Since this seems like a long shot no matter how you cut it - it would take a work of God, for sure - we'll skip that paragraph and move on to see if anything else might be applicable. In any case, it's too late for me anyway, although other people might very well benefit from having ethical well-run performance appraisals. Emphasis on ethical and well-run. Otherwise don't bother. We don't need any more of those stupid misuses of Scripture, which this would be a typical place they'd use it in.
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Focusing on the more specific context of performance appraisal, Greenberg (1986) asked a sample of managers from several industries to describe episodes of especially fair or unfair performance appraisals.... The five determinants loading highly on the procedural factor... were soliciting input prior to evaluation and using it, two-way communication during interviews, ability to challenge/rebut evaluations, rater familiarity with ratee's work, and consistent application of standards. The distributive justice factor consistent of two-determinants theorized to reflect the fair allocation of organizational outcomes in a performance apprasal context. (p. 406)Again,.we have to make some adaptations to the mission setting. And the mission didn't actually have performance appraisals. At least they didn't as far as I ever knew; maybe I wasn't in a position long enough to experience it. A little irony there.
This description really destroys any possible hope I might have had of there ever being a valid performance appraisal system set up at the Vienna mission (it still exists, although it's location, etc. is different now). The mission might solicit input prior to the appraisal, but I I doubt it, because the mission is not an egalitarian system, and while socially it has egalitarian strains, the actual functioning is very clear-cut as to roles and responsibilities and they want it that way - for security. As long as they have so many missions working together and they feel like they have to bow to all of them they're not going to change. So for them to ask for input is to put you and your opinion on equal footing. Now try that for the whole mission - for everyone's appraisals. It's not going to happen. It might happen to a select few or between immediate supervisors, I suppose.
The thing is that, like in my case, the mission has it's own logic, and it's not necessarily the logic of the normal world, so the mission might have a decision about you, like they did about me, that did or did not have any correlation to me and my causation - my actions. So in those cases, they're not going to particularly going to want my input. They're maybe not even going to want an appraisal in the usual sense of the word. So then maybe it's better to just scrap the appraisal altogether and only use it from time to time as needed.
And even if they did have performance appraisals, what was the likelihood the communication was going to be two-way? I think it depends some on the people involved. If it were an instructor and the team leader meeting, there would be more two-way and mutual respect, I think. But not so much perhaps with the support staff, which I was a part of. In my case, I mean regarding just me personally, I am not sure what I would do, because I never was exactly in this position and I'm not sure how it would go. They never complained of my work, so I'm not so sure about that, although they certainly could have found something, you know, if you look hard enough there was bound to be something or the other that I didn't do quite fast enough or good enough or whatever..
And then there was the familiarity with my work. My boss, the one I raised money to work with, whose secretary I was supposed to be in the first place, didn't really know how to work with a secretary and I don't really think he knew what I did to do an appraisal on me to save his soul. I hope he knows by now, since he's the director now. He'd better know what his secretary does now. If not his secretary might want to go in and explain it to him.
Ability to challenge/rebut evaluations. I think this would be on my end, because I would be the one interested in challenging/rebutting an evaluation. So that means that the mission would have to be open enough that missionaries would be able to challenge aspects of their evaluations. This is no small thing, because it could be tearing at the very fabric of the mission. Maybe the mission actually wrote the evaluation for a specific purpose that you don't know (such as because of having a father working in SDI at Boeing and wanting you out of there like a hot potato as a risk to the mission). So allow the challenge could be going against some instruction from deep in the bowels of the organization. Now try the challenge/rebuttal routine. Chances are you're not going to get anywhere and the only thing you're going to get is a headache and more stress than you ever wanted. And your standing with the mission just dropped a notch for all the fuss of trying.
Consistent application of standards. Standards are very funny things. They seem to disappear down a black hole as soon as you step foot in the Vienna mission. After that the only standards that matter are the ones engraved in the minds of "the leadership," whoever that may be. I'm a little nebulous there because I think the "who" is whoever is having the most guiding impact on you at the moment. So, for example, when I was in my office doing the job I was sent to Vienna to do my boss was the "who" of the moment. The other thing was, of course, that I was moved around so much.
