There are just a small number of books that every HR practitioner and manager should read. Get Rid of the Performance Review! is one of those.
Authors Samuel A. Culbert, who is a Professor of Management at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Lawrence Rout, who is a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, make an incredibly compelling case to defenestrate performance reviews. They write about how much damage performance reviews do to company performance. They say this:
It all comes down to two lies:
- First, pay and performance are not linked and the workplace is unfortunately a meritocracy.
- Second, the performance review is not really about the employee and is mainly about everybody else from the boss, the bigger bosses and HR.
Honestly, people in HR should read this book and weep. I agree with Culbert and Rout who argue that a lot of performance management systems are in place to make HR appear more powerful. And they write about the destructive forces that Jack Welch’s “Rank-and-Yank” system wreaked on companies — including GE.
And managers should read Get Rid of the Performance Review! because everything they think about performance assessment is wrong. I’m not going out on a limb to say that. Managers don’t know. And the HR people who taught them are wrong, too. Don’t hate me because I’m right. Go buy the book. It’ll change your mind.
How much do you hate performance reviews? Here’s a quiz to find out. Let me know what you think. Do you love performance reviews? Hate them? Feel like you are going to throw up in your mouth when you have to get or give one?
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That looks really good.
It’s here on my desk when you want to read it!
I read this recently and am in complete agreement with the authors. Poorly performned reviews and token performance management systems cause high levels of mistrust and cynicsm. It seems to me that Performance Management systems in their current form are more a tool for management than for employees.
Hi Megan, I have always hated performance reviews — it’s why we don’t have them at IFRACTAL. And that book boiled it down to its essence — getting rid of performance reviews and replacing it with nothing would be a far better solution. Thanks for your comment…I love what you write about PM being more a tool for management than for employees. So true.
I’m not a fan of performance reviews but I definately feel they have their place. When people only use them as a cog in the wheel or, lets face the fact, as a benchmark to parse out salaries and raises… then “they” (‘they’ being the people who do this & the actual performance reviews) suck!
Thanks for the thought Frank!
@BenjaminMcCall
Not so fast with the in memoriam for performance reviews. It’s amazing that such dinosaurs (performance review systems, not the people) are still around. They must be, however, since a book has been published called “Get Rid of Performance Reviews’. Yet despite the outcry against reviews, there’s nothing wrong with them that can’t be fixed by getting managers off of center stage. Top management can fix the basic problems the review system faces.
Critics argue that performance reviews not only don’t accomplish what they’re supposed to do – that is, improve performance, enhance employee skills and achieve planned outcomes – they have unintended negative consequences. In many cases, unfortunately, that’s true. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What companies need to abolish is not performance review itself, but the idea that it’s a “management tool. Here are some practiced paradigms that must be discarded:
Performance Review is designed, as the name suggests, in support of managers. If you believe this, your management is one of the roadblocks to exceptional performance. The most useful performance review support work relationships between employees (managers too are employees). Both parties need to address the question of how to best serve the goals and outcomes and align their work efforts.
Performance review is a management tool. Managers are not necessarily the best qualified to assess their staff’s accomplishments. In fact, they may have a very limited or biased view. A more complete and accurate picture results when employees and managers seek feedback from a variety of customers, team leaders, professional peers, and others inside or from outside the unit.
Performance reviews include judgments from a “higher authority”. Judgments produce compliant workers – people who are told what to do – not innovative ones. People hate performance reviews because most of them are fault-finding. How much better to ask, “What did we learn from this? What can we each do different the next time?”
The manager is responsible for obtaining input from the employees. 21st century employees can’t assume a passive role in performance review, providing “tough-minded” self-assessments and valuable insights only on request. They must take the initiative, soliciting feedback from their managers and others. No risk taking to solicit the complete picture and no learning means no improvements.
Managers should be trained in performance reviews, then prepare their employees for the process. If performance review is to be a productive partnership with employees taking the active role and both parties committed to exchanging knowledge and ideas, managers and employee need to be trained together.
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