The always insightful Wally Bock made a great comment in response to my last post, where I asked about the conditions under which performance evaluations actually seemed to work. Wally, drawing on his research on effective versus ineffective supervisors, reported (in part):
The result
was that when time came for the official, on-the-company-form,
performance review, their sessions were very different from their
less-effective peers. Top performing supervisors took more than three
times as long for the session.
Wally's comment got me thinking because, as I thought about the difference between good and bad bosses, it made me realize that — although good bosses are concerned about using their time well, and especially, making sure not to waste their people's time — that they tend to think and act as if it is more important to do things as well as possible than to do things as quickly as possible. Indeed, some of the work bosses I can think of always seemed to be focused on finishing whatever they are doing at the moment so they can get on to the next thing. The result, unfortunately, is that they spend their days rushing around, doing one thing after another badly.
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