Rating your peers - what a concept!

October 15, 4:50 PMLeadership ExaminerSteve Arneson

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Leadership Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

My favorite magazine, Sports Illustrated, runs a poll in every issue, asking a question of current players in various sports leagues. The survey always asks the players to rate their peers – best of this, worst of that, etc. This week, they asked current NFL players this question: “who’s the most overrated player in the NFL?” The answer was everyone’s media darling, Brett Favre, who garnered 13% of the vote (let’s pause for a quick column interruption here to point out that # 4 has led my beloved Minnesota Vikings to a 5-0 record… but I digress).

As soon as I saw this, I got to thinking… what if during the talent review process in large companies, we asked leaders at like levels to “rate” their peers? Wouldn’t it be kind of interesting to find out who the Directors think are the most talented Directors? Or who the VPs consider the most over- or underrated VPs? Wouldn’t they have a pretty grounded point of view?

Many companies do have a version of peer feedback built into their performance management process, of course. And managers certainly take that information into consideration when providing a performance rating. But as far as I know, the talent review process hasn’t been extended to include peer ratings. When the CEO and her team sit around and discuss the top layers of leadership in the company, they’re not asking: “how did this guy do on the most underrated VP survey?”

But think about it – peers know who’s got the goods, right? They know who is performing and who’s just managing up really well. They know who they trust and admire, and they know who’s simply faking it or getting by on reputation. I say we figure out a way to incorporate their vote, and let the senior executives chew on that additional piece of data. Might be an interesting contrast to how they see talent… after all, judging talent isn’t an exact science. If you’re inside a large organization, why don’t you run this idea up the flagpole and let me know the reaction… there’s got to be a way to do this with reliability and integrity. Certainly would bring another perspective to the talent review table…

In the meantime, back to my guy Brett Favre (can’t believe I just wrote that – given how I feel about the Packers)… I’m going to guess the survey respondents are just jealous - they’d like to sit out training camp and sign with whatever team they choose, too.  I'd like to see that survey repeated at the end of the year, after we've won the Super Bowl - someone else better be sitting at the top of the list!