Performance Management 121
rocky was the tradition of nonaccountability and entitlement that had
developed in the company. IBM had become a ‘‘jobs-for-life’’ company
where mediocre, unaggressive performance had become not just toler-
ated but often the norm. Performance feedback had become bland and
unconnected to future strategic actions the company needed to take. To
get discharged by IBM, you literally had to shoot someone or pilfer a
valuable piece of equipment in broad daylight.
This lack of consequences was having a severe effect on the com-
pany’s productivity and morale. In a 1991 interview withFortune, Akers
said, ‘‘We’ve been... not sufficiently demanding of ourselves regarding
those folks who aren’t doing the job. We have had a very low level
of separations for poor performance. That level will go up—must go
up.’’^18
Unfortunately, the level of accountability was raised too little and too
late. At the time of Akers’s interview, IBM had already begun its first-
ever series of downsizings. In the process, it lost not just the poor per-
formers it was seeking to eliminate, but also some very good performers
who concluded they would be better off in another company where
consequences were tied more directly to performance. Those who
stayed went through a tough transition period, but under Lou Gerstner,
IBM has now become a company where ‘‘as you sow, so shall ye reap.’’
Most employees will accept negative consequences that are adminis-
tered fairly—in proportion to the offense—and justly, without favorit-
ism or vindictiveness. Jeremiah prayed for God to ‘‘correct me, Lord,
but only with justice—not in your anger.’’ (Jer. 10:24) This is the ear-
nest wish of so many modern employees who have been disciplined
with too little justice and too much anger. Such discipline actually un-
dermines the credibility of the leader.
Most employees wish for leaders who are capable of and willing to
carry out the words of Jeremiah 31:20: ‘‘I will discipline you, but only
with justice.’’
Two leaders who adhere to this philosophy are Bob Knowling, for-
merly of US West, and Gordon Bethune of Continental Airlines.
Knowling felt that in the phone company as it existed a few years ago,
performance was lagging because no one was held accountable and no