Deborah Brown (Debbie) is an international career consultant and coach. Debbie founded D & B Consulting in 1993. She specializes in career counseling and executive coaching. Her practice includes career assessment and development, career management and executive coaching, small business coaching, management development and leadership, work/life balance and outplacement. Debbie has taught human resource planning and organizational behavior. She serves as a career consultant and expert witness to family law attorneys, and is listed as an expert witness with TASA, a technical advisory service for attorneys. She is a published writer for professional publications, a speaker, and is frequently interviewed in the print and broadcast media.
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Performance reviews are supposed to be an objective evaluation of an employee's performance, based on measurable criteria. But how often does that happen? And how often does a job lend itself to actual objective metrics?
Samual Culbert, a professor in the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, is the author of "Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing-and Focus on What Really Matters."
He asserts that performance reviews are subjective and based on how comfortable your boss is with you, not on how you contribute to overall organizational results. So you may refrain from criticizing your boss or giving feedback on a better way to accomplish some result, as a way to maintain a harmonious relationship with your boss. In an ideal situation there should be healthy "push-back" between employees, including bosses and subordinates. But how often does this actually happen?
We know that the number one reason why employees leave an organization is their boss. Personality conflicts, and setting unreasonable or ambiquous performance goals or arbitrary metrics can contribute to unhappy employees. So getting a new boss is a way to improve your performance appraisal. Culbert asserts that a performance preview, where the boss and employee together are responsible for setting goals and achieving results is an effective alternative for the employee, the boss and he organization. Bosses are taught to manage employees and to listen to their employees, and employees want that collaboration.
