of goods and services sold by Digital
    to goods and services we don't even sell: Laptops, software for IBM
    PC's, and so forth.  I'm not saying the we ought to sell this stuff,
    I'm saying that this shift could have been seen in $10,000 marketing
    studies and in magazines that get mailed to you for free in 1988.

    In what we do sell and what customers do buy, the competition is ready
    to cut their margins and either we do or we don't close the sale.

    The thing that really gets people uncomfortable is to say, OK we blew
    it for 1991, how big and fat is the pipeline to the future and what's
    going to make the pipeline shorter?   We can't control the present, we, or
    rather senior management can influence the future.

    The biggest morale problem us little 5's have is that the crew that
    took us from 200 to 45 is still for the most part calling the shots.

    The roughly 75% drop in Digital stock value from 1987 to 1991 reflects
    the market more than any changes in Digital, in my opinion.  The market
    runs according to rumors and guesses about the economy and how a
    company will fare in it.  So, I pretty much discount the price of
    Digital stock as an indicator about how Digital is doing.
    
    But, the price of Digital stock does, unfortunately, have impact on
    management of the company since money talks.  When our stock was high
    we thought that we were doing wonderful stuff.  When it was low we
    thought we were churning out garbage.  It has served to draw our
    attention on what we do well and on what we do badly, respectively.
    That's good.  But, we need to set the agenda if we really are to do
    well more consistently.  As it is, many of us allow the stock market,
    run by less-informed outsiders operating on rumor and guessing, to set
    the agenda about what we think ourselves.
    
    I interpreted the memo as the signal for a new witch hunt.  Witch hunts
    always find witches, even when there are no witches.  It becomes an
    opportunity to clean out those who are not politically connected.  
    
    I don't know how you can get managers to give out more 5's.  As it is if
    you get a 5 you can pretty much plan on shipping out.  Start giving out
    more 5's and you pretty much admit that you were doing poor
    evaluations.  You also kill morale within your organization which is
    comprised of folks who have not taken any of the transition packages,
    have not taken employment elsewhere and who were under the impression
    that what they do is of value to the company.  Besides, by adjusting
    your ratings you say that you yourself got too high a rating.  But, if
    you don't make any changes to your evaluations and let other managers
    readjust, then you come out smelling like a rose.  Handing out lower
    ratings is a community good.  That is, everybody wants it, but
    nobody wants to contribute to it by administering it their own
    organizations.
    
    It has also been suggested that this refers to perhaps evaluating
    organizations rather than individuals and then reorganizing or doing
    major surgery as a result.  But, this is what has supposedly been
    happening over the past two or three years.  If it isn't happening then
    what we have now are poor organizations that have at very least
    management that is able to convince the powers that be that they are
    good organizations.  They have become experienced at this over the past
    two years and can probably withstand any new ideas that are dreamed up
    at the top.  On the other hand, organizations that have not had to
    really work to defend their positions may have less experience at
    struggling to survive.  In other words, there may be witches, but now
    they know better how to avoid looking like witches than the innocent.
    
    I agree with the comment that we'll probably see something like buttons
    that talk about removing stovepipes.  We consistently make the mistake
    of assuming that the messenger practices what is preached.  
    
    The only viable solution I see is to avoid witch hunts, hang on to our
    good people, train or retrain them and make them successful at 
    contributing to the good of the company.  We need to stop using the
    price of Digital stock as THE metric of how we're doing and get back to
    measuring our success by our profits and potentials for profits as WE
    determine and not according to outsiders operating on rumors, guesses
    and less information than we have about ourselves.  
    
    We need to REWARD managers for bringing bad news if we want to eliminate 
    stovepiping.  As things are now, upper managers want to shoot the
    messenger and the effect trickles down.  In the simulation world if I
    try to prove that a product works and just look for that, I'll look
    good for a while.  But, when the product gets out there the bugs show
    up and the product is a failure.  But, if I look for BUGS and measure
    my success by that, the product quality goes up.  The engineering world
    has learned to REWARD for the discovery of imperfections.  Can you
    imagine what would happen if I were penalized for the bugs I found in
    circuits?  Now, what happens when I am penalized for the problems I
    find in my organization and document in a report?  Managers now know
    that they will get maybe a temporary pat on the back but it will come
    around to haunt them in their reviews.  We need to reward managers
    that snoop out the problems and have the couraage and smarts to use the 
    powers of the upper levels to help resolve these problems.  These are the 
    guys/gals that need to be rewarded and promoted.  And, this attitude
    needs to go down to the very lowest ranks, down to encouraging every
    "grunt" (like me) to work with management to solve the company's
    problems.  And, only then will stovepiping cease.
    
    Just one grunt's opinion ...
    
    Steve

    
    And another grunt's opinion.
    
    Someone a few back mentioned Mr. W. Edward's Deming.  For sure,
    he would lay the problem exclusively at the feet of management.
    He has worked with HUNDREDS of companies here and in Japan and
    his experience has borne this out time and time again.  In fact,
    as pointed out, he has revised his initial estimates of how often
    management is the problem to be higher than he originally thought.
    
    I agree.  Sounds like a witch hunt is on.
    
    Profits?  That is NOT the problem.  We will return to profitable
    levels when we FINALLY figure out that we must start satisfying
    customers and not ourselves.  Reply .15 pointed that out.  The
    direction the market was taking was no secret.  We simply did NOT
    listen and adjust.  He's right.  The leadership took us from 200
    to 45, not the worker bees.  Deming has demonstrated over and over
    that employees WANT to do a good job and WILL if you work with them
    and let them.  I often wonder how many of our 5's are rated there
    not because they can't/don't do good work, but because it isn't
    all that clear what good work IS.
    
    We shall what comes of all this ...
    
    fwiw,
    Steve
    

    OK .9....I'll get off the HR kick for now.  Don't assume that services
    organizations will be immune just because they are profitable.  I'm
    in Software Product Services, and we have some of the highest profit
    margins in DEC.  Last Monday my counterpart in Canada was "packaged".
    
    Profitability is a major problem.  Saw a report last week that the
    majority if PBU being subjected to Executive Committee review, are
    losing money when evaluated by the "New Management System" metrics.
    I think we've only seen the beginning.  I heard for years that we
    lose our butts on hardware, and I think that'll be proven now.
    
    Yes .15.....I share you concerns to an extreme.  I have zero confidence
    that the managers who got us into this can get us out.  I believe we
    will see a classic witchhunt, the end results of which will be only to
    worsen the situation.
    
    Our present corps of middle-to-upper management was/is too much driven
    by the value of their stock options.  I don't think a lot of people
    realize that supplementary annual incomes in the range of 50-75K from
    executive stock options was very common prior to the collapse.  Hell,
    I was just a level 12 and I was bringin' five figures from stock.
    These guys are gonna destroy us.

    
    I have been considering transferring my skill set into the field.
    I'm good with people and have a considerable amount of technical
    skill.  I'd like to be part of making this company REALLY responsive
    in the field.  I'm having DEEP second thoughts now, and here's why:
    
    >>Don rated the US Country performance at 5.  Yet to his surprise
    >>when he looks at the performance ratings of the 70,000 people who
    >>make up the US County he's astounded to find only 10 people are
    >>rated 4's and less than 10 are rated 5's.  He believes we have a
    >>serious "Performance Management" problem.  This must also be
    >>addressed immediately.  No longer will personnel "get in the way"
    >>of managing non performers.  If people are "let go" because of
    >>performance reasons, managers will be able to hire replacements.
    >>HE'S ASKED ALL MANAGERS TO RE-EVALUATE THEIR PEOPLE BY THE END OF
    >>MARCH.
    
    I assume this quote is accurate, and will do so until I see it retracted
    or revised by Zereski or someone on that level.  Given that caveat,
    this paragraph leaves me with the impression that upper/middle
    management STILL hasn't got the picture.  Maybe I'm missing something.
    
    I figure it this way:  if the country rating is 5 and most performers 
    are in the 1-3 range, then worker bees are doing well but the organization
    is failing.  This isn't a *performance* issues (that is, don't blame the
    worker bees):  it's that the managers have the worker bees doing the
    WRONG THINGS.  That is, bad goals plus good performance equals good
    performance in the wrong areas, not bad performers.
    
    Doesn't that make sense to YOU?  Unless there *is* a conspiracy among
    managers to over-rate their direct reports... (insert snort of dismissive 
    laughter here.)
    
    But most troubling here (perhaps I'm less hopeful than some others) is
    that I do NOT see that this message from Zareski places responsibility
    for this mess in managements lap.  He does NOT clearly state that this
    is a problem *of* managers to be cleared up by managers.  It states
    that this is a performance problem, to be handled by firing those who 
    do not perform.  "SOS" is nice, but if the perceived message is "Fire the 
    bozos", managers will fire alleged "bozos" when their profit and loss 
    statements look bad.  They won't look to make themselves the scapegoats.
    
