Get Rid of the Performance Review!
How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing--and Focus on What Really Matters
By Samuel A. Culbert, Lawrence Rout
Published: April 14, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 044655605X
ISBN-13: 978-0446556057
Publisher: Business Plus
"It's time to finally put the performance review out of its misery", write Professor of Management at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Samuel A.Culbert and editor at the Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Rout, in their passionate and very compelling book Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing--and Focus on What Really Matters. The authors describe how the ubiquitous performance review is not only out of date in the modern corporation, but that the standard performance review does more harm than good for the organization, the supervisor, and the employee.
Samuel A. Culbert and Lawrence Rout pull no punches as they describe the performance review as simply a tool of fear and intimidation. These strong words are backed up by the open knowledge among employees that the practice doesn't even produce much information of real value. Calling the performance review both wasteful and cruel, the authors go beyond the usual complaint that the review process destroys teamwork and employee morale. They describe the system as one of an abuse of power and one that leads to coercion and outright employee intimidation. The authors make a powerful plea for this outdated and counterproductive company ritual to be eliminated entirely from every manager's playbook. As the authors see it, the review system doesn't motivate employees, or engage them as peak performers, as commonly thought by review supporters. Instead, they present a picture where employees live in terror of a bad review, and fear making mistakes or taking good risks that would benefit the organization. Any errors would find their way on to the review, ruining that employee's career.
Samuel A. Culbert (photo left) and Lawrence Rout consider the performance review to be arbitrary in the decision making process about an employee's true contribution. The appraisal system also leads to abuses, favoritism, and very biased results, based on the whim of the supervisor. A lack of standardization leads to widely varying performance reports, that work against any claims of review objectivity. Because most executives were reared in the system where performance reviews are widespread, write the authors, those same managers and company leaders know of no other alternative. Samuel A. Culbert and Lawrence Rout recommend jettisoning the performance review entirely. In its place they offer the concept of the performance preview. This approach, according to the authors, provides the objective information, incentive, and motivation that is simply impossible with the standard issue performance review. Based on the premise of trust and teamwork, the preview method includes both the manager and the employee in the process before the work takes place. The employee contribution to the preview holds that person accountable in a way that can't happen with the existing system.
For me, the power of the book is how Samuel A. Culbert and Lawrence Rout present an impassioned case for ending the long standing system of performance reviews. The authors build a solid case for the failure of the review process to deliver on any of its promises. Instead, the authors demonstrate that the entire performance review concept is so fatally flawed, that it must be replaced before it causes even more damage in the workplace. They guide the reader through the existing system, with its emphasis on the negative, and its morale and team destroying insidiousness.
The proposal for a radically new method of employee evaluation, the performance preview, is offered as a viable and effective alternative. Because the preview is collaborative, and receives input from both the supervisor and the employee, the staff member is much more likely to achieve the goals. The shared preview also keeps the employee accountable for the results, unlike the regular performance review. Even the timing for the preview is the opposite of the review. The preview is proactive and looks to the future, while the review can only view the employee through a very flawed rear view mirror. The preview focuses on the right things, and will achieve greater and more objective results.
I highly recommend the revolutionary and organizational evaluation transforming book Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing--and Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel A. Culbert and Lawrence Rout, to anyone seeking a workable and effective alternative to the standard issue performance review. The authors advise business people to scrap the review appraisal process entirely, and replace it with the more team building, collaborative, and morale boosting performance preview.
Read the straight talking, no nonsense book Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing--and Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel A. Culbert and Lawrence Rout, and change your organization from the reactive, team destroying use of the outmoded performance review, to the cooperative and employee engaging approach of the performance preview. Your more effective and productive employees will place your company ahead of your competitors, and at the forefront of your industry.
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