We will venture to say, that, by the year 2005, the Internet will have significantly changed the way we practice psychology in our discipline. During the transition period that will unfold over the next five years, we expect to see some of the more traditional procedures, such as conducting performance appraisals, commonly using web technology for both convenience and fundamental improvement in the value to the organization. As we move beyond this transition stage in utilizing this technology, we also expect to see fundamental change in the way our services are designed and delivered to stakeholders and clients.

Here's Ted

Ted and Ned have been involved in the leadership training business for the last 15 years. You are probably familiar with Ted's approach. He focuses on training management in order to make it more personally effective by providing feedback to his clients on how others see them; uses developmental exercises in training programs to improve leadership skills; and, for some clients, he coaches them, one on one, to be more effective leaders. To accomplish his objectives, Ted understands the power of multirater assessment and structured questionnaires of leadership style and personal competencies.

Before his workshops, Ted typically uses an on-site company coordinator to send out questionnaires to all participants in the workshop. Participants and/or the coordinator then distribute the rater forms for completion, accompanied by the usual reminders to participants to be sure to get their forms in before the deadline. Of course, there are some who fail to accomplish this task, and Ted always wonders to himself whether these people are "de-velopmentally ready" to be more effective leaders. Good question. Because the companies Ted works with are typically global, it is always a problem getting forms out and making sure they are mailed or faxed back in time for processing the reports before the workshop. Unfortunately, some participants don't receive a multi-rater generated report because either too few raters provided feedback, or the participants themselves didn't have time, or the inclination, to complete the ratings.

Over the last year, Ted's colleague Ned has been experimenting with utilizing a multirater website for collecting leadership ratings prior to conducting his workshops. The address (URL) of the website is e-mailed to all workshop participants in advance of his workshops. Participants can easily enter the website from any location in the world, with the password provided in an e-mail to their account. To obtain multirater feedback, participants or an onsite coordinator are instructed to enter the name and e-mail or fax number of each person they want to rate them on the surveys. Participants are coached on how to add a personal message to explain the purpose of the assessment and to enhance the quality and integrity of the data they will receive in the workshop. They can enter the site and rate their own perceptions of their leadership behaviors and style. Each rater then receives an e-mail or fax with the address of the website and the password. The raters receive a date by which they must rate the participant, an explanation of how the ratings will be combined, assurances of confidentiality and an e-mail address to which they can send any questions or comments.

Upon entering the website, each rater immediately sees a message listing all participants who have asked them to complete a leadership survey for them. By clicking on a name, they are brought to the appropriate form for the participant (e.g., higher level, peer, customer). They are then instructed on how to complete the survey on the individual, they can rate each individual, and then exit the site upon completion of the survey.

The web server keeps track of the date of the workshop and a week before the workshop an e-mail and fax message is sent to all raters and participants who have not completed their ratings. With one client, Ned accelerated the pace of these follow-up messages so that by the time of the workshop, those who had not fulfilled his/her obligation of completing the survey were getting friendly and humorous reminders by e-mail several times a day.

On the day of Ned's workshop, he checks into his website and sees from a list that one of the participants has still not rated himself, although all raters have completed their surveys. Like Ted, Ned wonders how developmentally ready this individual is to learn more about leadership. He makes a call and asks him to please complete the rating that morning. An hour before the workshop, Ned is able to get on his website and print all the reports for the workshop group. He sends a note to all of the raters on the e-mail list to thank them, and to remind them that the person who was rated will now be receiving feedback on the survey in a way that will assure their confidentiality and anonymity. They are also encouraged to contact Ned's e-mail address if they have any questions or concerns about the workshop intervention.

During the workshop, Ned uses a well-established leadership and competency model and provides participants with a web address (URL) to utilize following the workshop to help them to continue developing their leadership competencies. The website provides each person with a personal web page where they can retrieve an electronic copy of their report. At the website, they are then led through a development planning process based on the specific objectives they set for themselves in the training workshop. One of the processes Ned has used in past workshops can be described as follows:

3. Examples are provided on how to best measure a participant's success in accomplishing their objective and the participant can write in their own criteria using their own words. In some cases, Ned has contracted with the organization to have supervisors of participants integrate the objectives that were set in the leadership workshop directly into the performance review process/cycle.

