LEADERSHIP: PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS FAILING

Industrial-age ghost

The annual performance appraisal ritual is time-wasting, profit inhibiting, and morale-dampening.  The routine diminishes rather than adds value to most dispensing organizations. Although people want to know where they stand, they usually hate being on the giving or the receiving end.  Few senior executives are willing to challenge this sacred cow.   The traditional approach to delivering annual performance appraisals is a costly remnant of the industrial-age. There is a better way. 

The following should apply to everyone who supervises direct reports—including the CEO.  If everybody conducted a disciplined one on one coaching session with followup documentation each month, (see steps  7- 9) there would be a formal ongoing accounting of each employee’s performance and career potential as it progresses or recedes.  At any point, this documentation could accommodate all the organization’s administrative needs.

This more personal and frequent feedback process has the capacity to influence employee performance and morale along the way.  Feedback is summarized  in   a 1^st person letter—not recorded once a year  on a  preprinted form.  To accommodate the “shift-age”,  supervisors who feel  they are too busy, or consider themselves too important to spend time  coaching direct reports must be eliminated.

A shift-age alternative to the annual performance appraisal

1. Open with a brief discussion of how the direct report’s month went
2. Review  results and commitments made in last month’s coaching sesssion (see summary letter).
3. Review current  month’s leading indicators
4. Review the direct report’s performance correction log and coaching letters (if he/she is a supervisor)
5. Give and recieve feedback
6. Establish  and agree on next month’s priorities (with measures)
7. Within two business days, write and deliver to the direct report a summary letter of the meeting (include all assessments and agreements)
8. Include a discussion of  career aspirations and/or  potential every six months
9. Use the coaching letters as your source when asked to rate/evaluate/discuss the performance or potential of a direct report