    This reminds me of the courtroom scene in The Caine Mutiny when Queeg
    breaks down and starts blaming it all on "unreliable and conniving
    junior officers".
    
    MM
    
    

    I think what you are seeing here is the "Shields Legacy".  These guys
    have been brought up, literally, to think they can shout, threaten,
    and worst of all, measure themselves out of any problem.  His shadow
    lingers on...........

    re: .-2
    
    Queeg wasn't on trial.  His junior officers were on trial for mutiny.
    Maybe there's a lesson in there.

    As I understand it, performance reviews are not reserved for those at
    the bottom ranks; managers get them too.  Part of a manager's job is to
    set realistic goals and/or provide realistic estimates that others can
    use to set goals.  Those goals and estimates need to take into
    consideration both internal factors, such as the capabilities of
    employees and external factors, such as business conditions.  If a
    manager sets unrealistic goals or provides bad estimates, their review
    should suffer.

    The tricky problem, I suppose, is that once bad data gets into the
    system, it becomes difficult to determine who is at fault.  If a
    manager set a goal based upon bad estimates provided by others who made
    their estimates based upon the goals set by still others and so on and
    so on, just whom is to blame?   

    One answer to that question which works to improve the situation is to
    assume that everyone in the chain must share some of the blame, UNLESS
    they questioned the information they were provided and got revised data
    or at least PASSED ALONG their reservations.  (i.e. "They said the
    project would be complete by Nov. 1 but I suspect they will be late
    because . . .")  But anyone who expresses reservations which prove to
    be false is also providing bad data and should be blamed for that in
    their reviews. 

    Accuracy should be rewarded, inaccuracy should be penalized at all
    levels.  Accuracy, by itself, will not make us more profitable, but
    unless our estimates and goals are accurate, we can become more
    profitable only by luck, not by design.
    
    Steve

    Re. all
    The first to go will be the COD candidates, then the worker bees, not
    the management. They are needed to run things, if and when they get 
    better, you can always hire other people.
    
    Even though the fault liew with the people that are guiding the show.
    
    Enough said.
    

    re: .23
    
    I don't think such pessimism is warranted.  Like several of the other
    respondents I read the message as meaning that Zereski understands
    that the problem is with management.  How else can the organization
    get a "5" while the people in it are getting "2"s and "3"s.  Either
    management isn't recognizing incompetence on the part of the people
    below them, or the metrics are wrong.  In either case the problem
    can only be fixed by changing what the managers do.
        John Sauter

    
    Re:.25  Right on target!
    
    RE: This topic in general... Word on the street here in Hotlanta is
    that that the re-writes are really because the brass wanted to use the
    4's and 5's to lay-off and there were not enough to make a dent. (Not
    many 3's either). I hope this is wrong and that the greatest popularity
    contest in Dec history isn't underway....
    

    In sales people do not get a salary review if their performance is a 4
    or a 5.  Example; lets say a rep's sales performance is 60% of budget
    since their last review and it currently time for their salary review.
    At this point we would delay their review until such time their sales
    performance warrents a 3 or higher.  Should the lack of performance
    continue this person would be subject to corrective action (ie. PPP
    6.2.1)
    
    My point is that there are 4 and 5 performers it is just that they do
    not show up in the system formally until they bring their performance
    up to acceptable levels (3 or higher).  Those that don't get it
    together should be taken through the corrective action process.  I
    believe one of Don's points is that we need to aggressively work the
    non-performers up to acceptable levels or out of the company.
    
    Another problem is inconsistency on how the system is implemented.  A 3
    in one group maybe a 2 or a 1 in another group.  This shows up in the
    same facility as we have three sales districts in our building and you
    should hear the side discussions on reviews and promotions in one
    district or another.
    
    The "numbers" may leed one to conclude there are very few 4's and 5's
    but they are there.  The implementation is broken!
    
    Chuck

I think Don's message is loud and clear, "I want more 4's & 5's".
Now just what do you think a politically astute manager is going to do?

If Don can not believe the current figures then what makes him think that the
new set is going to be any more believable? Er, let me rephrase that, what
makes him think that the new set will be any more correct? If he doesnt 
believe the current set, then he should have a different person do the next 
review, preferably someone that he trusts. Otherwise he is going to get 
exactly what he wants.

- George

    You got it, George.  This is reeeeeeeally scary!  We are one small
    step away from performance measurement quotas.  
    
    I can't believe that the "Z" doesn't see what he is creating here.  His
    reports are gonna come in with boocoo 4's and 5's now.  Talk about
    managing the outcome.  Joe Stalin would blush.
    
    It's very obvious we don't know how to do this either.

>    You got it, George.  This is reeeeeeeally scary!  We are one small
>    step away from performance measurement quotas.  

We are already there.  According to one manager I've spoken to, groups must
force their performance appraisals to fit the standard bell curve.

The one question I haven't been able to get answered, is what is the size of
a 'group'.

Bob

  ... but when things eventually improve, will it be OK to say that a group
has a 1 performance but that all the poeple in the group are 3's, 4's and 5's?

That may look like a silly question but it is not.  I have hear those very words
as a justification for the ratings that people have received even when the
group has performed miracles.  Strange but true!

Lee G.

re: .30,

> We are already there.  According to one manager I've spoken to, groups must
> force their performance appraisals to fit the standard bell curve.

	The lesson to be learned here is to make sure that the next time
    you take a new job within DEC, that you join a mediocre organization.
    If you make the mistake of joining a top notch organization, you will
    undoubtedly find yourself at the bottom of the curve (at least for the
    first year or two).

				   -davo
		(who recently joined a top notch organization)

    Consider this for a moment. Where or when, have you ever heard of any
    manager,low or high level, willingly, reduce or eliminate, his next pay
    raise by admitting that he or she made major blunders in judgement????
    NEVER!!!!! I don't know and have never met Don Zereski. In reading his
    message, I would say that he is being told what he wants to hear; the
    problems lie else where, not in his backyard. Can you imagine that his
    suborodinates are going to say "Yah Don, I screwed up. Cut my raise. I
    deserve it." IN YOUR DREAMS!!! If senior management wants to see where
    the problems are and the best course to take to correct the situation,
    then they should get out of their offices and talk to the" GRASS
    ROOTS." The people doing the work "KNOW" where the problems are,how to
    fix them,what needs to be done to get the most out of the time to do
    the job most efficiently. What else do you need to know,in order to get
    DEC back on track and in the black. Any senior level manager is so far
    removed from the realities of the day to day working environment; how
    can they have a grasp on what is really happening!!! I would not want
    to rely on other people, to make statements or judgements, based on
    their imputs, without some abstract imputs from the sources that willbe
    the most effected by the outcome. 
    
    
    
                       From a loyal stock holding badge carrying employee 
     

    re .30  - "groups must force their performance appraisals to fit the
               stnadard bell curve"
    
    This sounds more like a cop-out on the managers part than some
    "directive from above". A manager should be able to talk directly
    and honestly about your performance and not be putting the "blame"
    of a lower performance rating elsewhere. The guidelines are clear on
    how we measure performance and if I was ever told to give someone
    a lower rating than they deserved based on a bell curve metric, I'd
    be in personnel (or court) as fast as my legs would carry me.
    
    Bill

    I think that at the top level they should see a bell curve as far as
    evaluations go.  This is because the report at the top is for a large
    sample and it is reasonable to expect a normal distribution.  The
    problem is that bell curves ONLY work for normal distributions of large
    samples.  When you get lower in the organization you no longer are
    dealing with large samples.  You now have small samples and the
    distributions become heavily skewed by non-random forces.
    
    It is these forces that management needs to deal with.  Those that lead
    to bad performance should be correctd.  Those that lead to good
    performance should be nurtured.  Since these forces are always
    changing, the large sample will be relatively unaffected except that
    standards as a whole would probably increase, ideally.
    
    Now, if you force all the small samples to have the same normal 
    distributions as the large sample, you have utterly destroyed the value 
    of the evaluations.  This is because with the small samples reporting 
    normal distribution, no attention will be drawn to the non-random forces 
    that would otherwise cause the results to be skewed.  The affects of the
    non-random forces will be masked by the dominating force that results
    by making the small samples appear to have normal distribution.
    
    Steve

    Many years ago I queried several managers as to the equity of the
    performance rating system. I cited an example of two groups of 5
    people each all with same job codes, doing same things, etc. Every
    member of Group 'A' were super-skilled, super team players, etc.
    etc. and every member of Group 'B' was merely mediocre. I wanted to
    know how, overall, group 'A' would fare compared to group 'B' at
    salary time if groups A&B were in completely separate political
    geographies.
    
