PeerTool may be hazardous to your career

[Michael Ellis]

(Ok, this is a shameless attempt to get you to try PeerTool by
appealing to the oppositional part of your personality, but I'm sure
you're smart enough to see through such transparent manipulation,
right?)

PeerTool is democracy on steroids. Every participant can

* propose ideas,
* propose evaluation criteria,
* rate ideas anonymously on a continuum from negative to
positive, and
* choose precisely how much weight to give each criterion.

Furthermore, it takes a supermajority to delete an idea or criterion.

So just how well do you think something like that is going to go over
in your workplace, even if they do give a lot of lip service to
employee empowerment?

To drive the point home, let's imagine four managers deciding whether
to let their teams use PeerTool. We'll call them Lisa, Sam, Celia, and
Robert.

Lisa looks at it this way. "So, suppose we use PeerTool to make a
major decision and I implement the idea that scores most favorably. If
it turns out badly, I can just hear my boss saying 'Lisa, what were
you thinking? We pay you to make the decisions, not them!'"

Sam has a different concern. "What if I implement the most favorable
idea and it succeeds? I can hear my boss saying 'Great result, Sam,
and since the team is capable of making such good decisions perhaps we
can save some overhead by eliminating your position.'"

Celia considers a third possibility. "So what if I overrule the team's
recommendation and implement a different idea? If it goes badly, I'm
in trouble. My boss can say 'Celia, what were you thinking? Don't you
listen to your own people?'"

Robert wraps it up. "So the only hope is if I overrule the team and it
goes well. Even then, they'll feel demoralized and I'd better be right
every time -- otherwise I'm in Celia's situation."

And of course there's the classic Legal waffle: "Umm, this seems like
a great idea, you know, and we're certainly all about employee
empowerment here because it's right there in our mission statement but
I'm thinking that Legal may have some real concerns about our exposure
in a litigation situation what with this PeerTool thing holding such
explicit records of our decision-making process."

Now, I truly believe that using PeerTool could give your company a
significant competitive advantage by improving the overall quality of
your strategy and decisions, but please don't underestimate the
difficulty you'll face trying to introduce it. All right, enough said.
You've been warned.

I think the prospects are brighter for non-profit and educational
organizations. Most non-profits are led and staffed largely by
volunteers who are committed to a cause and give significantly of
their time and money. Most importantly, their careers aren't at risk
if they try something new.

Similarly, educational institutions, especially universities, are
already strongly committed to an egalitarian ideal. I can easily
imagine PeerTool being used in any number of classroom settings. Of
course, I'll know PeerTool is really doing something worthwhile if I
ever get an email from a department chair telling me PeerTool has made
a positive difference in faculty meetings.

Cheers,
Mike Ellis