Feedback's big failing
By Graham Winter | smh.com.au | 01 August
Is there another business process that consumes so much time and resources, damages relationships, generates ridicule and delivers as little value as the performance review?
It defies logic that at a time when every business is looking to reduce waste, streamline processes and maintain staff confidence, the out-of-date performance review gets packaged up into ever-more complex systems and continues to be inflicted on us.
Do we really need it?
Well, there is no doubt that we need a way to align goals with behaviour and to have performance conversations between managers and their teams that boost motivation and performance.
But most performance reviews cannot and will not create the feedback and coaching culture in which talent thrives and poor performance is addressed in a constructive way.
We need something better but to find that, we need to acknowledge what's wrong with the process now.
What's wrong with the review?
There are dozens of symptoms that confirm the performance review is ill. Try this checklist of 10 common complaints to see whether the review is working in your business:
■ People get surprises at reviews.
■ Too bureaucratic.
■ Purpose of the exercise is unclear.
■ Too detailed.
■ Done poorly by managers.
■ Feedback only flows one way.
■ Rating system is supposed to be objective but isn't.
■ Reviews damage relationships between managers and staff.
■ Managers avoid performance conversations.
■ It is ridiculed as a waste of time.
The performance review is an easy target to criticise but when taking a constructive view, three root causes emerge:
Fear of feedback Many people fear feedback at work. This reveals itself in avoidance behaviours that are wonderfully reinforced by overly detailed systems (manual and electronic), which managers can hide behind.
Bureaucracy There are a bundle of things that relate back to the bureaucracy of the review. This starts with complex business planning processes, rolls into unnecessarily detailed admin systems and bottoms out with rating and ranking processes that argue for objectivity and yet give people the perfect opportunity to just "tick and flick".
Ill-equipped people The essence of the review should be the performance conversation but the skills that are covered in typical review training don't instil the attitudes or tools people need to get over the fear of feedback and hold these conversations. Ironically, the result of a lot of performance review training is actually to reinforce status-driven, infrequent and shallow conversations.
A better way
It is understandable that management becomes defensive when people challenge the review. It is certainly an easy target but there are simple steps that any organisation can take to transform the review from an administrative process to a series of powerful two-way conversations.
These must directly confront the ills of the current review, which means designing a simpler process that aligns the business goals with the individuals who actually do the work, reducing the fear of feedback and developing people with the skills to invite, accept and offer two-way feedback that has an impact. Try a few of these strategies:
Instead of bureaucracy, align.
■ Accept that the performance review is only one part of the cycle of performance conversations that should be happening regularly.
■ Implement a simple, consistent goal-setting template from whole-of-business to individual level so people have "line of sight".
■ Make regular one-on-one performance conversations mandatory between managers and staff (make this a key performance indicators for managers or stop paying them as managers). Instead of ill-equipped people, equip all staff.
■ Focus the training on coaching all staff on how to invite and receive feedback. People are much happier seeking feedback than giving it to unsuspecting colleagues.
■ Provide simple tools for managers so they are able to coach daily instead of relying on systems.
■ Equip managers and staff with scripting skills to prepare for and tackle the tough conversations. Instead of fear of feedback, partner. The most important partnership in every business is between staff and their immediate manager, so why not ensure these partnerships are set up for success?
■ Establish the basis for feedback expectation, not feedback avoidance, by using "mini partnering agreements" between staff and their managers.
■ Coach and facilitate teams to hold regular feedback conversations.
■ Embed debriefing tools and cycles into daily business life.
Cure the review
The performance review is one of the great remaining sacred cows of the business world and it has failed to deliver the essential feedback loop between business performance and individual performance.
There are alternatives but they require a willingness to acknowledge the need for a better way and the openness to a fresh approach that transforms the review by putting the focus on performance conversations, simplified systems and tools that ease and cure the fear of feedback.
With an economic upturn hopefully in sight but the private and public sectors continuing to face the challenges of business efficiency and staff engagement, is this not the right time to cure the performance review?
Graham Winter is an Australian psychologist and business consultant. He is author of The Man Who Cured the Performance Review (released this month by Jossey Bass). Email him at team@winterconsulting.com.au.
What do performance reviews mean for you? Tell us at mycareer.com.au/vote.
First published by Smh.com.au on August 01 2009
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