    It was explained to me that, for the most part, each group would
    receive nearly equal chunks of cash. Individuals within a group
    would receive according to their performance relative to other
    members within their group (as determined by the group manager),
    and was *NOT* relative to other groups. I was told that, in time,
    group 'A' would someday be compensated more than group 'B'.
    
    I pointed out that the worst performer in group A might be the best
    performer in group B but would wind up the loser since they were in
    a group of highly talented/motivated people. I was told that
    does/could/did happen but it was merely an unfortunate by-product
    of DEC's system of performance evaluations and 'pay for
    performance' guidelines.
    
    For years DEC has operated on the assumption that all 'groups' are
    equal in performance and that any group has people that fit along
    all points of the bell curve. I can buy into the theory that in any
    group (of enough size) there are people that are high/middle/low on
    a curve but what is not the same from one group to another is the
    width and numeric midpoint of the curve.
    
    My great hope when all of the hoopla and frenzy about JEC was going
    on was that the result would be corporate-wide performance
    guidelines and measurement so that if a person was a code 123XYZ
    and they were 5th best out of all 100 123XYZ's in the country that
    they would fare well even though they were in a group that
    consisted of all top-notch performers. I realized then and now that
    such was not the goal of JEC but I had hoped that 'a great
    leveling' would occur as a result.
    
    If the above few notes are true (that a mandate has been issued to
    'create' 4's and 5's within groups) then you may be one of the
    better performers in the country but if you're not one of the best
    in your group then you are hosed. How you can apply the 'bell
    curve' to small groups is also a mystery to me...
    
    I would also like to take issue with the performance timeframes
    involved. Someone that has been a historically great performer
    could, on a temporary basis, have a lower performance rating due to
    family problems, divorce, bad manager, etc. impacting their
    performance. If I understand what I read here then they could get
    an unscheduled review, be rated a 4 or 5 and be out the door
    despite the fact that their performance has been exemplary in the
    past. Examination of performance (in order to ascertain candidates
    for termination) should be based on more that just a few recent
    months- all issues and factors should be closely examined.
    
    Lee

    Several years ago the corporation abolished the "4" rating, the ratings
    1,2,&3 indicated a person was doing their job. the "5" rating, meant
    you were on the way out and management was pushing. The "4" rating
    meant you were not meeting job requirements and unless you started
    to you were in deep sneekers. Why we ever got rid of the "4" I'll never
    know, now it's back, and is a useful tool in measuring performance, now
    that it can be used, we will have more "4's" on the scene, not sure
    for how long with the current layoffs looming.
    
    the point here is now managers once again have an effective way 
    to measure, this should help.

    re: .-1
    
    that's interesting; when I joined Digital 3 1/2 years ago I was in a
    tools engineering group which was part of a larger engineering
    organization.  In the 1988 salary planning cycle, which seems to have
    been the last of the lucrative periods, our group was given an
    exceedingly small portion of money for raises on the justification that
    our group was new (it had only been formed in early 1987), we were only
    doing proof of concept and prototype work, etc...never mind that we had
    met all of our commitments and produced all fully-functional prototypes
    on schedule, while other groups were slipping and sliding all over the
    place.  The end result was that the individuals in our group got
    positively screwed on raises, except for one or two people who got
    extra $ due to promotions from senior SW engineer to principal.  We
    were told to "wait till next year" and the rotten raises would be made
    up for, which of course never happened since that was the time of the
    6-month salary freeze and the start of austere raises.
    
    At least within our engineering org., there was a great deal of
    inequity between similar-sized, and parallel-level groups.

    .38 refers to .36, not .37; notes collision

    
    All of the downsides suggested here to ratings are among the reasons
    why Deming has been saying for years that we should get rid of
    individual performance ratings.  They do NOT support their own goals.
    Companies which have followed his advice have been quite satisfied
    with the results.
    
    Steve
    

    rep .35 -< simple statistics ... >-
    
    No, No, No!
    
    If they see a bell curve at the top, it means that our managers are
    doing even worse than we suspect!
    
    Selection of new people, assignment to jobs, monitoring performance,
    and taking corrective action are the *core responsibilities* of
    management.  The manager's goal should be to succeed by assuring
    his/her people succeed at their assignments.  If all managers are
    successful at this, the distribution should definitely *not* be
    bell-shaped.  There should be very few 4's and 5's, because they would
    be screened out or reassigned to tasks they can do.
    
    The only credible interpretation of Z's message is...  (facetiously)
    
         "I can't understand how the organization itself fails if the
         individuals succeed."
    
    and the obvious answer is ...
    
         "Because there is no effective integrative force.  Everyone is
         being successful at undoing what someone else is doing."
         
    
    I am convinced that Z's message has been thoroughly misinterpreted and
    that misinterpretation can indeed lead to some of the ugly managerial
    misbehavior people have been worring about.  I hope Z will quickly make
    himself clearer.
    
    Regards,
    
    Dick (the infamous statistician who can lie with charts and graphs)
    
    
    

In the memo, I believe that Don Zereski states that we are presently at
1986 revenue levels.

While I realize that a truly accurate number is difficult to come by, does
anyone know how many employees Digital had in 1986?  Perhaps it is stated
in the Annual Report for that year (I don't have a copy).

    re: normal distribution for performance ratings
    
    No, no, no.  There's a fundamental disconnect here.  To simplify
    matters, let's take all of the employees in one particular group
    (to eliminate intergroup variations) and having the same job title
    and code (to eliminate interlevel variatios).  Now, let's evaluate
    each of these people.  For each individual person, here's what should
    happen: first, get out the official-like job description for their
    job title and code (assuming you're not intimately familiar with it
    and how to use it already, a fair assumption for most of the managers
    I've had over the years); then you write down the employee's
    assignments during the review cycle; then you evaluate the employee's
    performance on those assignments, based on expectation levels derived
    from the JOB DESCRIPTION for that level.
    
    In other words, each person is individually rated based on their
    performance with respect to their job description: are they meeting
    the requirements of the job (as described in the job description),
    are they exceeding the requirements of the job description, and so
    on.  Each person's performance is individually compared to a FIXED
    STANDARD (the job description) for their current level.  Since each
    person is being compared to a fixed standard (as opposed to being
    compared to EACH OTHER), the normal distribution does not apply.
    
    It is quite possible for all of the people at a given level in a
    group to be "3" performers, or all "2" and "3" performers, or any
    other distribution, for that matter, depending on where they are
    in their career path, their assignments, whether they've been
    recently promoted, and many other variables.  We are not talking
    about a classful of people at the same level taking the same
    course with the same instructor.  It is a diverse and non-random
    population, and I repeat, the normal distribution does not apply,
    and should not be forced upon performance ratings, regardless of
    the size or content of the organizations.
    
    Beyond the invalidity of applying the normal distribution to this
    situation, we also have the added situation that "4"'s and especially
    "5"'s should have been handled on an ongoing basis so that people with
    those ratings should either improve to a "3", take a demotion so that
    they can perform adequately at a lower level (anyone ever hear of
    THAT happening??), or be fired for non-performance.  Thus there
    should indeed be few "4"'s and almost no "5"'s in a group, at any
    given moment.
    
    But don't get me wrong; "4"'s and "5"'s should indeed be given *where
    appropriate* (and not based on a simpleton's damned bell curve, either),
    but I've almost never seen it in almost twelve years here.
    
    There is absolutely no logical justification for reducing an employee's
    performance rating this year if their performance hasn't degraded and
    their job description hasn't changed.  It's that simple (or it should
    be!).  If employees (who are meeting their requirements or better)
    start getting "4"'s and "5"'s now, just to make things easy for
    management to assign numbers, to provide a convenient scapegoat and
    pretend they're addressing the problems, and to satisfy a hasty
    vice-presidential flame, then things are going to get a lot more
    sour than they already are.  Do they really think that people are
    going to do a better job when they get this latest kick in the teeth?
    
    Chris
    

    re: .41
    
    Dick,
    
    Did you read my reply or just the first few lines?  The gist of your
    reply indicates to me that you probably just read the first few lines
    because the bulk of the reply shows, from a statistical point of view,
    where the pitfalls are in mandating that the results fit a bell curve.
    We are probably in more agreement than your reply indicated.  The bulk of 
    my reply argues that the mandate to have normal distribution in the
    final results can override the detection of forces that come into play 
    that contribute to poor or excellent results.
    
