Make Performance Evaluations Useful
photo by sassyart
When have you ever come out of a performance evaluation more energetic and ready to kick some serious ass for your company? Doesn’t matter if it is glowing, that one negative (because there always has to be something) will sit with you and fester.
This has been on my mind for a while. It is, after all, a multi-month process that is only this month coming to a head for many companies. After running across an old post from Bob Sutton, the head of Stanford’s d.school, where he wondered about the usefulness of performance evaluations it was time to chime in.
Performance evaluations, as most are implemented, could not be more detrimental to our organizations. Period.
Showing incredible restraint, I’ll limit my rationale to ten reasons. They,
- create internal competition amongst people who need to work together
- give manager’s an out for not giving consistent on-going feedback
- deliver ‘feedback’ that often comes completely out of the blue
- mandate we stack rank everyone on the team, even high-performing teams
- often use misaligned goals as a yardstick (or defunct goals established 12-months prior)
- are not consistent between groups under different managers
- are useless for promotions since those are often dictated by the manager who fights hardest for their employee
- often measure the interpersonal intangibles for which training and support is rarely offered
- reaffirm an ‘us vs. them’ mentality
- are highly susceptible to the failings and neuroticism of the evaluating manager
- bonus: are incredibly subject to recency biases
Not just useless, but counter-productive.
Try holding a weekly review instead. Set aside 15-minutes at the end of the week for some two-way communication and focus on the individual’s own goals and their effectiveness within the team. I’d suggest knowing and reviewing goals on both sides weekly and then answering questions that will help make your relationship more productive and keep the employee engaged.
Some starters:
- How much progress was made in helping the employee reach their stated goals
- How could you be more effective in helping the employee accomplish, learn, progress
- What opportunities would the employee like to take on
- What did you appreciate
- What went really well
- How effective was the team (team success or lack thereof is also the individual’s)
- What didn’t work for you (keep this short, provide a clear example and demonstrate why it wasn’t the most effective approach)
- What did other team member’s do that helped the employee be better
That said, if you lack sincerity, don’t come prepared to these meetings or are just looking out for number one then these will still be worthless.
Being a coach (translation: manager in today’s archaic vernacular) means prioritizing your employees and helping them reach their goals in the context of the company’s. It’s not easy. You’re serving two masters. But there aren’t too many people who can do it well so it’s a huge opportunity for us to differentiate ourselves and our companies.
Some performance evaluations may work for what they were designed to do. Regardless, I’d still suggest they be done weekly instead of annually.
No related posts.
I too find the evaluation process lacking in most businesses and all businesses that I’ve worked in. I think there does need to be some way to have these conversations and I see what you’re saying about having 15 minutes at the end of each week to review but these kinds of meetings are the first ones to get bumped when something comes up (as it always does). So how about a happy medium and do them quarterly instead of yearly or weekly? Unfortunately, the system depends a lot on the manager and managers hate doing reviews.
Thanks for the comment and making me think more about the topic Ethan.
While you’re exactly right that those meetings will always be the first to get pushed, this has to come from the top. We – as in all knowledge business leaders – need to start prioritizing our people. It’s easy not to do so in this economic climate, but we won’t be living in barrels for too much longer. When things change the poor companies will see an exodus – I’ll bet.
But I digress, my idealism leads me to believe that we’ll change things (and there is some evidence of that happening). To me this isn’t a soft, touchy-feely thing, it’s a competitive advantage thing. The knowledge industries rely on brain power and that’s only turned on when people are getting what they need out of a job. Even the most jaded, people-hating executive (kidding…sort of) will be forced to see it. When that happens, these meetings will no longer get pushed. We’ll recognize they’re far more valuable than a status meeting.
My rationale for weekly evaluations is, in part, as follows:
1. 15 minutes a week builds good habits. Feedback should be an on-going thing not annually (quarterly is better, but things will still get forgotten and the recency effect will take hold).
2. A weekly 15-minute cup of coffee means that it’s nothing to get worked up over. Setting aside formal time annually (potentially quarterly) gets everyone in a lather, manager and employee. Anxiety leads to defensiveness and formality leads to a ‘me vs. them’ attitude. Keeping it informal means the team leader and employee are on the same team. It’s a collaborative effort and provides an avenue for return communication where the manager can learn more about what’s happening to the individual and the team.
3. The annual or quarterly review (I fear) would continue to kill more hours than a weekly 15-minute meeting. The prep time that goes into those formal annual reviews kills days beforehand (and days after with all the kvetching).
Good luck with the new site – some great posts up already.
Thanks again.
+brent