Describe Deming's thoughts about the performance appraisal system. Do yo agree with Deming or do you take the more traditional viewpoint toward performance appraisal? Why?

Much of the debate concerning performance appraisals' effectiveness has come from Deming, a predominant statistician widely known for his research on quality control and deadly diseases that surround management. Deming said performance appraisals are a deadly disease that "is damaging because it necessarily and inappropriately attributes variation in performance to individual employees rather than to problems which the system created and controlled by managers" (p 145). Deming further says that the variation in performance most oftentimes, is the fault of the system, not the individuals. Incorrect evaluation leads management into making wrong decisions.

Deming also challenged the assumptions that support performance appraisals as a received doctrine. He stated that the variation in employee performance is not significant; therefore it must be a 'sampling error.' He further claimed that the dismal variation that does occur in performance is not controlled by the employees. Deming concludes that performance raters are not able to determine the difference between the performance variation that was caused by individuals and variations that are caused by the system.