    I agree that 4's and 5's should be reasssigned and possibly dismissed.
    BUT, that doesn't mean that they should not show up in the reports!
    That would heavily skew and further invalidate the results.  More, just
    because a manager finds a problem and can fix it does not necessarily
    mean it should not be reported.  This is actually related to points I
    have made elsewhere about how managers that find problems SHOULD report
    them and use upper management to help fix them as needed.  That's what
    upper management is asking for, but they won't get it until they
    ENCOURAGE and REWARD managers for this.  Currently, the bearers of bad
    news risk thwarting their career progress.  And, that's why we have
    stovepiping.  (BTW, you may recall that quality programs like Six Sigma
    rely heavily on looking for and reporting problems.  Such quality
    programs fail miserably if errors are kept secret or go undetected.) 
    
    And, until the stovepiping is shut down (by rewarding and encouraging
    the reporting and resolution of problems at all levels) there is no way
    that the results that make it to the top will reflect reality.  Fitting
    a normalized distribution is still a reasonable expection IMHO, but there 
    are a lot of IFs that are not and probably will not be satisfied in order
    for this to occur.  My replies have emphasized that until stovepiping
    is successfully eliminated and until small samples are properly dealt
    with, the results that make it to the top (bell-shaped though they may
    be) will be invalid.
    
    Steve

    RE -.2
    
>While I realize that a truly accurate number is difficult to come by, does
>anyone know how many employees Digital had in 1986?  
    
    Good point, and I think it would be good to see who's 
    organizations have grown in obscene proportions 
    since then. Then take it from there...
    
    As teflon coated as some might be, it would be impossible
    to hide from those figures.
    
    As good a place as any to start a witch hunt. ;^)
    
    Mark 
    
    

Re: How many employees in 1986

Figures up thru 1989:


               <<< LDP::DJA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DEC_HISTORY.NOTE;1 >>>
                        -< FORUM ON DIGITAL'S  HISTORY >-
================================================================================
Note 131.5                         Financials                             5 of 7
MUSKIE::CERLING "Tim, from the land o' loons"        52 lines  29-AUG-1989 15:51
                          -< Updated Finance History >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie,

Here's the chart with the employees on it.  It seems a little strange that
there would be 60 employees at the end of the first fiscal year.  Are those 
figures you gave me end of calendar year?  Whatever, I posted them as end of
fiscal.

tgc

I'm considered an `old-timer' here in the office, because I've been with the
company 10 years.  Looking at this information makes me feel like a neophyte.
Other old-timers here are also getting a kick out of this information.  Thanks,
again, Jamie, for providing it.


                                               NET
                                              INCOME
     EQUIPMENT                        NET      PER
DATE   SALES   SERVICES   REVENUE    INCOME   SHARE  RESEARCH  EMPLOYEES

1958     0.095     0.000     0.095     0.012- 13.33-     0.000       60
1959     0.776     0.000     0.776     0.112   2.44      0.000       75
1960     1.300     0.000     1.300     0.125   2.69      0.186      117
1961     2.648     0.000     2.648     0.343   7.35      0.383      234
1962     6.467     0.000     6.467     0.807  16.39      0.614      421
1963     9.903     0.000     9.903     1.158  22.87      1.190      476
1964    10.912     0.000    10.912     0.889  17.40      1.811      605
1965    14.983     0.000    14.983     0.780  15.12      2.270      876
1966    22.776     0.000    22.776     1.951   0.73      2.595    1,080
1967    38.896     0.000    38.896     4.541   1.56      3.998    1,800
1968    57.339     0.000    57.339     6.857   2.34      6.367    2,600
1969    87.867     0.000    87.867     9.329   1.03      9.403    4,360
1970   135.408     0.000   135.408    14.400   1.51     13.269    5,800
1971   146.849     0.000   146.849    10.600   1.06     16.668    6,200
1972   187.553     0.000   187.553    15.300   1.49     20.137    7,800
1973   265.469     0.000   265.469    23.500   2.16     24.933   13,000
1974   360.800    61.100   421.900    44.400   0.65     36.600   17,600
1975   433.200   100.600   533.800    46.000   0.64     48.500   19,000
1976   586.700   149.600   736.300    73.400   0.99     58.400   25,700
1977   847.500   211.100  1058.600   108.500   1.39     79.700   36,700
1978  1128.100   308.500  1436.600   142.200   1.70    115.700   39,000
1979  1381.800   422.300  1804.100   178.400   2.05    138.300   44,200
1980  1779.400   588.600  2368.000   249.900   2.73    186.400   55,500
1981  2384.200   813.900  3198.100   343.300   3.35    251.200   63,000
1982  2793.700  1087.100  3880.800   417.200   3.76    349.800   67,100
1983  2867.500  1404.400  4271.900   283.600   2.50    472.400   73,000
1984  3831.100  1753.300  5584.400   328.800   2.87    630.700   85,600
1985  4534.200  2152.100  6686.300   446.700   3.71    717.200   89,000
1986  4961.900  2628.500  7590.400   617.400   4.81    814.200   94,700
1987  6254.200  3135.200  9389.400  1137.400   8.53   1010.400  110,500
1988  7541.200  3934.200 11475.400  1305.600   9.90   1306.500  121,475
1989  8190.308  4551.648 12741.956  1072.610   8.45   1525.129  125,700

    re: .45
    
    Steve,
    
    I thought that mandating a normal curve was so obviously wrong it
    didn't need a response.  We are in hearty agreement.  My points are to
    what would happen empirically if we had good, responsible management. 
    Under that (admittedly hypothetical) scenario, very few 4's and 5's
    will appear (and they are a tacit admission of the manager's failure).
    
    I believe Don Zereski also understands this.  His concern can only be
    that the organization is so broken up that it doesn't act like a single
    entity, but like thousands of anarchic elements.  His issue for the
    near future is *not* going to be the number of 4's and 5's, but whether
    the *organization* is going to get its act together.
    
    In summary, each IC is responsible for the work assigned to him/her,
    managers are responsible for making 1000 instruments into an orchestra.
    
    Peace,
    
    Dick

    RE: all
    
    We're in the middle of one big mess.  I wish I knew what the solution
    was.  We could all be star performers with a "1" rating, and it wouldn't
    matter.  The economy is down, and so is Digital.
    
    The awakening truth is that we have increasing expenses, with less
    increasing revenues (= declining profits).  The easiest expense item to 
    look at is salaries.  It appears that Z is looking for a vehicle to cut 
    the salary expense off the P&L statement.  
    
    This is all very disruptive.  I wish it would happen quickly, and that
    management would fill us in on what's going on soon.  I hate when
    we read it in the Notes file before it's posted in Livewire or our
    manager sends out a memo.  
    
    -Keith  

    Hmmm...  Some of the powers that be are frustrated that their
    involuntary severence package isn't shedding as many people as planned. 
    I can't help but wonder how many of KO's direct reports did KO give the
    package to?  How many of Mr Z's direct reports has Mr Z given the
    package to?  How many of <insert-favorite-exec>'s direct reports has
    <insert-favorite-exec> given the package to?  If they're really serious
    about cutting people they should lead by example.

Some opinions about the issue of performance rating:

1. Most employees should be rated a 3, "meeting job requirements." If they
consistently perform higher (especially if they get two years of 1's in a row),
then they should be promoted to the next higher level. Eventually they'll
arrive at a natural plateau (natural to their intelligence, training, etc.) and
should stay there (with a rating of 3 or 2).

2. The way Digital does performance and salary planning is the standard way
it's done in companies. I used to work for another large computer company, and
the planning for the two companies is identical (now that Digital has
reinstated the 4). I'd like to hear about other companies that do it
differently, especially about companies that have no individual performance
reviews.

3. The fairness of performance reviews and ratings relies heavily on the
judgment and integrity of the supervisors and managers.

Say you're a cost center manager and you have one supervisor who's mediocre,
who sets low standards, and has mediocre people. Another supervisor is the
opposite. When you, the cost center manager, assign the raises and promotions,
you have to factor in the fact that one supervisor's "3 rating" for an employee
may not be equal to another's. That's why it's good for employees to seek out
managers and supervisors who have the confidence and respect of both the
underlings and the higher-ups. You also have to blow your own horn, to let all
the managers who will be judging your performance and comparing you to others
know your value.

4. I don't think Digital has a lot of poor performers, but in my opinion it has
quite a few employees who get paid for full-time work but work only part-time.
I don't blame these people as much as I blame the managers. The managers in
this company are schizophrenic: On the one hand, they think Digital employees
are great! On the other hand, they don't want to overburden them by, God
forbid, giving them too much to do, or holding them accountable for too much.

