At the end of the year, how to ＂test＂ the performance of leading cadres？

As the "baton" of selecting and employing people, what kind of assessment and evaluation system is established is what kind of achievement view is advocated. On the occasion of thoroughly studying and implementing the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee throughout the country, the Organization Department of the Central Committee issued a notice on improving the performance appraisal to promote high-quality development, conveying a strong signal of guiding high-quality development with performance appraisal.

Party and government leading cadres are the backbone to promote the realization of new goals, and the performance appraisal is directly linked to the appointment of cadres. If the orientation, content and methods of performance appraisal are not changed and improved, it will be difficult for party and government leading cadres to truly establish new development concepts and promote high-quality development. At present, there are still many theoretical problems to be discussed and some practical problems to be solved on how to effectively improve the working ability of leading cadres to promote high-quality development through performance appraisal.

Practical problems of performance appraisal

On October 24, 2020, the Central Organization Department issued the Notice on Improving the Performance Appraisal of Promoting High-quality Development (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), demanding "improving the performance appraisal of local party and government leading bodies and leading cadres to promote high-quality development". The "Notice" mainly puts forward guiding requirements for the performance evaluation of leading cadres from the aspects of political direction, content indicators, people’s livelihood and people’s evaluation, evaluation methods and application of results. In fact, there are still many theoretical problems to be discussed on how to effectively improve the working ability of leading cadres to promote high-quality development through performance appraisal.

▴Test the group or the individual??

The circular regards "leading bodies and leading cadres" as the same subject of action and responsibility, which embodies the values of collectivism. From the logic of collectivism, individual leading cadres are members of the leading group, and they bear and perform the responsibility of unity, joint responsibility and loyalty. All members of the leading group share weal and woe, interests and responsibilities. Strict implementation of the collective assessment and reward and punishment system is conducive to strengthening the overall situation consciousness, loyalty consciousness and collective responsibility of leading cadres, but it also faces the dilemma of "collective action logic" in reality, and it is difficult to solve the problem of "hitchhiking" and distinguish between doing and not doing, doing more and doing less, doing well and doing badly. Therefore, many people advocate individualism as opposed to collectivism, and think that the target responsibility and development performance must be accurate to people and attributed to people in order to solve the problem of collective action and improve the accuracy of assessment.

However, this proposition obviously ignores the nature of collective cooperation between public service and political achievements, and may also undermine the collectivism spirit necessary for the development of public utilities. Therefore, how to organically integrate collectivism performance evaluation and individualism performance evaluation, and correctly handle the relationship between collective performance of leading bodies and individual performance of leading cadres is the first difficult problem before the performance evaluation of leading cadres. In practice, this problem can be well solved by measures such as "the responsibility system of the top leaders" and "the principle of division of labor and cooperation", but its logical differences and tensions still make it often a difficulty, especially when the leading bodies are not United and members play non-cooperative games.

▴Test people or test?Performance?

In the mainstream political culture and social culture of our country, the concept of "being an official before being a man" generally exists, which has high expectations for the moral quality and moral behavior of officials, that is to say, the performance evaluation should not only test "achievements", but also test "people"; We should not only attach importance to "performance", but also attach importance to "good people factor". The theoretical support of the theory of "testing people" is the social cognitive school about human behavior, which holds that meaning cognition and internal concepts are the decisive factors of behavior. On the contrary, the behaviorist school believes that human behavior is mainly or even entirely the result of external environment, and there is no essence and personality that is decisive for behavior; As long as the system is reasonable and the incentives are appropriate, all leading cadres can contribute to the high-quality development of China’s economy and society. Behavioral science research shows that both views may be biased, and human behavior is neither completely determined by external environment nor completely determined by internal personality. Pure theory often leads to one-sided practice. However, behaviorism also reminds us that it is not appropriate to judge the leading cadres’ essential character and "pre-determine" their political achievements. In fact, the concept of leading cadres’ political achievements is by no means "fixed" and unchangeable. The key depends on how to educate, guide, motivate and manage. The question raised here is whether the organization and personnel department judges the internal character of leading cadres according to their actual political achievements, or infers their possible political achievements according to their internal characters. Or should we treat them comprehensively and dialectically? If so, how to treat it comprehensively and dialectically?

▴Outstanding performance or potential performance?

