It’s annual review time at Microsoft, and I’m sure at many other companies. I’ve always felt that annual reviews, although well-intentioned, are actually prehistoric and completely ineffective.
What is an annual review? As the name suggests, it’s a time to review your progress over the past year, determine what your rewards will be (raises, stock, bonuses), discuss areas for improvement, and set commitments for the next year. But I’ve always felt that giving one adult that much audit control over another adult is disrespectful, and even degrading. It’s almost a parent/child dynamic, and completely unnatural for any adult to want that kind of interaction with another adult.
The excellent book “The Simplicity Survival Handbook“, by Bill Jensen, has an entire chapter entitled How to Deal with the Stupidity of Performance Appraisals. In most companies, performance appraisals are an over-engineered process by HR, an unwelcome part of every manager’s job, and the real motive is to use a carrot/stick approach to get more work out of you. It’s a game, says Jensen, to keep you focused on accomplishing the company’s goals, not on giving you meaningful performance feedback.
I’ve been in the position of reviewer myself, and I can tell you it isn’t any fun to sit and hand out a few obligatory pats on the back before launching into your list of areas for improvement. This “improvements” conversation is the most important to the company, if they’re going to get more work out of you. It’s no fun for the person on the receiving end either.
In the end, the results is a tense conversation, between a manager with very little training in how to evaluate or criticize another person, and a very skilled and educated direct report who feels defensive and annoyed by this one-way conversation.
The history of performance appraisals is short, and human resource experts admit there’s still a lot to learn. In my opinion, I think it’s important to provide coaching and feedback to employees, but manager-lead performance appraisals are executed so clumsily they are an insult to all involved.
My advice to businesses is to look for another performance appraisal system that respects the dignity of the worker.
Peer reviews
There is a better way. At the University of Chicago, I was part of a class of 40 MBA sudents that learned leadership skills, and then taught classes on those skills to hundreds of first-year MBA students. We worked in five teams of eight students each.
Each eight-person team was taught how to provide feedback. Importantly, we were taught to focus on three strengths and three areas for improvement – no more. Each time we met to practice our leadership classes, we ended that practice session with feedback. There were no secrets. People who were underperforming were made aware of it, and usually improved. People who were performing well were also made aware of it, and they enjoyed the accolades.
A couple of side-benefits came through. First, we learned it was safe to give improvement feedback. Rather than moaning to our friends how “that guy just doesn’t get it”, we created a safe environment to tell that guy he didn’t get it – nicely, of course. Second, we learned to be patient. Because “that guy” would say “yes, I know I need to work on that. It’s hard. But I will try.” And when he fouled up again, we didn’t come at him cleats-first, but in a spirit of support and coaching. Some of my best friends, who I still consider friends today, were in that team.
I think this model could work in business, too: self-directed teams with accountability driven by peer reviews.
1. How do employees receive corrective feedback so they can grow and improve? Employees are trained how to provide feedback – positive and negative – to their peers, and each team engages in peer feedback twice per week. Additionally, peers provide feedback (positive feedback first, improvement feedback next) during the peer reviews of the team’s deliverables.
2. How are employees rewarded? Rewards are assigned from a limited reward pool by peer voting. Workers are evaluated on a number of traits by their peers, and those scoring high are rewarded more than those scoring low.
3. Who fires low-performing employees? Peers can nominate team-members who are under-performing and decide as a group what discipline, including termination, is warranted.
The result of this is ongoing feedback throughout the year, both positive and negative, without any parent/child dynamic. In fact, teamwork skills would be enhanced because feedback and rewards are determined by your team-mates.
What do you think? Do you think manager-lead annual reviews are an outdated process for squeezing more work out of employees. Do you feel it’s unnatural to give that much control over another adult, and his career prospects, to a manager? Do you think peer-review teams could be more effective?
Posted by brucegab 