Vicki Meagher

The following reply has been contributed by a member of our community who
wishes to remain anonymous.


re: performance ratings

I am in a position to confirm that also outside of the US area
and at least in one location:

1- People managers are heavily pushed to respect the "bell curve"
2- Strongly encouraged to rank people against each other
   (no mention of measuring against job-plans)
3- Give no raises, even if performance is 2 or 3, provided
   the individual is not at the bottom of the range nor
   fastly progressing.

At a first glance the disconnect between performance appraisal and $$$ 
might just sound strange, however in light of planning for lay-offs
it looks different:

The good performer, especially if she/he has been around in DEC for 
a while gets blow in the stomach while receiving the 0 review.
Performer tries to fight back.

The dilemma: What would the performer fight back against ?

The review is O.K, not worth arguing around any details.

No money ? Position in range is O.K

No raise = loss of buying power because of inflation.
No issue, DEC pays salaries, not buying power.

Other people do get raises at performer's expense ?
(because of higher "ranking")

He/She wont know, this is top secret.

The result: Total frustration
            Low motivation
            Low subsequent performance
            Ready for lay-off

I can't believe this being machiavelic strategy. Can you ?

RE: .52

>I can't believe this being machiavelic strategy. Can you ?

No, I can't (and don't) believe it.

Never attribute to cleverness what can also be explained by incompetence.

--PSW

    
    And organization with its members at war with themselves is not likely
    to succeed -- where is the wisdom in pitting employees against one
    another?
    

    I don't think the issue is fitting a bell curve, but that the "sum" of
    individual performances does not equal company performance.

    The problem is not just that we are making less profit than we wish, it
    is that we are making less profit than we PREDICT!  Making predictions
    (budgets, goals, etc.) is part of managers' jobs.  If predictions are
    not met, either the managers are not meeting their job requirements, by
    setting bad goals, or the managers' employees are not meeting their job
    requirements, by not performing as well as management expects those
    with their jobs to perform.  If both the management and employees met
    their job requirements, the predictions would be met too.

    Even if this company ACCURATELY predicted a loss, it could be argued
    that everyone was meeting their job requirements.  We would be in
    trouble, but at least outside factors could be blamed.  But since we
    are not even making the predictions we make ourselves, SOMEBODY must be
    performing below their job requirements.  I think that is what Don Z is
    saying.
    
    Steve

>>> I am in a position to confirm that also outside of the US area
>>> and at least in one location:

>>> 1- People managers are heavily pushed to respect the "bell curve"
>>> 2- Strongly encouraged to rank people against each other
>>>   (no mention of measuring against job-plans)
>>> 3- Give no raises, even if performance is 2 or 3, provided
>>>   the individual is not at the bottom of the range nor
>>>   fastly progressing.

So what?

This is how companies deal with a shrinking pie. The good raises go to the best
or most underpaid performers. When times are flush, almost everyone gets at
least a token raise. When times are bad, managers are forced to do more
analysis of salaries and performance. Sure, you may be doing the same job
you've done for years, and why should you be penalized now? Well, the economy's
not so hot right now, and the company isn't doing as well.

Would you rather go back to the total salary freeze for everyone? After all,
that's "fair," isn't it? Or would you prefer being furloughed?

I wouldn't.

Vicki Meagher

RE: .56
	So what? So Digital claims to practice "pay for performance" and
	what is described in .52 and pay for performance are not compatable.
	So either .52 or Digital policy is a lie. Pick one. Which gives
	you more confidence in management?

		Alfred

    Re .-1
    
    Give me a break! When did 'pay for performance' ever translate into.
    'Everybody deserves a raise'. A 3 rating translates into 0%-55% of the
    salary range. So if you're doing a good job ie meeting requirements
    and you're getting paid at 50% of your range then don't expect a raise.
    If you want a raise work out with your manager how you can EXCEED job
    requirements and earn a 2 rating.
    
    Bottom line is that 3 performers get salaries in the bottom half of the
    salary range. 3 performers who for some reason have salaries in the
    top half of their salary range should consider themselves lucky,
    they're overpaid. In other companies they may get a salary cut.
    
    There is nothing wrong with being a 3 performer. A 3 performer is
    meeting all job requirements. But they'll get paid less than somebody
    who is exceeding their job requirements.
    
    Dave

    RE: .58 Your note appears to be aimed and mine (via the .-1). I assume
    that that is an error though as it doen't relate to mine or the ones
    I refered to. I never said that pay for perfomance means everyone gets
    a raise. I do believe it means that the better you work the more
    money you get paid. .52 indicated that that is not what happens. .52
    indicates that in some cases 2s get less then 3s. You support that?
    
    		Alfred
    

    
    Re:
    
>CVG::THOMPSON "Semper Gumby"                          9 lines  18-MAR-1991 12:24
>
>    .52
>    indicates that in some cases 2s get less then 3s. You support that?
    
    Yes I was referring to your note. Yes I do support 2s getting less
    of a pay raise than 3s in some cases. Pay for performance refers
    to 'Ending pay for performance' not 'delta pay for performance'.
    So if somebody ends up in a job and is getting paid 90% of their salary
    range and gets rated a 2 they shouldn't be expecting much of a salary
    raise. If on the other hand someone is at 5% of their pay range and
    gets rated a 3 it is highly likely they could get a fair sized raise.
    Especially if the reason they were rated a 3 was due to lack of breadth
    in the job (ie not much experience) as against lack of depth ie
    competence at what they were doing.
    
    Apologies if I took your reply to imply more than it did.
    
    Dave
    

    RE:-1 Dave,  
    
    So what is the incentive for an employee to remain a 2 performer (aside
    from personal satisfaction).  Don't say "pay for performance" and then
    ignore it.  Seniority has a role in this equation as well (seniority
    with performance that is).  If I'm a 2 and have been here 6 years (and
    have always been a two) I should be making more than someone who has
    been here 3 years (and has always been a two). 
    
    
    Mike

    re: .61
    
    I'm not so sure that it is axiomatic that, given two people performing
    at the same level and doing the same job, the person with the greater
    tenure is necessarily entitled to more compensation for it.
    
    Al
    

    I thought that the idea was that if a person got 2s at a given job
    level for an appropriate number of years, that they would be promoted. 
    If, the first year at the next job level the person gets a 3, then that
    is not an indication of poorer performance, but of performance
    appropriate for the higher level job.  A 4 at the new level might
    indicate they were promoted too soon, a 2 that they should have been
    promoted sooner.

    Steve

    Al,
    
    Then why have wage scales?  I think that seniority has to be taken into
    consideration or else the turnover in a company would be much greater. 
    There is something to be said for loyalty.
    
    
    Peace,
    
    Mike

    RE: .63
    
    You have hit it on the head. Career Path - Its up to the manager to
    bring the employee up the lader at the appropriate time. Scale, pay
    range and performance make up pay for performance!
    
    
    On the other side - "Z"'s comment about profitablity addresses
    the curren American tactic. Americans jump before looking. There
    are 3 parts to the profit equation:
    
    	1. Operating Expsenses
    	2. Inventory
    	3. Revenue
    
    By cutting operating expenses, profit increases - (i.e. reduce
    manpower). I belive he is not putting his head in the sand around this
    issue. The poor performers will probably get the boot. But, when you
    read between the lines - poor performers will be the ones whose job
    goals/assignments do not align with the Company's profit goals These people
    will be the ones to go because there performance is poor. The only
    glich is the manager must make sure the worker bees are aligned with
    profit goals, if not then that manager should go: POOR Performance.
    
    I am sure he will keep an eye on these managers! Don't pout - place
    yourself in a position that keeps you aligned profit. If you are not
    it is up to you make sure your boss does so. If you don't you can
    probably count on your group going as a whole. We are all in this
    together.
     

    Shades of Nero!!  While you guys are arguing fine points that will
    NEVER be resolved, there are two more "Z-Grams" on the net this
    morning.  The situation is really serious now.
    
    One says that after a major rebudgetting effort just completed two
    weeks ago, U.S. certs are already 100megabucks below budget.
    
    'tuther announces a "Performance Separation" program to be implemented
    immediately.  Every sales, sales support and EIS body is to have a
    not-less-than-90-day-old performance evaluation in place by 25 March,
    and then the games begin.
    
    The "Z" says he expects these new evaluations to follow a much better
    distribution curve.
    
    Says he's been meeting with 500 level 2 managers (whatever that is).
    Sounds like a good place to begin.  Do we have 500 vice-presidents yet?
                                                                           

    Quite a few notes back the question was ask " How many of K.O's VP's
    have been fired during this down-sizing and how many direct reports to
    these VP's have been fired. Good question, anybody know of any. 
    John Hancock Ins Co. here in Boston just had a down-sizing also. They
    fired 5 VP's along with numerous high level managers for poor
    performance of they're organizations. This is called accountability. It
    seems the higher you go in Digital the less accoutability you have. If
    the organization this VP is in charge of is performing so poorly, where is
    his accoutability for his performance. Who's been running the show in
    his organization. This didn't happen over night. 
    My suspicion is if this VP worked for John Hancock he would have been
    fired. It's interesting how differently companies deal with
    poor performance at the VP level. Maybe we should have a VP of Poor
    Performers. We seem to have plenty of candidates.   
    
    signed
    "A worker bee who watched colleagues get escorted out the door on
    Monday" 

    I too am curious about how many organization heads are being held
    accountable (ie fired) for their units per performance.
    
