Kill The Annual Performance Review
I’ve been holding on to this link for a while, hoping to write more about it, but there’s really not much more to write, so here it is. The author, Samuel Culbert, was making the rounds a while back – NPR, WSJ, etc. After hearing him and reading this article, I was tempted to check out the book, but from what I can tell, it’s pretty much summed up in his short interviews and articles. The book doesn’t seem to offer much more than the basic premise: that traditional performance evaluations emphasize all the wrong things and set up an unnecessary adversarial relationship between the supervisor and employee.
Personally, I’m all for (and encourage) providing performance feedback, but the traditional yearly employee evaluation is a pretty poor way to do it. Read the article, search for Culbert’s interviews, or read his book (and let me know if my guess about it is wrong) if you want to know more.
Another instance where “going through the motions” management is actually bad for employee productivity and morale and where a little more thought can reap great rewards.
Aloha.