Even though I was supposed to be working for my boss, all the moves and these significant events during my time with the mission were carried out by others. So it seems that they must have had standards that should have also been taken into account. After we'd run everyone down that we thought should be included and added them in, then we'd maybe be in a position to have an idea what the standards were that needed to be applied. I would really like that, but I don't think they would.
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In one of the first studies in this area, Alexander and Ruderman (1987) administered a questionnaire to approximately 2,800 employees of the U.S. federal government. They found that indices of these employees' assessments of procedural justice were significantly related to such key measures as their trust in management, intention to turnover, evaluation of their supervisor, conflict/harmony,and job satisfaction. Moreover, with the exception of turnover intention, procedural fairness judgments accounted for significantly more variance in these dependent measures than distributed justice. Apparently, both procedural and distributive justice judgments are important, althought each may be predictive of different attitudes. This idea is consistent with Tyler's (1984) research on defendants' evaluations of their courtroom experiences. Findings from this research revealed that procedural justice was strongly associated with defendants' attitudes toward the court system, wheras distributive justice was strongly associated with defendants' satisfaction with verdicts... Extrapolating from such findings, Lind and Tyler (1988: 179) conclude that "procedural justice has especially strong effects on attitudes about institutions or authorities as opposed to the attitudes about the specific outcome in question." (p. 406)Procedural justice we've already established is out the window as a hopeless case - as a general issue.
I've discussed trust some, I think, elsewhere, but it's been a long time. It should be quite clear that I didn't trust the management. They started off all wrong with me from the very beginning. They just shouldn't have started with all this B.S., I don't care if it was for what they might have thought was socialization or if it was to drive me out of there because of my dad. But as soon as I arrived on one hand I got some overwhelming welcoming that all but blew me over that I thought was excessive so much as to be suspicious, especially when combined with me just spending week after week with a software manual as work to occupy me, and then a few other things besides to throw me off, like them continuing to insist that I live with the other secretary when I'd said I want to live alone.
So I wasn't sure what to make of the early things so I took a wait and see approach, doing what I'm supposed to do, but otherwise mostly observing to try to figure what's going on. So even that was the beginning of not quite trusting the mission because something didn't seem quite right, but I wasn't really sure yet. That was like the first 2-3 months. After that the stress started builing up more and more as I continued to not give in and the stressors increased at work. Needless to say the trust factor took a nose-dive as well.
Evaluation of their supervisor. My supervisors varied with the moves. Fortunately, even though I moved positions 5 times, I only had 3 bosses. My boss that I was supposed to have the whole time, the one that I had for 3 of the moves was nice. He seemed uncertain, being new in the position himself. Like I said before, he didn't know my job like he should have, but seeing he was new in his job there's a learning curve, so his boss's secretary was taking care of me if there were any issues I needed help with. Mostly I did pretty basic secretarial stuff anyway, so it wasn't a difficult position no matter how you look at it. Eventually there were times when it was busy, but it wasn't difficult, so it was like grunt work for me.
Conflict/harmony. I'm not sure if there were any conflicts in the mission. Generally everyone got along. The thing was that we had to get along because of the ministry and we had to trust each other (I'm speaking sort of from the mission's stand point now) for security's sake. If there was bickering or disagreement in the group I think the mission might have tried to intervene to find out what the problem was to resolve it because it wouldn't have wanted something like that to continue or, heaven forbid, spread. So it was like living in Nirvana or something when you were in the mission because of the suppression of all these kinds of conflicts or any negativity to speak of. If you had these kinds of thoughts you should just keep them to yourself because the mission wouldn't tolerate them.
This does raise a dilemma, however, if there really is a problem that needs addressing, but according to how this system is set up no matter how urgent or vital it won't get addressed (well, maybe a fire or a heart attack or something like that). That's because it will just get quelched with all the rest of the negativity trivial or otherwise. So there goes your means of redress right out the window, because the mission won't allow any negativity and your legitimate complaint falls within the category of negativity that should be quelched.
Job satisfaction. I already just dealt with this one very recently.
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The self-interest model (earlier referred to as the "instrumental perspective," (Tyler, 1987a; 333) suggests that people seek control over processes because they are concerned with their own outcomes. (p. 407-408)I think that I must be a freak of nature because of all the missionaries that were working at the Vienna mission I apparently was the only one that was concerned with "my own outcomes." and I sought control over processes. I think that's maybe a little bit of the result of what happened, although that's not maybe necessarily why. But the thing is that given a lack of trust in an organization, that from my perspective appeared to want to completely change my whole way of thinking, I responded with a drive "to control processes" to hope for some influence on the outcomes.