    If I was King for a day the way I'd handle this is...
    
    If over a sustained period an organization/function/unit had not
    performed to its goals then I'd fire the head of that unit. No
    questions asked (remember that head was responsible for agreeing to
    the goals in the first place). I'd expect all organization heads to be
    making sure that the individuals in their organizations were doing
    their bit to meet the organizations goals. I'd expect organization
    heads to manage performance appropriately to ensure that their
    organization succeeded and to ensure that they didn't fall into the
    category of managers fired for low organizational performance.
    
    You certainly don't blame the 'n' individuals in a unit for a units
    poor performance, the responsibility lays fair and square with the
    manager.
    
    I don't believe it is ever valid for a manager to try and justify the
    poor performance of his group by putting the blame on an individual or
    group of individuals in that group. It is the managers responsibility
    to have fixed the problem. If it is still a problem then s/he owns
    the blame.
    
    Dave

>The investment that we've made in additional field personnel has shown 
>no return.

And who was responsible for "designing" the COD's??  Do you think that you can 
just take x amount of people from inside the company and make them sales reps?
Being a sales rep is a tough job, and I don't know who could be at least a 
3 rated performer in their first year, which means you have met your budget 
goals.

Sales support could best be handled by a combination of field and internal
personnel.  In fact there shouldn't be any distinction between the field and
internal.  As I always fond of pointing out, when someone asked IBM's former
chairman, Thomas Watson, how many job titles there were in IBM he replied:
"Just two, Sales and Sales Support".

--David

re .68, .69:

When the layoffs were announced, we were told that they were about changing
needs, not performance.  Clearly, upper management perceives a need for
more VPs and fewer manufacturing folks.  That's why we're hiring VPs while
we're laying off manufacturing people.

    re: last several about Sr. management accountability:
    
    Seems to me that the U.S. Field has been continuously reorganizing for
    the last 4 years or so. These reorgs have been characterized (by the
    "Z" himself, I've heard) as "bird cage management" - bang the side of the
    bird cage and the birds all flutter around. When they finally settle down,
    you've got all the same birds, but they're on different perches.
    
    Since this has been a continuous process, nobody's been in charge of
    anything long enough to be held responsible for its performance. A
    cynic might conclude that this was by design. 
    
    Anyway, if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a
    high-level bloodbath. 

    re .68
    
    Accountability....BINGO.  It doesn't seem to exist at any level.
    Nobody is held accountable for anything, nobody owns up to anything,
    and another thing that goes along with this that is missing 
    is just plain guts.
    
    Make the tough decisions. Own the solution. You are held 
    accountable if it goes bad, and if it goes good, you 
    also own the praise and rewards.
    
    Period.
    
    Mark
    

    Accountability???  You jest sir!!  That word is not in the Digital
    Vocabulary.  Have you no respect for our traditions?  Fah on you.
    Just think where we'd be today if we held people accountable.
    
    As someone who has been associated with five consecutive money-losing
    V1.0 software products in a row, I resemble your attitude!  I ask you,
    how else are we gonna train our product managers.  Humphhh!!!!
    

    
    Re: John Hancock
    
    Not a very good example.  Perhaps JH fired a number of VPs etc. and
    perhaps they didn't.  As of yesterday, there was no official 
    confirmation from the JH corporate offices.  The rumor is that they
    fired 500 including not a few who've been with JH 20+ years.
    
    And all this, after reporting the highest profits in JHs history.
    If that's what you think Digital should use as a role model then
    we're in deep s***.
    
    Steve
    

    Re -71 The firings that are occuring in this phase are performance
    based. I am not judging whether they're performance justifies the
    action or not, just whether the same consequences for poor performance
    is applied across all levels. As was said earlier, these folks get all
    the perks, stock options, big bucks etc. Along with these bennies goes
    the responsibilities and accountability of the job. The animosity
    towards upper management will only get worse as long as people perseive
    that there are a different set of rules for firings depending on your
    level. Poor performance is poor performance regardless of the level of
    the job and responsibilities. I assume you are not suggesting that
    because they are VP's they should not be measured the same as others.
    My suggestion is to take these same directives proposed by this Zereski
    guy and apply them to all the VP's and direct reports. Then, as they
    did at John Hancock, fire any none performers, just like they did here
    on Monday.
     

    We have several business elements that have been losing money for
    years.  They are under the direct control of VPs.  Would you explain to
    me, slowly, why these turkeys shouldn't be on the street?
    
    I like the JH approach.

    
    Re: I like the JH approach.
    
    What, that they lay-off at all levels of the company, which is
    reasonable, or that they are rumored to have laid off 500 after
    reporting record profits?
    
    I sure wouldn't want to work for a company that did the latter.
    When would anyone feel secure enough to concentrate on their
    work?
    
    Steve
    

    I just spoke with a friend who came to DEC from Xerox about
    8 years ago. 
    
    He said that, back then, Xerox went through a very similar
    long, drawn-out downsizing effort over an agonizing couple of years.
    They figured out later that it was a BIG mistake
    to do it that way, as it took them about *5* years just 
    to get the worker's morale back in shape.
    
    Mark
    

    re: Xerox... 5 years just to get the worker's morale back in shape.
    
    After what I've seen lately, I can believe that.  Just look at
    the depths to which Digital employee morale has plunged in the
    last few months (ignoring, for a moment, the last few years),
    just waiting around with this Sword of Damocles hanging over
    all of our heads while management takes months to figure out
    how to lay off people.  Ask what the situation is (status,
    process, progress, anything?), and you hear something like
    "Gee, I still haven't heard anything yet...", as passive and
    indifferent as if you'd inquired about tomorrow's weather.
    
    Not to mention the morale hit resulting from the spectacle of
    VP's fattening their ranks while hundreds of troops are unceremoniously
    marched out the door.  Or the discouragement and insecurity caused
    by one comical high-level decision after another trotted out and
    then hastily yanked back amidst howls of protest and/or derision.
    
    And then, on top of all that, after the troops spend years of blood,
    sweat, and tears trying to compensate for countless high-level
    strategy snafu's (PC's, UNIX, you name it), we have to contend
    with an increasing number of gray suits in their "bird cages"
    cackling about how it's all our fault and we're "5"'s.  Is this the
    sort of behavior that's likely to increase morale and motivate
    us to squeeze another drop of blood out of the stone?
    
    In eleven+ years, I've never seen morale lower in this company,
    and this is *before* the big wave of layoffs.  The storm has
    only just begun, and already there's a lot of damage to repair.
    I cringe to imagine what will happen if the layoffs ultimately
    affect primarily the lowest-level employees, while leaving fully
    entrenched the decision-makers who got us where we are today.
    
    I wonder if management has any clue at all (or even cares) about
    the morale or condition of the survivors after it's all over,
    and how management might go about regaining their trust and respect.
    I fear that things will never be "the same" around here, but I
    guess we already knew that.
    
    Chris

    It's interesting that Charlie Christ, our brand-spanking-new VP of
    Storage Stuff was the Xerox Division President who "managed" that
    particular downsizing.  I wouldn't wanna be working at CXO.
    
    Found another interesting comment on the quality of our management
    in a report on a speech Dave Stone just made on turning software
    into a business........the reporter quotes some colleagues who
    feel ......"he'll be sabotaged by middle management with TNSG,
    which consists mainly of people who have been around forever, and
    have no real interest or stake in changing."
    
    and I should be optimistic?

>    Found another interesting comment on the quality of our management
>    in a report on a speech Dave Stone just made on turning software
>    into a business........the reporter quotes some colleagues who
>    feel ......"he'll be sabotaged by middle management with TNSG,
>    which consists mainly of people who have been around forever, and
>    have no real interest or stake in changing."

You can be pessimistic if it makes you feel better, but this is not the
view from the trenches within TNSG.  From the perspective of this
individual contributor, there is more of a problem with certain consulting
engineers, who feel that their work over the past decade or more is being
threatened, than with TNSG middle management.

