This week Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge site includes a post by Jim Heskett titled: "What's to Be Done About Performance Reviews?"  Here's the opening.

"It's the season for many employee performance reviews. Why do they seem to rank alongside root canal dental work on our list of things we look forward to as managers and employees? And what are we doing about it?"

Heskett does a good, thoughtful job of laying out the issues and there are lots of good comments from others.  You can read those comments and add your own (the deadline for posting comments is 11/24).  What follows is the comment I posted.

What is the purpose of the review itself?

The fact is that in many organizations the review process doesn't seem to have much purpose.  The forms and evaluation areas look a lot like a third grade report card.  "Times Late/Times Tardy."  "Works and Plays Well with Others." Many companies imagine the process as some kind of prophylactic against lawsuits.

If a person's immediate boss is doing his/her job, the formal performance evaluation becomes a quick recap of performance issues in the period covered and a look to how things should go better in the future.  When I conducted research on the differences between top performing supervisors and others, I found that the top performers spent a considerable amount of time in the actual performance evaluation meeting, while their less effective peers seem to try to get it over with as quickly as possible.

The more effective supervisors spent the bulk of their performance evaluation meeting time talking about the future.  They could do that because both they and their subordinates came to a meeting knowing where things stood.  The supervisors had used encounters throughout the period to coach, counsel, correct and encourage.  Subordinates got to say their piece and explain situations.  Both generally thought that evaluations were fair.

A note here on the forced ranking issue.  GE is often the poster child for forced ranking, but hardly any commentators discuss the necessary pre-condition: a culture of frequent, candid evaluation.  Those cultural practices are what make the evaluation process fair.

In addition to having a fair process, the supervisor's daily evaluation work must address two areas.  One is job performance.  As far as possible, it is part of the supervisor's job to help subordinates develop.

The other area is how the individual helps the team.  Does he or she pitch in enthusiastically? Does he or she help others?

If a supervisor does his or her job right, then performance evaluation can be a productive exercise even with a really stupid corporate system in place.  But if the supervisor doesn't do his or her job, no neat corporate form or process will provide salvation.

Here's a list of articles we've recently added to the Three Star Leadership site.

What Great Supervisors DO Differently
Great supervisors get great results because they do certain, specific things. Once you know what they do, you can do the same things and get the same results.

Performance Evaluation Made Simple
Many managers hate conducting performance evaluations. But performance evaluations don't have to be an awful experience. They can be a positive way to help the people who work for you grow and develop, if you handle them right.

Learning to be a Boss
Learning to be a good boss can be really hard, especially because it's mostly on-the-job training.

10 Tips on Learning to Lead
"Learning to lead well is your responsibility.  Here are ten tips to help you do a better job."

Don't Try to Make Your Workers Happy
"Happy workers aren't necessarily productive workers.  Here's the secret to work teams that are have high morale and high productivity, the kind that make profits soar."