7. Each day via e-mail they receive a new behavior or set of behaviors to work on that is associated with the goal. Participants can take many small action steps to address revealed leadership gaps to build their full potential.

10. Finally, they can select another objective to work on, and, based on the objective, they will receive a new set of behavioral suggestions and action steps to work on. The process continues with the new objective.

The website contains a great deal of material about leadership competency development that has been collected in the organization and from experts in the field. It explains models of leadership, personal development, and how to get the type of mentoring that is required to build one's full potential. Participants can select an objective or competency and learn various behaviors and strategies they can use to develop their effectiveness. The website contains a web board so they can post their ideas and communicate with others using the web system. By clicking on a competency or leadership style, they can be electronically taken to other material within the company for learning that competency, other material placed there by Ned about the competency, or to Corporate Training to sign up for a workshop on training in a specific skill area that would further enhance their leadership potential. Training programs are being offered with the goal of providing a "just in time" format to meet the needs of employees.

Ned's website provides him with many communication tools for relating to his client company. He can read and post messages on the web board to gather and respond to the concerns and ideas raised by all employees. He can schedule on-line chats for doing virtual training sessions or refresher workshops. He has the e-mail address of numerous employees and can set up lists to communicate with certain groupings of project teams, levels of management, and/or all employees. When employees have problems, they can e-mail Ned, who can pull from pre-written solutions or training material to provide a comprehensive and specific answer to address the needs of his clients. When he faces new employee situations, he can post his answer on a web board or in a database so that other employees with similar issues can access and learn from the information. Very little information is lost, and most of it can be disseminated quite easily to large numbers of employees across vast distances.

By using web-based e-mail, Ned can send graphic and linked web pages or small programs such as Java or ActiveX applets. Ned can even show an animated character talking and modeling behaviors using Microsoft Agent, a program for interactive animated personalities. There are many tools available, and they are growing each day, to help make the learning process instructive, continuous, and fun.

There are many important by-products from using website technology, but one important one, in terms of impact with the organization, is that Ned's relationship with his client is not "jump in, jump out," it is continuous and it evolves over time. Ned's workshop participants are less likely to put his material on a shelf, but receive support continuously over the year structured by e-mail sent from Ned's server in the form of the behaviors they choose to work on. Ned has the opportunity to provide mentoring support to a wide range of individuals by reviewing the objectives employees have accomplished and how they worked through each objective. He can e-mail or call them to make suggestions and provide advice on a "just in time basis."

Imagine the following web-based system for Jane, a corporate manager:

1. Jane selects Larry from her list of reports and is brought to a pie chart showing each of the corporate competencies desired in a manager as a wedge. Underneath the graphic is Larry's name, job title, and a brief job description.

2. Jane clicks on each wedge of the pie and apportions 100 points across the competencies to represent the proportion of competencies required in Larry's job based on the priorities for his unit, division, and the overall organization. As Jane enters each number, the wedge areas adjust. Jane can view a description of the competency from a competency list accessed on the same page. She can also add in her own description of the competency in language she may feel is more suitable for Larry's job and her unit.

3. Jane e-mails Larry to suggest they work together to apportion competencies for his job.

4. Larry enters his personal web page and selects "job competency model." Larry is presented with the job title and description. He can read the competency descriptions and Jane's supplements to the descriptions. Larry apportions the competencies he believes are needed for his job, and prioritizes them.

5. Jane is notified by e-mail sent from the web server that Larry has completed his rating of his job.

6. Jane arranges to talk with Larry, who is located in another country, and tells him that they should each bring up the "job competency model coordination" web page. This facility is a collaborative application (e.g., Microsoft NetMeeting or Netscape Communicator) that can be used to facilitate their working together to come up with agreement of the weighting of different job competency areas of Larry's job. The page shows three competency circles. The first circle is Jane's model of the job, the second circle is Larry's, and the third circle is proportioned for each competency that shows the average of their two ratings.

7. Jane and Larry discuss the job and the skills needed for the job. As they talk, they apportion the competencies for the job in the third circle, which will end up as the final job model.

9. This time when Jane and Larry discuss the agreement on-line, they see one pie with the blend of colors (e.g., if Jane rates Larry low and Larry rates himself high, the color is purple). Clicking on the wedges, especially the non-agreement wedges (orange, green, and purple), finalizes the rating.

