Berger Strategy Consultants
7.4 Evaluation Principles
menting our recommendations. We do not need arrogant know-it-alls – we want consultants who can listen and who are willing to learn from our clients.
Good consultants must be able to get things done, know how to handle resis- tance and be able to enforce unpleasant decisions. Without these abilities, they will not be able to meet clients' demands.
We try to identify these skills through interviews and case studies in the course of our recruiting days. These events are conducted centrally for all positions to be filled in a given country. This ensures that we do not have differing evaluation standards and new consultants with varying performance profiles.
makes people lose interest, both in the recruiting market and for individual em- ployees: it puts them in a "gilded cage" in which their age and income level make them unattractive to industrial companies.
An individual's career at our company is based on a clearly structured system in which we define individual hierarchy levels in terms of the performance we ex- pect. We lay down at the outset what consultants can achieve when they expand their competence, experience and scope of responsibility. For each of these stages, we define what we expect and what we reward, not only in professional and meth- odological terms (the so-called "hard skills"), but also in terms of "soft skills". We also define how long it should take to advance from one stage to the next, and make it clear to staff.
Our basic system has 4 elements (see Figure 7.3.):
EMPLOYEE SHAREHOLDER
Fig. 7.3.Professional Levels
x New consultants join at the Junior Consultant or Consultant level, de- pending on previous experience. In their first one or two years, they are primarily involved in research and analysis work, expanding gradually until they work independently on smaller project modules.
x The first major development step is when, as a Senior Consultant, a member staff is allowed to independently manage project modules and is given management and control responsibilities within their team. This is also the entry level for staff with professional experience in other indus- tries.
x The next level up is Project Manager, with full responsibility for project content and management, and for follow-up acquisition.
Junior Consultant/
Consultant
Partner
Senior Consultant
Project Manager
Associate Partner
Junior Consultant/
Consultant
Partner
Associate Partner Project
Manager Senior
Consultant
x On joining the firm's management team, first as Associate Partner and later, if they are successful, as Partner, employees take on responsibility for acquisitions through long-term client relationships, managing an area of competence, and product and staff development.
This system of development stages is tightly linked to a performance assess- ment and evaluation tool. This very important and transparent tool is shaped by our corporate culture and is used right from day one at all hierarchy levels. Con- tinuous career development calls for constant monitoring and regular review and evaluation of how consultants are meeting the various criteria of their require- ments profile. Since the outcome of this evaluation decides whether and when a consultant will reach the next level, our system must be capable of generating valid statements about staff performance, that is, about the quality and efficiency of their professional work, their commitment and their ability to communicate with the client and within their own team.
This system is based primarily on the Project Manager individually evaluating each consultant following project completion, and providing them with construc- tive feedback. The managers making these evaluations must receive intensive training in evaluation and communication techniques, so that what are necessarily subjective appraisals will be understood and accepted. Twice a year, Mentors summarize these ongoing evaluations and present them to the respective regional Evaluation Committee, which consist of several members of the local manage- ment and is supported by members of the Human Resources department. This Committee makes the final decision on all promotions, bonuses and admission to special internal programs, which I will come back to later.
At the management level, this "top-down" evaluation is supplemented by its
"bottom-up" counterpart, in which consultants regularly evaluate managers in ac- cordance with management guidelines. To achieve a full 360-degree view, a "peer group" evaluation may be used at the management level.
Employees who have achieved outstanding results in our evaluation process are invited to join our Challenge Club. This club has three aims:
First, it aims to motivate its members. They have all been identified as consti- tuting our management reserves, and they should actively be made aware of this.
Members generally participate for two years, within which time they can expect to climb to the shareholder rank. However, it is also possible for a member to be dismissed for failing to perform adequately – in other words, our performance phi- losophy also applies here.
Second, the club aims to provide its members with special training above and beyond our internally established seminar program. We want to permanently boost their individual know-how. However, while technical expertise is important, pre- paring members for the management tasks that lie in store for them is also a very critical factor in their training.
Third, the members collaborate on internal task forces and help develop issues that are important for the entire company. In other words, they already take an ac- tive role in developing the firm whose future they will later be expected to control.
The Challenge Club meets once a year for its main event, which has been held in previous years in such cities as New York, Shanghai and Moscow. The agenda includes a mix of seminars, company visits and extensive opportunities for net- working with our management, who consider the event a great occasion to meet and chat with our future managers. In addition to this main event, there are also various smaller meetings aimed at focusing on specific issues and facilitating more direct contact with other top candidates.
The program enjoys wide recognition as a career-boosting opportunity, and the participants are highly appreciative. One of the key results from the firm's per- spective is that we have seen a significant decline in the number of exits – club members are more loyal because they receive an immediate sense of how much our firm appreciates their work.