--PSW

    
    Re:
    
>From the perspective of this
>individual contributor, there is more of a problem with certain consulting
>engineers, who feel that their work over the past decade or more is being
>threatened, than with TNSG middle management.
>
>--PSW
    
    Care to be specific. If you're going to make allegations then I think
    it behoves you to be specific. I believe one of the problems with this
    comany is the number of people who go around making generalizations
    about 'THEY' are the problem without being specific and giving
    examples. What exactly is being threatened, why in your view is it being
    threatened, exactly who is being threatened? How do you think this
    perceived threat should be addressed? If you can't answer these
    questions then in my view you're better off not saying anything rather
    than spreading unsubstantiated rumours about groups of people.
    
    Dave

RE:.83

I was being no less specific than the note that I was replying to, which
was accusing some nameless middle managers of the same crime.  I can, and
have been, excruciatingly more specific in direct conversations and arguments
with the individuals involved.  I think that the perception problem is best
addressed by talking to the individuals with what I see as an attitude
problem (they see my views in the same light), and convincing them that my
and Stone's position on the issue is the correct one.  I don't think any
positive purpose is served by naming names in this forum.

The main point of my reply wsa that, from my perspective, TNSG middle management
is supporting David Stone's plans.  Support is not universal (it never is),
but there is no Machivellian plot to sabotage them.

--PSW

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    A lot of things, from the language I hear being used to describe
    our new operations to the strategies themselves, lead me to believe
    that someone senior has read this book and Kanter's earlier
    "The Change Masters: Innovation and Entrepeneurship in the
     American Corporation".
    
    The bad news is that I don't see anyone learning from the information
    following, which is the most accurate description I've yet seen
    of what is happening around me, every day....
    
    Reproduced without permission from "When Giants Learn to Dance"
    by Rosbeth Moss Kanter
    
    "Thoughtful Restructuring Versus Mindless Downsizing"
    
    "There are two principal mistakes some companies make in staff
    restructuring. 
    First, they exhibit strategic blindness, turning the quest to ensure
    added value into mindless downsizing and delayering, on the assumption
    the leanness automatically equals effectiveness. They focus only
    on the "less" of the "doing more with less" imperative, as if the only
    good staff were a small staff. They fail to differentiate departments
    and business units in terms of their future contributions and resource
    needs....or their goals are cost driven instead of effectiveness
    driven - get the expenses down instead of the performance up.
    Or they view employees primarily as costs rather than valuing them as
    assets, and they fail to see the value, in skills or experience, that
    walks out the door with terminated staff. 
    
    Second, some companies assume that if a little cutting is a good
    thing, a lot must be even better. They starve themselves into a state
    of organizational anorexia. Cutting people to cut costs, if
    poorly managed, can actually increase some costs....."
    
    "Restructurings can provde a long catalogue of threats to value
    retention.
    
    1) The cost of confusion
       People may not even know their own extension number...
    
    2) Misinformation
       Communication is haphazard...rumours are created...some rumours
       are potentially destructive
    
    3) Emotional leakage
       Mangers are preoccupied with tasks and decisions and neglect the
       emotional reactions to change, resulting in low productivity
       and severely demotivated staff
    
    4) Loss of energy
    *   It has been indicated that feelings of anxiety, uncertainty -
    *   even being terrified - persist three years after restructuring,
    *   even for a group with high productivity not directly affected by
    *   downsizing. Sometimes the effects are bizarre. People come to
    *   work in an almost catatonic state, starting no new programs...
    
    5) Loss of key resources
       Across-the-board cuts mean that inevitably some very good people
       are lost who could serve the company in other roles
    
    6) Neglect
       Attention to the immediate cutting, reshaping and moving leads to a
       rush to take care of the people being displaced and *neglect of the
       people being kept, the people on whom the future depends*.
       Even the most people-conscious organizations often focus on their 
       outplacement rather than the positive decision of who to keep.
       Under these circumstances, SOME PEOPLE WHOM THE ORGANIZATION WOULD
       HAVE LIKED TO KEEP WILL INEVITABLY DECIDE TO LEAVE".
    
    'gail
       

    to all of us who worry about how things are handled up top:
    
    <sarcasm on>
    
    I think it is safe to assume that because you and I were not
    consulted, the thought process was incomplete.  :-)
    
    <sarcasm off>
    
    While it is true that we are all smart enough and well read enough to
    identify the risks of any downsizing effort, there are many decisions
    of this nature that will never be consulted with anyone below a certain
    level.  Until we have some perspective on what we are likely to know
    before it happens, we are all likely to make rash judgements.
    
    The course of wisdom would be to listen well and speak less. 
    
    Naturally, that applies to me too, but since I said it, I'm exempt! 
    :-)
    
    Peace,
    
    Dick

    
    Re: .85
    
    I've been saying this for weeks now.  It doesn't take a recognized
    authority to figure out that handling this poorly could have all
    of the effects you list and more.  I don't mean this to be critical
    of your reply, but to say that perhaps it can be even more serious
    than that author suggests.
    
    Steve
    
    
    

    RE: Basenote analogy-You are racing at Indianapolis and your name is Al
    Unser Jr.  Your car is only running at 50%-70% of it's maximum
    performance.  You can perform your job as a driver without a flaw,
    drive a race unlike any other-out perform everyone.  Know what?  You
    are not going to win the race, and you are probably going to come in
    close to last.  
    
    Moral of Story: If your equipment does not do what it needs to do, you
    cannot be competetive.  
    
    
    your mileage may vary
    
    have a nice day,
    
    Mike

    I mean competitive.

re .88
Of course, most people dont have or desire the driving skills of Al Unser Jr,
or have any need to hurtle around small tracks at BreakNeck Speeds...

q

    RE: q,
    
    Your quick, I guess you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to
    pull one over on you :').  BTW-I would love to have the skills, then I
    could get into the race game and earn the big dollars, as AU Jr does.
    Now, back to the subject at hand.
    
    
    Mike

RE: .88

Another auto racing analogy, one that puts a different interpretation on the
facts of the case:


You are Nigel Mansell, a Formula One race driver for Ferrari, and yet,
despite the fact that your equipment should be competitive, you always lose
races to your major rival in the F1 racing circuit.  What do you do?  You
blame your car setup team, the equipment itself, the tires, etc., because
you *know* it couldn't possibly be your own driving skills that are at
fault, even if only for pushing the equipment harder than it was built to go....


Both analogies seem to me to apply to some extent.


Actually, I think what we're discovering now is just why Jack Shields was
given a golden parachute and kicked out of the company.

--PSW

    Paul, I must be dense.

    What does Zereski's message have to do with Shield's exit?

    My own feeling is the we have on our hands a panic not a plan, and
    desperation and not inspiration.

    Pat

>>    Paul, I must be dense.
>>    What does Zereski's message have to do with Shield's exit?

Ditto.  Did I miss something?

>>    My own feeling is the we have on our hands a panic not a plan, and
>>    desperation and not inspiration.

Yeah.  Me too.  

K.

RE: .93, .94

From my viewpoint, Jack Shields's long-standing mismanagement of the field
organization, for which he eventually lost his job, is the cause of the
situation that has led Zereski to the panic mode displayed in .0.

--PSW

    re: .95
    
    Althought there appears to have been mismanagement in much of Digital
    for an extended period of time.  It is not at all clear what caused Jack
    Shields to seek other employment opportunities!  The golden parachute
    and dismissal rumors aside, the current scrambling and reactionary
    developments are more related to events over the past twelve months
    than any which existed in Shield's time.
    
    Hundreds of bodies have been moved to the field, without substantial
    increases in service or product revenues.  The field was given people
    and training but the budgets have not grown commensurate with the
    expectations of those who felt that moving Digital's resources closer
    to the customer was all it would take to increase revenues.
    
    We had COD-1, COD-2, COD-3.  We had TFSO-1, TFSO-2, and TFSO-3.  We
    have frozen new car purchases, taken away time systems and post-it(s).
    
    We have scrambled and chased opportunities which we could not win.
    We have demoralized the work force and demotivated many who would
    like to help Digital gain market share.  We have the same archaic
    adminstrative systems and metrics which we know prevents us from
    succesfully doing Systems Integration Business.
    
    The result of Zereski's memo was to get everyone re-evaluated so that
    they would have a current (and most likely downgraded) performance
    review.  Did this add anything to the moral of the troops?
    
    Meanwhile the committees and strategist (fewer though they be) continue
    to pontificate and delay the real changes necessary to make it more
    efficient for the field to deliver service!
    
    Is Don blaming the pit crew?  Should we be blaming the previous driver?
    What good would it do, if we knew who was at fault?  
    
