Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's another reason for annual performance reviews ... to remind management that it's time for a COLA without it becoming a big deal
What's a COLA?
Cost of Living Adjustment
Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
271–280 of 342 posts
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#272Paraphrasing what a manager told me once: "If anything in your performance review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager." Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review. Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. I…
Performance reviews sound so cringey, I don't know how people can subject themselves to such practices. I guess it's one of those legacy practices to allow people to move up the ladder.
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any tips you can share on how you improved your political game?
Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. There are one or two that I feel are unethical (Law #7 in particular).
Are you for real with this? This is the dumbest books I've seen in a while. Don't outshine the Masters? Wtf kind of cringey corporate hell scenario did this come from...
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
An opposing viewpoint from Andy Grove's High Output Management: Let's talk about surprises. If you have discharged supervisory responsibilities adequately throughout the year, holding regular one- on-one meetings and providing guidance when needed, there should never be surprises at a performance, right? Wrong. When you are using the worksheet, sometimes you come up with a message that will startle you. So what do yo…
I don't think that's an opposing viewpoint. If a manager discovers a long-standing issue whilst preparing for the performance review, then yes, they absolutely must "swallow hard and bring it up". But not having noticed or provided feedback about that issue at any point in the past is still a failure of management.
Hence the hard swallowing.
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#275I tend to only remember it's around time for the yearlyish performance review if I'm starting to get the itch again that my experience and expertise aren't getting market-rates of return. It's sort of code for, "Hey, can I get a raise before I get irritable and start looking for something else?"
Maybe that wouldn't work everywhere, but it's tripled my starting salary.
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
No offense, but this is the kind of thinking that leads to workplace bias. Working styles like this tend to reinforce hiring single, young men who are otherwise unencumbered so they can work long hours and push the envelope of the job description. That leads to a lot of group think, and products that are built for a very small subset of users — so there is real business value in diversity. Reviews are important for s…
He spoke about being a young man willing to put in the hours starting out to learn his craft. Yes, the young need to learn a lot after schooling just to keep up. After that, he spoke about figuring out how to provide the most value for the business. I've had a 25+ year career and can verify that everyone should follow this advice. Whatever hidden biases we are concerned about in the workplace, they all pale in compar…
counterpoint: the harder he tries to provide value to the business, the business typically only offers the exact same basic salary value to him.
sure, there are exceptions -- but they are exceptions.
my career has taught me that adding as much value as you see the potential for adding is a surefire way to get a promotion, complete with an extra 2% salary and the new expectation of you continuing to work at 110%.
oh yeah, and you get a good reference.
but seriously give me a break. if you're in a position to add so much value to a company, you should be elsewhere in another company, two levels up. good companies don't leave easy pickings hanging.
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#277Paraphrasing what a manager told me once: "If anything in your performance review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager." Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review. Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. I…
An opposing viewpoint from Andy Grove's High Output Management: Let's talk about surprises. If you have discharged supervisory responsibilities adequately throughout the year, holding regular one- on-one meetings and providing guidance when needed, there should never be surprises at a performance, right? Wrong. When you are using the worksheet, sometimes you come up with a message that will startle you. So what do yo…
The cost-benefit still doesn't make sense to me.
He's talking about doing a very expensive & generally counter-productive activity in the off chance that you might uncover some insight about your employee.
I usually tell people the first half of High Output Management is good, but to skip the second half...
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#278Paraphrasing what a manager told me once: "If anything in your performance review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager." Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review. Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. I…
An opposing viewpoint from Andy Grove's High Output Management: Let's talk about surprises. If you have discharged supervisory responsibilities adequately throughout the year, holding regular one- on-one meetings and providing guidance when needed, there should never be surprises at a performance, right? Wrong. When you are using the worksheet, sometimes you come up with a message that will startle you. So what do yo…
> swallow hard
I think that's the moment the "failure" is realized.
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#279Paraphrasing what a manager told me once: "If anything in your performance review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager." Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review. Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. I…
We have performance reviews not annually, but every few years. My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me a very negative, punitive review. What I am infuriated about is that never in that few years did I receive any negative feedback, and I tried to do exactly what our subdivision had decided as a group to do, and what the immediate superior had wanted. My last review was glowing,…
That really sucks.
But also what's the point of even having reviews it if it's going to be years in between them? There doesn't seem to be any upside, but lots of downside
Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
An opposing viewpoint from Andy Grove's High Output Management: Let's talk about surprises. If you have discharged supervisory responsibilities adequately throughout the year, holding regular one- on-one meetings and providing guidance when needed, there should never be surprises at a performance, right? Wrong. When you are using the worksheet, sometimes you come up with a message that will startle you. So what do yo…
I don't think that's an opposing viewpoint. If a manager discovers a long-standing issue whilst preparing for the performance review, then yes, they absolutely must "swallow hard and bring it up". But not having noticed or provided feedback about that issue at any point in the past is still a failure of management.
I was a manager at Intel during the Grove era. The ranking & rating process of those days forced a team of 8 or so peer managers to look at the performance of all of their reports together. Having 7 other managers point out an issue with one of your reports tends to help you get calibrated. Is it a failure of management to be poorly calibrated about your own people? Yes, a common one.