The Cranky Middle Manager Show #235 Death To The Performance Review! Sam Culbert

Posted on 24. Apr, 2010 by Wayne in General, Podcast

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Today we look at something that makes everyone cranky- the annual performance review. What do they really accomplish? If you ask Sam Culbert, author of “Get Rid of the Performance Review: How companies can stop intimidating, start managing and focus on what really matters”, the answer is not a whole lot. Also we look at an official witchfinder and recite a little doggerel verse just because we’re bored.

Sam Culbert says we should kill the performance review…. and I thought I was cranky………

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Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the show all ye who labor and are sore weary…especially of doing performance reviews. Since these things are so often witch hunts, we dedicate this episode to a real witchfinder… Matthew Hopkins. Good news, you’re not a witch. Bad news, finding that out killed you. I’ve worked in companies like that…..

4:04 The quote of the week is from Lord Byron ….. are you the Boring or the Bored?

4:45 Welcome Dr Sam Culbert to the show. He’s crankier than I am, and mostly about performance reviews. So what’s wrong with them? He uses a word I have never used on this show…..although highly tempted from time to time. The problems include: they’re not objective, the standards are bogus and it kills the trust between managers and each employee.

7:30 Being a pessimistic historian, I am curious as to where the performance review came from. Turns out the real culprit is “management by objectives”- a flawed concept to start with. Astonishingly I find myself defending
HR and Sam will have none of it.

12:42 The HR department should be seeking alternatives instead of keeping the Kabuki theatre going. Sam claims it’s in their interests to keep these things alive. They get to keep the dirty little secrets.

14:28 Oh, and the notion that pay is tied to performance reviews is nonsense, it just ticks off the employee and frustrates us managers.

19:08 Don’t get him started on 360 degree feedback either. Anonymous sniping is not feedback.

22:02 There is a difference between a “job description” and describing the job- the unique way each person tackles the job to accomplish their results.

25:30 So what’s the alternative to the Review? Sam calls it the Performance Preview. Constant,candid conversation about the goals, how they’re doing all along the way and honest communication without fear.

30:30 How do companies do this preview without a paper trail? Sam doesn’t seem to understand the insane need for documentation in companies. Sam’s goal is to make work fit for human consumption….

Sam’s Resources

Tags: audio, business, Cranky Middle Manager, HR, leadership, management, middle manager, Performance Review, Podcast, Samuel Culbert, Training, wayne turmel, workplace