How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews? by Bob Sutton
Deming emphasized that forced rankings and other merit ratings that breed internal competition are bad management because they undermine motivation and breed contempt for management among people who, at least at first, were doing good work.
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If you want to read the most compelling and complete case against the traditional performance evaluation, however,I suggest that you pre-order UCLA Professor Sam Culbert’s new book Get Rid of the Performance Review. He first made this argument in the Wall Street Journal, but the book digs into this argument in far more detail and offers solutions for managers and companies who want to replace the traditional review — or at least reduce the damage that they do. To help spread the word about the book, and to find out if as many people despise the performance review as Sam (and I) believe, he has — a bit like the ARSE — designed a ten-item test called How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews? I just took it and scored a 36, which means I really hate them.
Related: The Trouble with Performance Reviews by Jeffrey Pfeffer – Deming and Performance Appraisal – Performance Appraisals, Good Execution is not the Solution?
Very interesting. I think there are two problems with performance reviews, but the first, and the one that most people complain about, are that many managers are awful at talking to employees about their performance, their behavior, and their improvement. Feedback stinks. That’s a problem that exists whether or not the performance review exists. The performance review just brings it out.
But feedback should be at the point of activity and real time. 6 months later is useless.
Jamie Flinchbaugh
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It is too early for a Performance Appraisal In Memoriam. It’s amazing that such dinosaurs (performance review systems, not the people) are still around. Yet despite the outcry against reviews, there’s nothing wrong with them that can’t be fixed by getting managers off of center stage. Top management can fix the basic problems the review system faces.
Critics argue that performance reviews not only don’t accomplish what they’re supposed to do – that is, improve performance, enhance employee skills and achieve planned outcomes – they have unintended negative consequences. In many cases, unfortunately, that’s true. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What companies need to abolish is not performance review itself, but the idea that it’s a “management tool. Here are some practiced paradigms that must be discarded:
Performance Review is designed, as the name suggests, in support of managers. If you believe this, your management is one of the roadblocks to exceptional performance. The most useful performance review support work relationships between employees (managers too are employees). Both parties need to address the question of how to best serve the goals and outcomes and align their work efforts.
Performance review is a management tool. Managers are not necessarily the best qualified to assess their staff’s accomplishments. In fact, they may have a very limited or biased view. A more complete and accurate picture results when employees and managers seek feedback from a variety of customers, team leaders, professional peers, and others inside or from outside the unit.
Performance reviews include judgments from a “higher authority”. Judgments produce compliant workers – people who are told what to do – not innovative ones. People hate performance reviews because most of them are fault-finding. How much better to ask, “What did we learn from this? What can we each do different the next time?”
The manager is responsible for obtaining input from the employees. 21st century employees can’t assume a passive role in performance review, providing “tough-minded” self-assessments and valuable insights only on request. They must take the initiative, soliciting feedback from their managers and others. No risk taking to solicit the complete picture and no learning means no improvements.
Managers should be trained in performance reviews, then prepare their employees for the process. If performance review is to be a productive partnership with employees taking the active role and both parties committed to exchanging knowledge and ideas, managers and employee need to be trained together.