The modern scientific revolution began with measuring numbers; It is generally believed that without measurable figures, it is impossible to objectively understand the world and promote its progress. The direct expression of this scientific concept in the performance evaluation is that the performance evaluation only examines the observable and measurable performance, and the more objective and measurable the performance, the easier it is to be concerned, such as the growth rate of regional fiscal revenue, total gdp, per capita gdp, total investment and financing, city appearance, infrastructure and so on. If so, how to measure and assess those "long-term, fundamental potential achievements"? For example, the construction of the rule of law, the construction of spiritual civilization, and the improvement of population quality. As far as individual leading cadres are concerned, their ability and performance are constrained by external factors such as objective conditions, early foundation and even teamwork. In addition, there is still the inconsistency between "obvious ability" and "potential". So, how to treat and consider its "potential"? In the actual operation of the performance evaluation of leading cadres, the organization and personnel department must give full play to its practical wisdom and deal with the difficult problem of how to determine the weight of outstanding achievements and potential achievements, and outstanding talents and potential.

▴Consequence theory or morality theory?

As a basic problem of public ethics, the question of consequence theory or deontology theory is similar to the choice between responsibility ethics and belief ethics mentioned by German sociologist Max Weber, and also applies to the performance evaluation of leading cadres. Pursuing the consequence theory, the performance evaluation only focuses on the performance results of leading cadres. Consequentialists pay attention not to the free value of means and procedures, but to their instrumental value for achieving a certain (just) result; What is ignored is not the cost and price of means and procedures, but the legitimacy and rationality of means and procedures. On the contrary, leading cadres who pursue the theory of morality pay attention to acting out of respect for ideals, beliefs and responsibilities, regardless of advantages and disadvantages, regardless of the consequences. As "baton" and "navigator", the ideal candidate that the performance appraisal system of leading cadres tries to select is of course the best of both worlds. However, if we can only choose the second one, then, is the type of leading cadres chosen a moralist who gives consideration to both consequences and consequences? This seemingly similar and good choice contains subtle differences in the orientation of selecting and employing people.

▴Official evaluation or civilian evaluation?

"People-centered" is the fundamental goal orientation of high-quality development, and people’s livelihood security is an important content of high-quality development. People’s sense of gain, happiness and security are important criteria for judging leading cadres’ achievements in promoting high-quality development. Therefore, the "Notice" requires "enhancing the participation of the masses in the performance appraisal, focusing on analyzing the subjective feelings of the masses" and "fully reflecting the feelings of the masses and reflecting the evaluation of the masses". Due to the lack of comprehensive information and relevant professional ability, the masses of the people intuitively recognize and judge the achievements of leading cadres through "embodied cognition" based on their own experiences, which has strong subjectivity and particularity. The people’s embodied cognition and experiential evaluation are not only the touchstone of leading cadres’ achievements in people’s livelihood and the spirit and ability of public service, but also the mirror of "image project" and "achievement project", and at the same time can overcome the possible disadvantages of official and expert performance evaluation based on copywriting and grand narrative. However, this only applies to areas where ordinary people can experience it personally, and for those achievements that are "highly professional and targeted, and it is difficult for the masses to feel it immediately", the reliability and validity of general public comments or public comments are difficult to guarantee. Therefore, which fields and projects are suitable for introducing public comments? What position and weight should be given to mass appraisal in the whole performance appraisal system? What should be done if there is a conflict between "people’s evaluation" and "official evaluation" Wait a minute. These are all important issues in the performance evaluation of leading cadres.

In addition to the above-mentioned epistemological problems, there are still many operational problems in performance appraisal, such as the main structure, object selection, content scope, index system, implementation process, result form and application of results.

Some suggestions on performance evaluation

After decades of practical exploration and experience iteration, the organization and personnel system of the party and the country has accumulated rich experience in cadre assessment. In April 2019, the Regulations on the Assessment of Leading Cadres of the Party and Government (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") issued by the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC made an overall norm for the assessment of leading cadres in the form of regulations for the first time; In October 2020, the Notice issued by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee further made guiding arrangements for improving and promoting the performance appraisal of high-quality development. The following mainly aims at the above problems and errors, and discusses some humble opinions on how to understand and implement the provisions of the Regulations and the spirit of the Notice.

✔ Comprehensively, historically and dialectically evaluate the achievements of leading cadres

Although the previous article stated some difficult problems in the performance evaluation of leading cadres in the form of contingent choice, whether it is to choose one from the other, to unify one side with the other, or to equate the two aspects, it will cause logical absurdity or violate the spirit of the Notice. On December 6, 2013, the "Notice on Improving the Performance Appraisal of Local Party and Government Leading Groups and Leading Cadres" issued by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee clearly required"Comprehensively and historically and dialectically evaluate the achievements of leading bodies and leading cadres". It must be comprehensive, and it is not possible to take care of one thing and lose sight of another. We must also have a historical view of time, and we must not "recognize" political achievements, especially high-quality development achievements, but stand the test of history; More importantly, it is necessary to dialectically understand the various structural elements of leading cadres’ political achievements. "Dialectically look at subjective efforts and objective conditions, former foundation and current performance, personal contribution and collective role, and look at both development achievements and development costs and costs; Pay attention not only to the assessment of outstanding achievements, but also to the assessment of potential achievements that lay the foundation and benefit the long term; Not only do your best, but also do your best. "

