One of my favorite sessions at last month’s HRevolution in Atlanta was a face-off between William Tincup and Mike Carden regarding the value of performance reviews. I followed up with Carden, CEO of performance-management software company Sonar6, after the conference for a quick question-and-answer session.
What’s your case for keeping performance reviews, in 25 words or fewer?
Good people like having their performance reviewed. Take your 10 best people out to play golf; how many of them don’t want to keep score?
One of the participants in the session, a vice president at a fairly large company, pointed out that it has been years since he was subjected to a performance review. Do you think reviews still have value at the higher end of a corporate hierarchy?
Yes. Everyone has business and personal goals regardless of level in an organization, and a performance review reinforces that. Moreover, if you want to create a culture in which people are accountable for their performance — well, that has to start at the top.
Do you get a performance review? If so, who does it?
My performance review is owned by our chairman, and it’s done using Sonar6, of course! This year, we are adding 360 feedback to the process, so effectively I’ll get feedback from the board but also from my team.
What do you think is the biggest mistake CEOs and other executives make when it comes to performance reviews?
I think the biggest mistake that people make is that they feel that the purpose of a performance review is to find something wrong with an employee and then try to fix it — which is really only ever the case with a company’s poorest performers. Sure, if you have a salesperson who is call-reluctant, fix it. If you have a star performer, you should spend your effort, and your performance review, working out ways to stretch them and leverage their strengths.
The example I often use is that if you gave a 12-year-old LeBron James to anyone in his right mind, that person would focus on making him a great basketball player. However, if you gave him to your average people manager, that person would ignore the basketball and try to fix his swimming.
Also, you should never write “LOLs” in a performance review.
Many (most?) people dread performance reviews. What is your best piece of advice for turning that around?
I think the reason that people don’t like them is twofold. Firstly, they don’t see the value to themselves in the process, and secondly, they don’t know what happens to the information collected. So you need to be transparent on the process so people know exactly how information collected is used, and most importantly, you need to show that reviews are useful to the individual. Make reviews a way of understanding how an individual’s goals support the company’s strategy and show how the person can plan and develop his career.
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I love the idea of developing the talent of an individual as opposed to trying to fit them into a skills area that is not correct. What I question is if the reviewing manager really understands the talent of their people which makes them unique and therefore especially valuable on a team. So many times, I have seen people observe only partially what a person is capable of doing or observed situations that are not truly indicative of their talent and make assumptions. Perhaps making assumptions is the real problem and not including the individuals in more of the process. Transparency and direct, honest conversation one on one and ongoing with both listening and contributing is the best.
Wally makes a good point. Industry does very little to develop leaders (for my purposes, you manage stuff and lead people) until they drop some poor schmuck into the job and they sink or swim. Often the sinkers take a lot of good people with them. The cost of exposing everyone to leadership training can be high, but what is the cost of a disastrous leader? There is a huge amount of good material available on leadership, including building on your strengths and teaming to mitigate your weaknesses. Peyton Manning (to continue the sports analogy) is not good at blocking, so don't work on that. Leaders need to develop their people.
360's can be very productive, but they also provide a soap box for the disgruntled employee who is on probation.
I once gave my kindergartner a performance review using management language. Her response was, "I don't understand a word you're saying!" (http://jasonseiden.com/speak-plain/)
Mike, you're analogy is brilliant. Wally, you're assessment of the source of the problem is dead on. The rub: the jr high coach isn't in competition with LeBron for his next job, but in business, the manager is.
There's an article on SB today about how Immelt says only the paranoid leader survives… well, the paranoid-leader-in-training is exactly the one who gets LeBron working on his swimming: the paranoid-leader-in-training knows that a ballin' LeBron will outshine him and will then leapfrog him up the management ladder.
To develop our leaders, how about starting with making it culturally OK to not want to be one? Then LeBron has a path to play ball, the manager has a different path (to manage), we take fear out of the equatiion, and we can get to where we need to be from a leaderhsip perspective.
Good post. People crave feedback. (Also like the point about average manager trying to turn LeBron into a world-class swimmer. This idea is very much a "strengths-based" focus which makes immense sense.) When performance reviews are done poorly, here's what happens: http://bit.ly/hE0at3
In my humble opinion , one of the most important causes of performance review failure involves this inescapable fact….
What I call "HR Exercise in Futility". How many employers HR's conduct any substantive or truly meaninful benefit versus cost analysis over time of employee performance reviews?
Two of the most glaring apsects of this "futility" are what I call;
"Evaluator Monopoly" and "See Ya don't want to be Ya"
Evaluator Monopoly- Rarely does the employee have input into the choice of
who evaluates him/her. There are a few employers offering this type of employee engagement. But, with the exception of 360 feedback performance appraisals "who the employee sees is who the employee gets".
When you add the incompetence of ill trained supervisors and managers who routinely conduct an already flaw evalution process poorly disaster is all but guaranteed.
See Ya don't want to be Ya- When performance appraisals are executed poorly or the process itself is flawed some employees will leave for "better pastures". Quality employees who don't receive the recognition and rewards for excellent performance can and will wave bye bye. This is especially true when poorly performing employees are equitably or exceedingly rewarded.
The article also ignores the obvious factor of biases brought to the workplace that continue to be the norm and not the exception. Confirmed EEOC discrimination statistics of increases in groups such as race, age and retaliation can't be denied. Corporate cultures of workplace bullying are also on the increase with managements "blessing".
Failed employee performance appraisals including 360 will only be as effective as the workplace cultures that "breed" them.
At Sonar6 we talk about something called the HR spiral of doom: reviews are held infrequently –> everyone thinks reviews need to really detailed to collect a years worth of information –> HR breaks out the psych text and creates a Magnus Opus –> Horribly detailed review requirements scare the socks of everyone –> reviews are held infrequently… etc.
The only way to break this cycle? More day to day management focus on performance, and the tools to support managers.
Ultimately people managers need to take a huge part of the responsibility for fixing people management. But I agree with you Wally on one point, they need better tools… and a good place to start is performance management tools that actually support managers to manage (not just drive compliance for a distant HR department).
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