THE Trinidad & Tobago-based consulting group continues, unfortunately, to befuddle Guyanese readers of Stabroek Business (ref. p5B of 20/04/12) with their ‘one-size-fits-all’ generic solutions to practical management issues that must be contextualised lest we do more harm than good by any such generalised, ‘text-book’ approach. With all due respect, I believe that my repeated caution is particularly poignant having regard to the currently topical discussions in Guyana about the rather unorthodox staffing practices of Guyana’s largest employer ( viz. the government) as well as the unconventional management practices in GUYSUCO, an equally large employer facing some ‘life-threatening’ operational  and  extremely challenging HR issues.
In such a context, the very caption of the consulting group’s paper that ‘Performance Management is not an HR thing’ is at least counter-intuitive and potentially counter-productive.
The paper belabours the point that performance management is “the way of managing business” at all levels of the organisation.
Does this not beg the question ‘how can you manage at any level without HR inputs?’ Paradoxically, the writer raves about a book that talks about “how the power of the masses can change everything” and asks the rhetorical question how to ‘leverage the power of the masses’ in a way that only adds confusion to my mind. Of course such a conundrum can lead to self-doubt but I am strangely comforted by the writer’s own answer to the rhetoric about structure driving performance when he went on to elaborate about the relevance of reporting relationships and flow of information through the right people at the right time, etc.
Finally, as I indicated in my earlier comments on the writer’s take on Performance Management, I am concerned about the unnecessary overburden of ‘academia’ on what was promised as performance management ’practices’  and, therefore, felt obliged to forewarn my compatriots accordingly.