As the philosopher maurice merleau-ponty said, human order is not a simple mechanical relationship, but a complex dialectical relationship; Perception itself is a kind of dialectics, and it is also a phenomenological grasp of complex dialectical relations. Performance evaluation can be summed up as perceptual activity, and its basic task is to gain insight into complex performance phenomena by adhering to historical materialism dialectics; There is also a dialectical relationship between the appraiser and the object of performance appraisal, rather than a mechanical subject-object relationship. As mentioned above, the perception of performance appraisers will be influenced by various factors such as themselves and the objects to be appraised, which may lead to many cognitive biases. Therefore, it is necessary to let the appraisers understand the cognitive biases that may occur in the performance appraisal process through appropriate means (such as education and training, experience reflection, etc.) and prevent these biases through appropriate means (such as systematic measures to predict errors).

✔ Improving the credibility of performance appraisal through information disclosure

Information disclosure can not only mobilize social attention and mass supervision, but also obtain more and more comprehensive information. In order to improve the credibility of leading cadres’ performance appraisal, improve the reliability and validity of mass appraisal, and achieve the consistency between mass appraisal and official appraisal, before the appraisal, the organization and personnel department should disclose the specific implementation details of the appraisal to the public and the assessed object according to the Regulations and the Notice, mainly including the appraisal purpose and principle, object scope, appraisal content, appraisal method, appraisal result determination, appraisal result application, organization and implementation, discipline and supervision, etc. In the process of assessment, disclose the assessment progress and interim situation in real time, and disclose the performance report provided by the assessed object or the relevant information obtained by the assessment team under the premise of not endangering public interests and damaging the privacy of the assessment parties, so as to accept social scrutiny and supervision; After the assessment, announce the assessment results and the application of the results. Only in this way can we truly and effectively "enhance the participation of the masses in the performance appraisal" and enhance the credibility of the performance appraisal.

✔ Construction of Medal-Coefficient-Ranking Evaluation System

"Notice" requirements"Focus on promoting high-quality development and optimizing the content indicators of performance appraisal"And put forward a series of guiding opinions on the design of content indicators. According to the provisions of the Regulations and the requirements of the Notice,It is suggested to construct an evaluation system of "medal-coefficient-ranking list".

Construction of medal system. The political achievements of leading cadres can be divided into several types, such as governance system and governance capacity, public safety and social governance, people’s livelihood security and public services, business environment and economic development, etc., and the political achievements medal system can be constructed in turn. Secondly, the classification of political achievements should be adjusted and refined according to the region and department where the assessed is located, so as to improve its pertinence and applicability. Finally, combined with the overall deployment of the central government and the needs of regional development, some key projects are selected as "key indicators". For example, at present and in the future, the employment of key groups, the poverty alleviation of the remaining poor population, the improvement of the prevention and treatment system for major epidemics and the public health system, the deepening of the "streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services" reform, the optimization of the business environment, and the provision of quality public services are key projects. The medal system is only classified horizontally in parallel, while vertically it is at least divided into two levels: key and general.

Construction of coefficient. The coefficient system, that is, the adjustment parameter system, belongs to the "leading index", which is designed to ensure high-quality development, dialectically handle the relationship between the elements of political achievements, and overcome the cognitive bias in political achievements assessment. According to the requirements of the Notice and the above discussion, the important coefficients mainly include: innovation coefficient, green coefficient, coordination (cooperation) coefficient, openness (sharing) coefficient, sustainability coefficient, benefit scale coefficient and mass satisfaction coefficient.

The construction of the leaderboard. The establishment of the leaderboard is to deal with the difficult and controversial dilemma of absolute quantification of political achievements, and to turn the performance appraisal into a relative ranking compared with the reference objects (in the same system and region), and at the same time, it can also bring the tournament-style incentive effect in the performance appraisal. The calculation steps of the ranking list can be in turn as follows: medal classification, scoring and assignment, and different types of medals are treated equally in principle; Quantify the coefficient related to medal achievement [0,1] and get the average value; Multiply the average coefficient by the medal and find the product; Accumulate the products and rank them by ordinal number in the set of examinees in the same system or region. The assessment results can be presented directly in the form of ranking, or the (cumulative) ranking can be converted into grades.

Medal-coefficient-leaderboard evaluation system can be used not only for usual assessment and special assessment, but also for annual assessment and full assessment; The results of large-cycle assessment can be the synthesis of the results of small-cycle assessment.

Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan

Author: People’s Forum Network

Text Editor: Cheng Pei

Source: vision china

Photo editor: Xiang Jianying