    I saw the pursuit of new models for doing work, result in my group
    turning down existing work and pissing off my customer while my group
    was not getting any of the new work!  Eventually this internal services
    group was found to be unneccesary, and what was left was merged into
    a new DIS group.  The new group continued to shrink and try to find
    its mission and customers.  Like many others I took advantage of COD-3
    to get to the field to bring my skills to where I was told they could
    better be used!  But the field is having significant trouble absorbing
    all of us who made the leap of faith, and now the hammer of potential
    unemployment is being waved unsteadily above many heads!
    
    In another note, people ask when Digital's downfall began!  I want to
    know when it will end.  There is no doubt that we have loss the confi-
    dence we once enjoyed.  Some might call it arrogance, but when we knew
    we made the best stuff and we knew we were growing, we took on chal-
    lenges which today few dare to venture.  Our managers see metrics and
    march to them, they see people as resources to be put to work or put
    out to pasture.  We have loss some of our compassion and some openly
    speak about how we should never have had any in the first place.
    
    We have to reduce the overhead; reduce the cycle time for developing
    and delivering products; understand the customer's requirements and
    deliver it in the first release of a product not the third or fourth;
    eliminate buyin and make empowerment stand for something.  The problem
    was not with the ethics of the "old digital", but with the calcifica-
    tion which occurs when people are allowed to nay-say but are not held
    accountable for presenting solutions to the issues raised.  We allow
    people without a stake in the outcome to just say "no" forcing those
    with a stake to spin in never ending circles while the problem goes
    unsolved or the opportunity is missed.
    
    Many of us hope that the new account management focus will empower
    someone close enough to the opportunities to cut thru the bureaucracy.
    But we also fear that the account managers not having direct control
    of resources will be forced into a dance with the devil (what do I
    tell the resource manager regardless of the truth to make sure that
    I have the resources when I finally convince the customer he needs
    them).  We will be forced to chase opportunites where we have little
    or no hope of winning?  Will the big accounts have even more power
    than they have always enjoyed?  I remember clearly how one district
    came to my old group for support because they did not have any national
    accounts and/or multi-million dollar opportunities so they were frozen
    out of the DCC and CAM resources!
    
    There is panic thruout the system, and there probably will continue to
    be panic until a major turn around occurs in the U.S. economy.  We need
    to position Digital to take advantage of the demands which will come
    when the economy start to expand.  We need to streamline our processes
    and make it a lot easier to do business with this company.  We need to
    substantially improve employee moral and make people gald they work for
    Digital (not grateful they still have a job).
    
    If we need to downsize, then get it over with, because otherwise the
    drag on those left behind will harm this company more than the lost of
    key personnel.  The energy level has already dropped periously low in
    many places in Digital.  We are wasting time trying to discover who is
    wasting money.  The people wasting the money have gotten extremely
    creative about hiding their waste, and each new decree only makes them
    more resourceful in hiding the waste, punishing the innocent much
    more severely than the guilty.  If a cost center manager is not acting
    responsibly and controlling spending, then his or her manager should
    fire them.  Obviously, each level of management has approved the
    actions of those below them, and just as obviously many managers are
    acting blind and deaf to the mandates about expenditures.  Lifting the
    level of justification to a VP for petty items, does not stop the ex-
    penditure on petty items, it simply increases the VPs workload.
    
    Are these VPs and managers deserving of 5 ratings and termination?
    If your manager has to spend most of his time justifying everything
    he or she does instead of spending it in front of customers or
    developing his people, does he/she deserve a 5 rating?  Lets face
    it the more we mandate justification and rules about what people
    can or can not do, the more we prevent them from doing the job we
    hired them to do!
    
    Lets free up the energy, get Digital moving again, mandating more
    performance reviews and more controls on how, when, where, with whom
    we do business, etc...  will not get us out of this mess.  It may
    cut some costs but it will probably damage our ability to make a
    profit more than it will save us any money.
    

Re: .96

	Here! here! here! here! One of the best explainations of the cause
of the current troubles and existing state of affairs I've read...

-Terry

    
    Re: .96
    
    I'll go further.  It is THE best description that I've seen
    of the current troubles!  It ought to be mandatory reading for
    the BOD, Executive Committee, and all levels of VPs.
    
    Steve
    

re: .96

Paul,

One excellent note...

Lets stop looking for the guilty, do what needs to be done and get on with it.
This sentiment has been spoken many times before. 

This whole scenario reminds me of the project life cycle that we all have seen,
starts with the "wild enthusiasm" stage and then ends with the "search for the
guilty","punishment of the innocent" and "promotion of uninvolved" stages.


- George

    RE: .96  Very well said.  If we keep the course we are on, there will
    be no turnaround of Digital.  What is happening now is only putting off
    the inevitable.  We need to rethink the way we do business, make it
    easy for our customers and make it easy for our employees.  
    
    
    
    Mike

Re: .96

Unquestionably the finest statement of our corporate woes I've heard to 
date.  But more importantly, he has offered concrete solutions.  I can 
only hope that the right people are listening.


Sandy

    Re: .97-.101  Nice to know, this is not my sole opinion.
    
    It has been suggested that I repost my note and grant permission for
    anyone to reprint same for distribution to those who may not have the
    opportunity to see it in this notesfile.
    
    To the extent that permission is needed, I hereby grant permission that
    note 1395.96 in HUMANE::DIGITAL be extracted and distributed thruout
    Digital.  Since I perceive this information as Company Confidential,
    I expressly forbid its distribution outside of Digital Equipment
    Corporation.
    
    I chose not to repost the note, to save the disk space on HUMANE.  I
    apologize if this inconveniences anyone who would like to forward the
    memo to the BOD or their respective VPs.
    
    Paul Neveu - Digital Services Software Consultant II Tempe Arizona

    Bravo, .96...superbly stated.  When do you start in Maynard?
    
    Personally, I have experienced an overwhelming loss of confidence
    in Digital.  I know that the whole re-evaluation of U.S. field folks was 
    a Red Herring.  Last week, two people that I KNOW are outstanding
    performers were laid off, but I don't see any of the armies of vice
    presidents who aren't making their numbers getting laid off.
    
    The manner in which this present downsizing is being handled in
    criminal.  GET THE DAMNED THING OVER WITH!!!!.  If they have to lay
    off 20,000, then do it now, do it openly, and above all do it quickly!
    
    I think the problem is, is that the "biggies" know what is going to
    happen and when, and we are being treated like mushrooms.
    
    So far...for the last 6-9 months of this fiasco, I see absolutely
    nothing being done that gives me any confidence that we are no directly
    tracking DG and Wang.

RE:  <<< Note 1395.103 by COOKIE::LENNARD "Rush Limbaugh, I Luv Ya Guy" >>>
>                  -< Waiting for that tap on the shoulder... >-
>
> I know that the whole re-evaluation of U.S. field folks was 
>a Red Herring.

It wasn't a Red Herring here in San Diego.  Two EIS delivery folks got the
boot.  It was stated that they were laid off based on performance and revenue
projections.

Dan

    Hmmm .. in LA Commercial EIS PSS three also got the boot, but the basis
    was stated to be revenue prospects *only*, not performance. 
    
    (although one of the victims was the only UN*X heavy in the district)

    a few days ago, an instructor in Bedford was given the boot.  in the
    middle of a teach.
    
    he had 24 years with DEC.
    

The other day I called a freind from my old group,
and I found out that 4-5 people that were actually
dead wood, are not working at the corporation any
more. So it is working. Whether it is working all over
the corporation, I do not know. In this instance it is.

I have to reserve my judgement.

!!!!

re:        <<< Note 1395.107 by CSC32::K_BOUCHARD "Ken Bouchard CXO3-2" >>>
                       -< do you know what his name is? >-

   answered off line.
    
     

    

    Anyone see the performance review Ken and Jack got from Business Week
    this week?  The pay of CEO's was rated against their performance over
    the last three years, where performance was measured in two ways: return
    to shareholders and profitability.  The rating system was the same as
    DEC's: 1-5, 1 being good, 5 being bad (a 5 rating meant you were in the
    lowest 10 percentile in performance).  Ken got two 5's, and Jack got a
    4 and a 5.  Ken also managed to get into a chart, finishing third worst
    of all CEO's in return to shareholder performance over the last 3 years.
    Although DEC's -594% return was the worst in the chart, Ken's $11.9
    million compensation was "low" enough that two other CEOs managed to do a
    worse job.  Business Week, May 6th, pp 95-105.
    
    And who was saying DEC doesn't have enough 4 or 5 ratings...?  ;-)  
                                       

RE:                     <<< Note 1395.110 by YNGSTR::BROWN >>>

Although this is something to think about I do not think that the
president of this company should be rated by numbers generated in a
magazine.  Management by numers has been wounding this company so I
think few people will give much credence to a magazine doing the same
thing.

There are problems to be fixed, not numbers to be made, and that's what
the leaders of the corporation should be measured by.

John