The evaluation of members should be based on performance.

I think the evaluation of members should be based on performance. Most companies could say that the evaluation is based on performance. But is that true? Sometimes in-house politics can be involved, personal relationships can be a factor of consideration, and the boss can be generous in the assessment of her/his long-time co-worker. I think that no matter what anyone says, evaluations in companies should be based on performance. The process is also important. Yes, it's important. But even if the process is so important, the assessment should be based on performance.

The evaluation based on the result is important even for someone who fits well with the boss, or someone who is good at so-called flattery. If there is no problem with ethics and attitude, it should be evaluated based on performance. Performance evaluation is the fairest in the evaluation of the company. It cannot be a fair evaluation without being based on a numerical performance assessment.

When I was working as the president of a subsidiary company in Mexico, our company had to carry out an important project. I selected the staff in charge, and delegated her full authority and responsibility for the progress of the project. Of course the final responsibility was on me. Later she often reported to me about the progress of the project. After a certain period of time, the project began to be delayed. I had her come to my office to check the progress of the project. At that time, she confessed many reasons for the delay, including the lack of cooperation from other departments, the lack of support from the system, and the lack of interest from the members. 

I explained why I chose her as the person in charge. As I was working on the project, I thought that the members would not be interested unless it was their job, and I also knew that departmental cooperation would not work out well. I told her about it. I explained that I had entrusted the work to her in the belief that she could bring such situations into harmony for getting it done well. In addition, I stressed that that project was one of the most important project in our company that year.  And I guaranteed to evaluate only with the performance. As expected, the project was successfully completed, and I fully reflected the results of the project in her evaluation and compensation. If the project had been delayed or expected to fail regardless of the circumstances, I would have replaced the person in charge without any hesitation.

One day our factory manager came into my office. He had to quit the company because he had to move to another state for personal reasons. I was at a loss. It was a very difficult time for our company. We just finished the construction and it was time for full-scale sales. Even so, due to personal reasons, I could not seize the factory manager who had to quit the company. I had to ask HR department manager to hire someone with experience. 

After that, I hold a meeting with the coordinators in the factory. After they came into the conference room, I asked to discuss the matters after the factory manager left the company. I talked them that the sales manager would temporarily manage the factory until a new factory manager was hired. That meant they had to report business issues to the sales manager.

After the factory manager left the company, the coordinators came to see me. They came to me to suggest things. They asked me to trust them and not to hire factory manager for the time being. They asked me to trust them and watch them. They said if the results were bad afterwards, they would take responsibilities. Of course, the only way they could take responsibilities for the production or quality control failures would be to resign. Surely I didn't want that to be happened. I knew how our factory's coordinators had been working from the beginning to the present, so I decided to trust them. 

And if the performance is maintained or improved after a certain period of time, I decided to promote one of the coordinators to the factory manager. Since then, the work of each department of the factory had been reported directly to me, and I had also served as the factory manager. Six months later, significant performance was shown in various indicators (production quantity, yield rate, quality defect rate etc.) managed by the factory. I promoted one of the coordinator to the factory manager. What if they didn't show any results? I would not hesitate.

Our company made an evaluation every day. The evaluation was made every day at the daily meetings I mentioned before. I didn't hesitate if I thought it would not be achieved. We found the way to achieve, then we achieved.