History and Individuals

Kapil Edke analyses the importance of team work in performance evaluation of individuals in today's corporate world, and compares it with the way the history is viewed traditionally.

Being a Human Resources professional from Bangalore, the Silicon valley of India, makes it imperative for me to understand people's behaviour and establish objective parameters for their performance evaluation. Today's corporate world gives great importance to team work while doing performance evaluation, as it is now commonly accepted fact across industries that the great things are accomplished by a group of people working towards common goal, and not by individuals alone. This is evident from recent trends in recruitment processes, criteria set while promoting the employees and deciding salary increments. In all these decisions, the performance as a team member now matters more than individual performance. It is truly a challenge for today's young individuals to maintain competitive edge over their peers while displaying smooth team work spirit.

While what I just said has been pointed out numerous times by other HR professionals, what tries to set this article apart is the comparison of this fact with the way history is viewed and studied traditionally. We generally believe that history is made by individuals, the wars are fought alone and the new things are invented by aloof scientists working in remote laboratories.

Just to give few example: If we think about the first person who conquered the South Pole - we would name the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (although it was a team of 5 people including Amundsen who reached the pole). If  we ask - who attacked India in 325 BC - we would say, it was Alexander the Great. But if one is asked to name a few of his generals, probably most of us would not be able to name even a single! So the history assumes that the individuals make the history and the study of history can be accomplished by knowing the actions and decisions of individuals.

Isn't it funny? Isn't it injustice to the thousands of people whose actual on-ground actions decide the fate of any plan? Doesn't it mean that we make individuals larger than life and give them credit for even those things which they may not have done? The answer to most of these questions is, sadly, 'yes'.

Is there any other way we can study the history? The answer is, again sadly, no. That's because it is convenient to study the history the way we study it. It is not practically possible for us to remember the names of all the people behind any move or plan, nor is it required to do so; as in most of the cases, the ideas are proposed and decisions are taken by only a few individuals, the rest only follow the orders. Also, if the plan fails, the same individuals (who are otherwise credited for success) would be held responsible by history and hence all-in-all, it appears to be a fair deal. And although this approach makes individuals larger than life, it also portrays them as the role models for thousands of others. 

In a nutshell, performance evaluation in history and in today's corporate world are done in drastically different ways, and each process is right in its own way!