Skip to main content

Diigo Home

Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Down with the performance review?! - The Diigo Meta page

www.wikinomics.com/...wn-with-the-performance-review - Cached - Annotated View

Bertrand Duperrin's personal annotations on this page

bertrandduperrin
    • Two parties with misaligned goals. When walking into a performance review the boss’ goal of discussing areas of improvement don’t match up with the employee’s goal of promotion and compensation.
    • The false belief that performance affects pay. Culbert argues that pay is primarily determined by market forces (which makes sense - just look at our current economic situation - are many people expecting big raises/bonuses this year?) and most jobs are placed in a pay range even before the employee is hired.
    • As objective as we try to be - there are always personal biases. This is a fundamental conflict. Depending on one’s position, their opinion and view will differ. This is where Culbert also brings up the “360-degree feedback”. When feedback is anonymized that creates more opportunity for various parties to further their personal agenda since there is no accountability associated with their review.
    • Everyone is different - “once size does not fit all”. Performance reviews often revolve around a predetermined checklist. This is why people may focus more on pleasing their boss than doing a good job. Since a happy boss will (theoretically) leave you with a higher score.
    • Employees are reluctant to go to their bosses for help (for fear that it will reflect badly on their performance review). It makes sense that employees would go to their bosses for help, guidance and improvement. But, “thanks to the performance review, the boss is often the last person an employee would turn to”.
    • Disrupts teamwork. The most important type of teamwork is the one-on-one relationship between a boss and their subordinates. But in performance reviews, as opposed to taking the stance “how will we work together as a team”, it’s “how are you performing for me”.
    • At the end of the day… performance reviews don’t improve corporate performance.

This link has been bookmarked by 3 people . It was first bookmarked on 29 Nov 2008, by Bertrand Duperrin.

  • 14 Dec 08
  • 29 Nov 08
      • Two parties with misaligned goals. When walking into a performance review the boss’ goal of discussing areas of improvement don’t match up with the employee’s goal of promotion and compensation.
      • The false belief that performance affects pay. Culbert argues that pay is primarily determined by market forces (which makes sense - just look at our current economic situation - are many people expecting big raises/bonuses this year?) and most jobs are placed in a pay range even before the employee is hired.
      • As objective as we try to be - there are always personal biases. This is a fundamental conflict. Depending on one’s position, their opinion and view will differ. This is where Culbert also brings up the “360-degree feedback”. When feedback is anonymized that creates more opportunity for various parties to further their personal agenda since there is no accountability associated with their review.
      • Everyone is different - “once size does not fit all”. Performance reviews often revolve around a predetermined checklist. This is why people may focus more on pleasing their boss than doing a good job. Since a happy boss will (theoretically) leave you with a higher score.
      • Employees are reluctant to go to their bosses for help (for fear that it will reflect badly on their performance review). It makes sense that employees would go to their bosses for help, guidance and improvement. But, “thanks to the performance review, the boss is often the last person an employee would turn to”.
      • Disrupts teamwork. The most important type of teamwork is the one-on-one relationship between a boss and their subordinates. But in performance reviews, as opposed to taking the stance “how will we work together as a team”, it’s “how are you performing for me”.
      • At the end of the day… performance reviews don’t improve corporate performance.