Case Study #22: Pointless Performance Review

Should performance reviews be cancelled?

Rating: Meets Expectations

What could this person improve on: You're doing great. Keep doing what you're doing. - tigerking615

You have probably been there. The manager gives you a mark, does not justify why, or comes up with vague suggestions such as “improve your business acumen, read more, be more proactive”, etc.

Thank you, managers. We would not make it without you. What do you think about this conversation?

Manager: So, welcome to our performance review. Do you want to start by summarizing how it has been for your past six months?

Employee: I did 5 projects. One was difficult and gave me a lot of headaches. I have learned to manage my stress levels, haha. I led other projects with my teammates. They went smoothly. This half-year was okay for me.

Manager: Okay. Let’s look at your goals, then. You had three. The first one was to manage five projects in the first half and 10 by the end of the year. You met this goal. The next was to collect knowledge about operations and create a shared folder.

Employee: Sadly, I haven’t managed to work on it. I was occupied by the horrible project. That was my priority.

Manager: Okay. So let’s move it to the end of the year, then. The last one was to collaborate with the marketing teams to create a new brand identity for our team. But we will be merging with the EU team, this is irrelevant.

Employee. Yeah.

Manager: Okay. Overall, you met the expectations. Please think about one more goal. So, we have three again.

Employee: Okay. What do you suggest?

Manager: Maybe something around soft skills?

Employee: Ah, okay.

Such a waste of time. Such performance meetings go straight down to the toilet. You flush the formality down. Can we cancel pointless performance reviews?

Or better, can we replace them with something useful? Yes, we can. 👇

---

What is wrong with performance reviews?

Sitting down and discussing how one feels and does is not bad. Yet, if you treat it as a formal event once a year, its effect may fade.

I’ve sat through many performance review meetings as an employee and a manager.

As an employee, it was boring and pointless. I didn’t learn much about what I should have improved. For the same job, I got “meets expectations” and “exceeds expectations”. Why?

Different managers = different evaluations. And the leadership team pushed to have a normal distribution. So, some people had to be average or even bad to fit the table.

As a manager, I took it as a chance for my people to be seen well. I always wanted them to have a good record in case someone would look into their goals to justify promotions.

Many performance reviews are full of vague statements and people feel they are silly:

• I got a "needs improvement" review from a manager once. I asked her what exactly I had done wrong and she said: "You met all my expectations but I expected you to exceed my expectations."

• No ideas:

  • Manager: You just need to read and research more.

  • Me: Great, any recommendations on what to read up on?

  • Manager: No.

• It’s hard to take performance reviews seriously from a manager who I think is an absolute joke.

• We can not afford to lose you. We can not afford to pay you "what you are worth for" either.

It might be hard for people to take performance reviews seriously when they don’t respect their managers and get a bunch of corporate gibberish instead of something valuable.

Vague goals, vague outcomes.