When you know you could use Rypple

We engage in a conversation with our users as we bring Rypple to more workplaces. This is extremely rewarding. Talking to users lets us know how we can improve. People say some nice things about Rypple. But sometimes they encounter obstacles. Here’s what a manager at a large company told me:

I did check out Rypple. Personally, I do think it’s useful but only if people take the time to fill it out. Everybody is too busy to let you know until it comes to bonus/reviews.

I’ve decided to share my response publicly:

1) Setting time aside to provide or ask for feedback is difficult even when we know of potentials benefits it can have.

Similarly, some people know that exercise and eating right are good but continue do the opposite. Healthy living takes time and an honest commitment to self-improvement. And although it is unlikely everyone can be a toned and chiseled Matthew McConaughey, we know that not supersizing fast food takeouts and even light exercise go a long way. And why don’t we do that (more often)? Because it’s much easier to do the opposite – procrastinate and engage in activities that require less thought and effort. We’ve designed Rypple with this premise in mind because obtaining specific and actionable feedback quickly on a regular basis goes a long way.

2) Not providing feedback to your colleagues stumps learning.

Highly productive and efficient teams evolve through constant feedback – remember the Borg? True, we are not the Borg; mindless drones organized in a single-minded collective. But this also means we don’t hear what others think. That is why it’s important to ask them about their thoughts. As Feral Jundi points out,

learning organizations is the theme for any company and its culture … if they want to be successful.

This refers to Peter Senge’s five centrals disciplines of learning organizations: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning. Rypple can be used easily with all five disciplines to obtained timely, specific, and actionable feedback that will lead to continuous learning and improvement (both personal and company-wide).

3) Tying compensation discussion (which is mostly not controlled by an employee) to the employee’s performance (which is mostly controlled by an employee) just does not make sense. Period!

Severely cutting someone’s bonus due to Wall Street meltdown or the big three bailout and then asking for improved performance will not set that person off on a path of success. Such practices destroy team morale and seed animosity. Robert Bacak puts it plainly in his book Manager’s Guide to Performance Reviews:

As soon as you tie review to pay or rewards, you create a situation where it’s apparently not in the best interest of the employee or the manager to work together. Couple that conflict with the lack of good objective measures and the review process changes. A review process tied to rewards tends to pit manager vs. employee…

If you think that Rypple may be inappropriate at your work place, I challenge you to think again. Rypple is not a wondrous topical cream to apply mindlessly and effortlessly to get rid of unwanted fat. To use Rypple properly, you need to be honest with yourself and apply it because you feel you could benefit from honest, timely, frequent, and confidential feedback. This feedback will show you what things you’re doing well and what should be improved.