10. Now Jane brings up a web page that shows Larry's competencies coloring the job competency model. Where large wedges are red, there is a clear need for development. Development judgments can be made from looking at the size and color of each competency wedge. By clicking on the wedge Jane and Larry are linked to relevant training workshops for which they can register, related documents within the corporation, and behaviors and exercises for developing that competency. The competency development can also be structured using the development plan model being used by Ned described above.

But what is the necessary evil in almost every company? You've got it, it's the performance appraisal process! First, it is difficult to get managers to do performance appraisals on time. Second, it is typically not associated with being fun. Third, even if they do it, it is rarely linked to development. Fourth, it is difficult to get managers to coordinate objectives across employees and with the objectives of that manager's boss. Now imagine that you are reviewing the performance of your employee, Sydney.

The corporate server notifies you by e-mail that it is time for you to review Sydney. You enter your management website and click on Sydney's name under the performance appraisal area onscreen. You see her job description and the objectives from her last performance appraisal. Since you have made notes about her performance over the review period, each objective has an associated text box that includes your notes. Objectives that are jointly assigned to some of your other direct reports have that report's name in parentheses. Objectives that have been highlighted as important by your supervisor are in bold green.

With the click of a button, you can bring in Sydney's ratings from the last review. You use a set of buttons to rate each objective. There is a text box for you to make comments about the objective. At the bottom of the screen there is a running average so you can see how each rating affects the overall rating for Sydney.

You now enter the section for objectives in the next review period. The previous period's objectives are presented as a starting point to which you can delete objectives, or add new objectives from a drop down list. You can also add new objectives to that list. When you add a new objective you see a "wizard" button. The wizard leads you through examples and rules for writing a good objective. Below each objective there is a text box for you to make comments about the objective.

Sydney follows a similar process on her performance appraisal form, including selecting training that she thinks she should receive and behaviors that she thinks she should practice during the performance review period.

It is now time for your review of Sydney's performance. You bring up her performance appraisal form and notice that her ratings of one objective are radically different from yours. You click an advice button next to the form and select that topic. You read about how to work with Sydney to understand why her perceptions may differ from yours and how to talk to her about resolving the differences in perception.

You call Sydney and you go to your management website and bring up the merged performance appraisal form for Sydney. This form brings up each objective one by one with your rating and comments side by side with her ratings and comments. A third area of the page allows for a final, agreed upon rating. The features available on the individual forms are also available on the merged form.

Acknowledgment. We would like to thank Nancy Rotchford for ideas and a lively discussion leading to the descriptions of the web-based performance appraisal and the goal alignment process. Leisa Fearing of Elf Systems Corporation provided essential advice on the realities of the web and has been instrumental in developing some of the systems described in this article.

Glossary ActiveX is a set of software components which can be used to provide special features for web-based applications. Creating an importance wheel that adjusts to importance ratings currently requires custom enhancements made possible by ActiveX. Applet is a small program that requires other software like an Internet Browser to run. Browser is a program that allow your client software to interface with web servers across networks or the Internet to access and retrieve electronic documents and run applets. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) The standard language for describing the contents and structure of pages on the world wide web. Internet is the worldwide collection of networks of computers sharing digital information using a standard set of networking and software protocols. Users are able to send and receive information to anywhere else on the 'Net within minutes or usually seconds. Intranet is a private computer network which is based on the same standards and software used on the Internet. These are used within organizations to share information across different locations and groups, but are usually carefully protected and kept entirely separate from the outside world. >Java is a small secure, robust, object-oriented programming language which will run on almost any type of computer, making it well suited for use on the web. Microsoft Agent is a set of software services that supports the presentation of software agents (applications that operate on the user's behalf) as interactive personalities in a social interaction environment. Microsoft NetMeeting is a software platform that provides real-time voice and data communication, application sharing, file transfer, whiteboard, and text-based chat over the Internet. Netscape Communicator combines the Netscape browser with workgroup collaboration and electronic mail. Server is a computer that is connected by a network to many other computers and acts as a common resource for the other computers. A web server is a server dedicated to providing access via the Internet. URL (Uniform Resource Locator) defines the location of a web page or other web resources. For example, the TIP URL is: http://www.siop.org/TIP.html World wide web, or web for short, is an application on the Internet to locate and display documents anywhere on the 'Net.' These documents can contain links to bring up other web documents, pictures, sound, video and embedded software applications.