Building The Perfect Performance Evaluation

by Mike Cleary

Published on this site: May 4th, 2005 - See more articles from this month...

Case study: Consultant Pegine Echevarria http://www.pegine.com challenges employees at a Fortune 100 tech giant to blow their own horns BEFORE formal review sessions ... and managers love it.

1. TWO WORRIED PEOPLE
   
   Performance review time. Joe, a five-year employee at components giant GlobalTech, is trying once again to read his supervisor’s mind: "What, exactly, does he want from me?" He’s been worrying about this meeting for weeks.
   
   He’s not the only one.
   
   Ed, Joe’s manager, doesn’t really know what he wants from Joe. He’s uncomfortable discussing things he can’t quantify with numbers, he's worried about his own upcoming performance review, he's afraid of saying something that will get him in trouble, and he's uncertain where Joe’s potential for growth really lies.
   
   
2. THE PERFORMANCE REVIEW MEETING
   
   Instead of asking questions that will help develop a personal goal that will build on what Joe has accomplished over the last three months, Ed takes what seems to be the easy way out: he starts a discussion about workplace processes skipping over the human equation.
   
   After all, evaluating processes is what he’s good at.
   
   Process analyses during performance reviews, however, drive employees like Joe nuts.
   
   The result? Joe nods his head obediently, takes notes, then retreats to his cubicle, where he mutters unflattering things about his boss.
   
   One personal evaluation at a time, GlobalTech’s historic commitment to innovation and improvement is collapsing.
   
   
3. THE CULTURE OF SILENCE
   
   In thousands of America’s engineering-driven companies, collaboration and teamwork are the exception. And silence specifically, covering yourself to avoid punishment from above is the rule.
   
   Many (though not all) of GlobalTech’s numbers-driven managers have lost sight of the entrepreneurial vision that launched the company in the first place.
   
   What’s more, a fair number of these managers aren’t particularly good at – and don’t really enjoy – communicating with the people who report to them. The result is a three-part crisis undermining the company’s return on its human resource investment.
   
   1. Loss of organizational opportunity. Good ideas and process improvements that are developed by individual employees are never shared throughout the organization, because managers don’t hear about them in the first place.
   
   2. Loss of personal productivity. When managers don’t even know which workers are posting personal increases in productivity,they can’t encourage these behaviors over time.
   
   3. Loss of team efficiency. Many team member follow Joe’s example, investing lots of energy in a performance review process that ultimately frustrates them. They form unrealisticideas and expectations of management, but end up demotivated and cynical, and then clam up about what they're doing. People eventually conclude – correctly – that their manager simply has no idea what he or she wants.
   
   
4. A DECLINE IN INNOVATION
   
   GlobalTech was still an industry leader within its primary market. The company’s historic emphasis on innovation and creativity, however, had declined. After spending time with some GlobalTech team members, performance coach Pegine Echevarria thought she knew why.
   
   In their interactions with managers, employees were focusing on avoiding mentioning anything that might conceivably lead to a "black mark" on quarterly performance reviews. In other words, most team members were, like their managers, in "cover-your-anatomy" mode, which usually meant confirming the assumptions of managers. In many cases, this mean that managers did not get a full picture of the true accomplishments, assets, or requirements of their team members.
   
   GlobalTech’s ability to support high-functioning, innovative teams had been undercuT. Poor morale, mediocre daily plans, and unproductive, low-information communication patterns were daily workplace norms.
   
   
5. TEACHING DIRECT REPORTS TO PROMOTE THEIR OWN VALUE
   
   Working with the team at GlobalTech, Echevarria developed tools to help team members identify and promote their own value as a regular workplace event ... not just during annual reviews.
   
   Her goal was to train team members to communicate or "brag" about specific accomplishments, insights, ideas and applications BEFORE formal performance assessments. She also wanted to help people enjoy and relate to each other in a fun and interactive environment, one that eliminated communication barriers, infused employees with energy and laughter, reduced anxiety, stress and fear, increased productivity, and enhanced teamwork.
   
   The program she developed for GlobalTech taught and coached a process that enabled the company's people to win by:
   
   1. FOCUSING on who they were in relation to the organization.
   
   2. COMMUNICATING who they were in relation to the organization.
   
   3. CELEBRATING their own achievements and innovations, as well
   as those of their teammates.
   
   
6. BREAKING THE CULTURE OF SILENCE IN PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
   
   To break the culture of silence in performance reviews at GlobalTech, Echevarria had to confront a crippling fear that pervades many organizations – namely, that a given person’s value or accomplishments would not be worth the trouble of communicating upwards to one's supervisor.
   
   Pegine offered employees evidence that the company as a whole would flounder without the contributions of individual team members. She helped employees get over the notion that their managers "should already understand" their world. And she challenged managers to overcome their own fears about asking direct questions that connected to the personal goals of employees.
   
   Echevarria developed exercises and role plays that helped team members overcome "cover your anatomy" communication patterns that had solidified over time. The job then became one of replacing these habits with new communication values. There were five of these values. (The word "value" itself became a trigger for questions that would spark a productive series of questions.)

CRITICAL VALUE QUESTIONS TO ASK EVERY WEEK, NOT JUST RIGHT BEFORE YOUR PERFORMANCE REVIEW

(Courtesy of Pegine Echevarria, http://www.pegine.com)

• V: Visibility. What is clearly visible to others about your expertise, the tasks you do, and the accomplishment of those tasks? What should be more visible?
  
  
• A: Attitude. What is your state of mind at work?
  
  
• L: Looking. Do you look for solutions, innovations, and brainstorms? Do you share those discoveries with others?
  
  
• U: Using resources. Do you actually use the expertise of others to gain insight on how to handle situations you face?
  
  
• E: Evolution. Have you grown as a result of a recent project? How? What did you notice that no longer worked for you? How did that situation motivate you to change? How would that change affect your job?

THE RESULTS

GlobalTech managers and team members agreed that, after the training, participants began promoting their own value more effectively – and sharing new ideas and processes with colleagues and superiors. They did this by means of networking effectively, asking supervisors for guidance, and developing written and verbal assessments of recent projects.

Working with the team at GlobalTech, Echevarria developed, found sponsors for, and implemented an ongoing program that resulted in greater team cohesion, lower anxiety levels, and improved productivity.

As if all that weren't enough, managers and direct reports could be heard talking about how they actually enjoyed the performance-review process.

Now there's an accomplishment.

Mike Cleary is a freelance writer based in Massachusetts. E-mail him at: mailto:[email protected]