and I have frequently seen peoples performance drop when they knew that their work was going to change. When I took over as operations officer of Special Warfare Group Two, I would get atrociously written messages/papers from the Team operations officers. I told them that if the content was correct, I was not going to change a thing. I then told the Commodore (my boss) the same thing...basically, that I was not going to be correcting the OPSOs work. Of course, the team OPSOs didn't believe me. So I get a call from the Team 8 OPSO, "Hey, what did you do with that message I sent up Monday, I haven't gotten the corrections yet (it was Wednesday)" I replied "I sent it to the Boss" "What? There were no mistakes?" "No, there were plenty of mistakes but I understood the content so sent it forward" So, I get a call from the Team Eight Commanding Officer--"Hey Tom, think you could get that message off the old man's desk?" "Sure, no problem"-
the work drastically improved once my junior operatons officers realized it was their work that was going to be seen--not my correction of their work