This time, I will talk about how we set our new evaluation system after the new coaching system.

Back number: The Road to Super Flat Organization #7: the Birth of the Coaching System

A problem in a general evaluation method

Evaluation is a supervisor’s job.

Many companies adopt this evaluation system.

As a matter of course, you cannot choose your boss.

I had, in the past, worked with various supervisors.

When I worked with great supervisors, they gave me great coaching.

Furthermore, they gave me an honest, correct evaluation.

On the other hand, when I worked with supervisors without qualifying skills and personality as a manager, I could do nothing but pray for their personnel shift.

Seen from the other side, I must have been a troublesome subordinate, and they might have disliked me.

As seen this way, it is unreasonable that one must become a coach (or a supervisor) and evaluate another whom he does not go along well with, or even does not want to understand.

360 degree evaluation

360 degree evaluation is to overcome the limitations of one-way evaluation. As an HR strategy, I think it is a powerful way to prevent managers from having too much one-sided power.

However, picking up those who should evaluate is a too difficult task for a company.

Then, just like we did with the coach, members should choose on their own.

With this background, Colorkrew’s evaluation system, where members choose their evaluator, started.

When I explain this, I always receive a question asking, “What would you do if a member chose only naive evaluators?”

Openness solves all!

At Colorkrew, where everything is open, everyone knows who chose who, as a matter of course. Then, naturally, members cannot choose their favorite evaluators only.

Others around will be, “Hey, I think your choice of evaluators isn’t reasonable.”

Besides, a coach can also choose an evaluator, and this makes evaluator election even fairer.

Colorkrew HR evaluation

Here, I will describe how we make HR evaluation at Colorkrew.

For objective management, Colorkrew uses GKA, which is an advanced version of OKR, Google’s objective management system.

GKA stands for Goals, Key Results, Action, and in the system, members share their objectives and actions toward them.

Goalous is an in-house communication service based on GKA.

At Colorkrew, we evaluate based on past activities and progress on Goalous. In other words, evaluations are made based on the facts and not on impression.

We first make an evaluation on each objective on Goalous, then make an overall evaluation.

The purpose of the overall evaluation is to provide feedback in the following two ways:

Qualitative evaluation: We give feedback on what is to be highly evaluated or member’s tasks in the future. Final evaluation: We decide if their grade should be downgraded, upgraded, or kept the same.

The discussion on grade is quite sensitive but, since we believe that everyone should give an opinion, every evaluator needs to make this judgment.

Evaluation is now open: Super Flat Organization 2.0

At ISAO before Super Flat Organization, each member had access to the content of the feedback they received. However, they could not see other evaluators’ feedback.

In Mar. 2018, three years after the beginning of Super Flat Organization. Some members built the “Super Flat Organization 2.0” project team to improve Super Flat Organization even more.

Regarding the evaluation, some advocated to “open up all evaluation to all.”

This change was one of the upgrade highlights to SFO 2.0.

When I first learned about that idea, honestly, I thought it was impossible, and disagreement would be too harsh. Then, one day I dared to ask everyone.

To my surprise, most of the reactions were “it won’t be a problem” or “we should do that.”

It was the moment that Team ISAO showed much more passion toward openness than my philosophy.

For me, it was an event as surprising as the moment when Super Flat Organization started. However, it is now one of my happiest events at ISAO and Colorkrew.

After the new evaluation

The members now choose their coaches and evaluators independently,

and the evaluations are open to all.

They brought huge changes and evolvement to the team.

First, they got rid of the problem that “the company decides everything and people need to stand them” from everyone. I think it created improvement for member’s mental health.。

Also, by making much more evaluators, the privilege of “evaluating someone” is now everyone’s right. This is another improvement.

Furthermore, open evaluation makes the comments of evaluators much better.

When the evaluation was closed, there were lots of harsh comments because the members did not get to read them.

After it’s all open, people take care of the words they use.

Besides, evaluators are now mindful if their feedback is meaningful or helpful for others. They naturally understood that others would not show them respect if evaluators make judgments based on impressions or personal likes.

What do you think from your context? HR system and evaluation are the foundation of a company.

By upgrading them, your company might become a team that leads a new era.

Continued to:The Road to Super Flat Organization #9: The Road to Non-territorial Office ※Once the next article is published, the link will be connected.