At least that's how it's supposed to work, but in the mixed up world of the Vienna mission, I generally gave up expecting anything one way or the other.
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In that study it was found that decision fairness was more strongly associated with the extent to which the decision represented was more strongly associated with the extent to which the decision represented the interests of all group members than the extent which it favored themselves. Clearly, concern about the group good was an important element of fairness, part of the general notion that justice concerns are linked to group membership (Tyler & Lind, in press). (p. 409)Certainly there were social norms, but these were norms not that just naturally evolved, but that were dictated from on high (or from deep inside - however you want to look at it). Of course there were some things that evolved, like how they celebrate birthdays, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the things that are the meat and bones and that that aren't the types of things that mission was about to just let evolve by chance. I really thing there was some social engineering there, but call it whatever you want, the mission, as I've said before, was more like a oligarchy than anything - like the Soviet Union. The Board was at least if not more secretive and all-powerful in relation to us as the as the Soviet Presidium was to the USSR.
So as far as group good was concerned, I really didn't have a very clear idea what the group good was. I mean I guess I knew it was not in the group's best interests to go to Poland handing out Gospel tracks with the street address of the mission in them. Actually, I knew that before I even came so I didn't need any socialization to tell me that. But the group itself doesn't really decide it's own interests. The department heads to have input into some decisions, logistical, etc. but generally, we're the sheep just shuffled around told what to do where, and when and how and with whom, and sometimes why.
I'm describing this from my perspective, you understand, so it may not be the same for everyone.
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Greenberg (1986b) found that people believe that the outcomes resulting from unfair procedures are themselves unfair, but only when those outcomes are trivial; more beneficial outcomes were believed to be fair regardless of the fairness of the procedure. (p. 408)
So in Vienna there weren't actually outcomes, at least not the usual types of outcomes you'd expect at a job. If you were to use anything at all as outcomes it would have to be opportunities for ministry. If you look at it this way, you'd expect that that a positive outcome would be something like more opportunities for ministry and a negative outcome would lead to lesser opportunity. If you look at it that way, then it is possible to see a trend pattern during my mission experience. It goes like this (in brief):
I arrive in Vienna and I am taken aback at what I find at the mission so I go in a look and see mode while a work but don't really express my thoughts too much. (But I'm getting involved in the Austrian church, have guests from the States visit, etc.) Strange problems at work mount and I'm having more and more stress at work. Leading to my return to the U.S.
I move to another office not right next to my boss for some reason that I don't understand. I think this is a down grade. It's a negative outcome.
This is negative outcome, but it's not exactly clear what I've done and this move has totally and forever destroyed my trust in the mission. It's the absolute worst move they could have made.
I start part time work as receptionist in the U.S. office. This is still part of the negative outcome because I am exiled from my position and it is definitely a downgrade.
I fill in for the U.S. manager's secretary while she's on maternaty leave. This is a bit of an upgrade. They're testing me out I think to see if I'm okay to come back to Vienna. So it's a positive outcome from where I was but it's still a negative outcome from where I'm supposed to be.
Then I finally return to Vienna to my old position. This is a a positive outcome, but it's actually right where I started, so it's not really a positive outcome either.
Finally, the last move is to the receptionist position, where I stay until I leave. That's a negative outcome and the final outcome as far as positions are concerned.
I never had control over any of these outcomes at all. They were decided irregardless of anything I did or didn't do. I wasn't cantankerous. I did my work well. I don't know. But that's how they treated me. And that's how they ruined my life, and that's just the surface, believe me.
So how can this be fair? Is there a way under heaven that anyone in their right mind could possibly view this as being just, equitable, or whatever you want to call it? Where is the procedure? This passage speaks about the fairness of the procedure but I don't even have a clue what the procedure is because everything is done behind closed doors. "That's the way things are dong around here." What do you think? Is that a satisfactory answer?
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This article has a lot more good material in it, but it's really late not and I'd better head off and get some Zzzz's.
Thanks for stopping by. This isn't the life I would have chosen, but God has given me the grace and strength to make it through some of these things. And now I'm sick and have a hard time having much of a life so it's working out to finally work on this.
