Making Ee Reviews Great Again

The principal and employee surveys we do with every engagement consistently show one thing: employees don’t get sufficient feedback on their performance. In some cases it’s just because of sloppy management, but I think the root cause is that we put off reviews because of the tension that surrounds them. I want to correct that.

Some History, First

Performance reviews were took off in the military during WWI, and were later built into the fabric of work when the workforce was expanding rapidly and manufacturers needed a way to replace more subjective measures (like someone’s relationship with the boss). Goal-setting and comparative measurement were introduced early on in this process.

Later came Peter Drucker’s influence through concepts like “what gets measured gets managed” He never said this, by the way, but he believed in the concept. It’s not a very useful idea, in my opinion, since many critical features of performance don’t lend themselves to measurement.

In the early days, most of the feedback was negative, focusing on what an employee could improve. In the mid-60s, performance reviews incorporated more positive feedback and coaching. Each review was differentiated a bit, taking that particular person into account.

And then to shorten this story a bit, every decade has brought a subtle change to the process, but performance reviews have been with us for more than a century…and probably aren’t going anywhere. So let’s make them useful, less intimidating, and something you (and employees) look forward to.

Main Reasons to Do Them

There are three reasons to continuously review employee performance, whether that’s a formal process or not:

• Give employees the feedback they crave. You might think that some employees don’t crave feedback, and you’d be right. Those are the people who should be your ex-employees. Good employees want you to set standards, tell them where they are measuring up, etc. This helps them decide if they even want to work for you. Speaking of which, employee feedback helps you, too.
• Understand the effectiveness of your own management style. Do they even know what you think you’ve made clear? Do you know how they are receiving your feedback? Are you managing each employee differently, centering your feedback on how they best receive it instead of how you want to deliver it?
• Correct your earlier hiring mistakes. Everybody makes them. It’s not a big deal. You want to be so good at hiring that mistakes are rare, but when that error happens, you want to correct it quickly. For your sake, for that person’s sake, and for the team. Many of you are holding onto people far too long.

With that in mind, let me suggest a few simple things.

A Good Performance Review

I don’t think we ought to over-complicate this. Think about these ideas when doing performance reviews:

• Focus less on a big yearly, terrifying summit and more on little bits of feedback in the moment. Forgive the crude example, but we don’t have a yearly meeting with Frida (our Great Dane); instead, she gets a treat every time she does something right (which isn’t often, admittedly).
• Praise in public; correct in private. Enough said.
• Ask their opinion about their performance. And then really listen to it. Don’t view it as a way to trap someone, but as a way to get a genuine insight into their soul, and into your management style.
• Conversations, normally; written if a dismissal is imminent.
• No awkward, fixed-length meetings. That means avoid a meal. It’ll be awkward before you spill the beans, and super awkward while you wonder why the waiter is taking so long.
• Casual walks, if your situation warrants it, are the complete solution to good employee reviews. They get you away from distractions, pauses aren’t so awkward, and you can say things to each other without trying to avoid eye contact.

Regardless, just do it. Look for opportunities to provide feedback. Natural opportunities are often immediately following a client call or internal meeting. You’ll get better at it and employees will be very grateful that you care enough to clarify what’s important to you.