Myth 2: Performance reviews improve performance

[The third part of six on the "Five Myths about Managing People" from Lisa Haneberg's book, High Impact Middle Management.]

Lisa Haneberg says...

"Managers at all levels want to believe their evaluation systems are worth the time and effort. Although it may make intuitive sense to review performance once a year, the evidence that performance evaluations are not effective is clear. Why? For the simple reason that managers dread doing them and employees dislike receiving them."

From Ken Ricci's book, Management by Trust...

"...The reason most reviews run like this is that they are, in effect, a means to document standard pay raises. Unless you have seriously messed up at your job, you are in line for the 3 percent raise everyone else is going to get. Another year, another pay raise."

From my perspective, reviews are painful for another reason, because—and this is one of those rare times when this is so—I have absolutely nothing to say.

In a team where trust is established early and constantly maintained, the manager should have nothing left to say come review time.

If you meet regularly with your staff—as a team and individually—they should know when their work is meeting expectations and when it is not. In fact, if there is enough transparency in place, the rest of the team knows, too.

In other words, I agree with Lisa's assessment on the second myth—but How do I handle it?

Performance reviews are the accepted norm in our industry. I play the game with the cards I am dealt—and put on my best poker face.

I like to run through the lengthy expectation list of below, meets, and exceeds, writing comments only on those items below or above the "meets" category—and those are the only ones I discuss in the review meeting, unless the team member being reviewed would like to discuss one of the other ones.

Even this is awkward, because I am usually covering old ground.

Often I mark something as below and site an example, only for the staff member to say, "That's not fair. You brought that to my attention six months ago, and I corrected it. It's not a problem today." And in most cases, they are exactly right.

Of course, no one has ever argued over an "exceeds". No one has ever said, "You can't say that; you already praised me publicly for that six months ago."

I play the game with the cards I am dealt.

Once I breeze through the expectation list, we get to the good part. We talk about the staff member's perspectives on what is going right, what is going wrong, and how we might improve—individually, as a team, and as an organization.

Honestly, I really love that part—but for the life of me, I still can't bring myself to keep evaluations up to date. It's a flaw I am working to improve—in spite of the myth.