Continuing on the ‘balance’ theme, I went to a forum on Psychometric testing, recently, and the Speaker there Robert Kaiser from Kaplan Devries Inc was taking about how 5-point scales (“Never” through to “Always” or “Ineffective through “Extremely Effective”) can give the wrong impression in 360 Appraisals.

Take the example question “Pays attention to detail – has a finger on the pulse of day-to-day activity”. If the response to this on a 5 point scale is “Always” then we could assume that this is a good score. However, what would you score someone, on this question, if they were a ‘micro-manager’ of situations; not let their people develop or grow because they controlled how they did things?  On the 5-point scale you would have still score them as ‘Always’, which, i think you’ll agree, is misleading. Kaplan Devries solution is to change the 5-point scale to 9-point scale moving from “Too Little” to “Just Right” and onto “Too Much” (-4,-3,-2,-1,0,+1, +2, +3, +4). In the example question above, you might score the Micro-manager as a “+3″ or “+4″, giving more realistic and actionable feedback to that person.

Should you make changes to your appraisal system, so that development areas are not mistaken for strengths?