What About Performance Appraisals?

Check Out What Is Really Going On!

I actually like to conduct performance appraisals.  Most business leaders seem to hate that part of their business duties.  I might conduct them differently than most leaders, but I like doing them.  I learn a lot about the folks I hire in those sessions.  Performance appraisals teach me a lot about who my staff employees really are.  I learn about who they are and how they deeply do what they want to do.

First of all, I have worked for many business managers and only once did a leader of those models do his performance appraisals on a routine basis.  That was way back in the 1970's.  I like to sit down with my staff at least twice each year to process their performance appraisals.  I like chit chatting about how they do their work.  I like to see how they think they are doing at work.  That is usually my main goal.  I like to hear how they evaluate themselves.

It is kind of strange, but they do not seem to notice that each of them does their own performance appraisal when we get together to conduct their review.  I rarely do any of the judging in the evaluation process.  I let them do it for themselves.  Most of the time, they never seem to notice that they evaluate themselves in my appraisal process. I think so many employees are so deeply afraid of the appraisal process that they rarely notice how they end up judging themselves.  Most of the staff I hire would prefer I skip the evaluation process.  Most of them assume I am pulling them in to criticize how they do their work.  In more than 90% of the time, I have them review themselves.  They just do not notice that is how I conduct my reviews.  It just goes to show you how fearful this kind of employment practice has become to most employees.  They hate reviews.  They hate to be evaluated.  They fear anything that looks like the process of criticism.

My reviews are designed to avoid most of the process that relates to criticism.  I avoid initiating any acts of criticism in my reviews.  I ask better questions about how they view their work loads, the way they process their work and how they feel about their own performance levels with their own opinions.  I listen to how they think they are doing.  In the end, that is what they believe.  Their perception is key.  I already know my perception.  I want to get together and hear how they perceive it.  Their view is the one that is driving what they do or don't do.  Right?  In the end, that is what drives them.  Not me.  Get serious.

It is amazing what I learn.  When the tables are creatively turned, they evaluate themselves with no problem.  Most of them are pretty tough on themselves.  I try not to make it too obvious, but I turn the tables around and they evaluate themselves.  They usually have no problem telling me how they think they are doing.  I like to discover how honest they are.  That usually pleases me more.  I will ask interesting, but relevant questions to get it going.  For example, I like to know what they are thinking about on Sunday night?  They have had some time off and must wrap up the weekend and prepare to come back to work.  What are they thinking about when the weekend is almost over?  Sometimes the answers to that question are amazing.  I learn a lot about how some of them view their place of employment.  This is good stuff to know.  I do not care to delve into their private lives but I do want to know how they view coming back to work.  It tells me a lot about how they actually get into their work.  How happy they are at work can be discovered inside the way they feel about coming back to work.

I recognize that it is not my job to make my employees happy, but in the same breath, I also recognize that happier employees make for a better production process.  There is a direct relationship that offers some strong correlations between these two theories.  I prefer a better system of production in my business models.  That is why I check out how they feel about coming back to work.  They will share some interesting stories with you.  It will be some stuff you did not know about how they treat their work travels.  It can become part of some very interesting discoveries about who your employees really are.  Most of the time, it turns out to be very useful stuff.

Performance appraisals are a process that must be done.  It is not so much that they will help you correct what is going wrong, better yet, they will help you to protect your business model from doing some things wrong on a continuum.  Performance appraisals will help to prevent your business model from doing the wrong stuff when trouble tends to work its way through its hidden paths.  Your staff can become very important eyes to this discovery.  They often see things going on that are much more difficult for you to see.  I learn a lot of valuable stuff in my performance reviews.  Too many leaders try to guide and direct those reviews for correction efforts.  Too many leaders try to drive that process instead of allowing the review process to drive itself.  I like to allow the review process to drive itself.  Oh, trust me, I guide it.  I just like to allow that process to teach me more about what I do not know.  I already know how I feel about their work performances.  I do not need to share that with them unless it is wonderful news.  In the meantime, I need to get them going on deeper stuff so I can learn more about how my company is really performing.

I guide the review process enough to get it going into the direction I prefer to see it go.  Then I take my hands off the wheel and allow them to share what they feel they need to share.  I try to remove the typical pressures that everyone brings to the performance review process.  I prefer to chit chat with each of them about what they know, how they feel about their own work success and what I can do to help them continue to provide good success.  I want to know where those improvement adjustments can best occur.  I work my way through the reviews as if they are evaluating themselves.  I permit them to grade their own performance.  I have discovered that I do not always know the most important things going on.  If they are given the right to conduct their own reviews, they will often times become tougher on themselves than I would ever become.  They will also become more secure in that process and will typically feel comfortable enough to share some tough stuff with me.  I actually like that process.  It is usually the tough stuff we need to fix the most.  We might as well figure out what that is.

Your Employees Have Good Ideas!

I also want to know where I need to step up my protection plans.  Some of the best things a business model does becomes lost in the woods of the daily work we get so wrapped up doing.  Some of those good things get lost without our notice.  I like to use the performance appraisal process to discover what some of those potentials may be.  It is amazing the kind of depth your employees have about what your business model should be doing well.  It is also amazing to discover how much they actually know and the understanding they truly have about where improvements need to occur.  Your employees have some very good opinions.  Pay closer attention to these tremendous opportunities.  Performance appraisals are great opportunities for developing better team play.  It is amazing how important you are to help them provide the right kind of glue to lend a hand in improving team play.  I like to dovetail that kind of leadership work into my routine appraisal process.  It helps me to keep my eyes on the direction of where my model is headed.  I do not worry so much about the person as I do about the process they are helping to develop.

I have changed my complete point of purchase equipment because so many of the employees disliked the way it worked.  I liked how it worked for my needs, but they were always frustrated with how it was designed to do for them what they needed to do.  One time during some reviews, I heard a lot of complaints about our point of sale software.  After the reviews, I had them show me what was so frustrating.  We tried a few modifications and came to the conclusion that our current software was not able to do what they needed to have done to be efficient with customers during the register processing.  I changed the system.  I got used to doing my reports in a different way.  This process came out of some performance reviews.  If you own a business and you believe you know it all, you are in trouble with healthy growth.  You will get to prove that pattern of failure to yourself.  I happen to like the review process...but I do them differently.

I was once hired to manage a Co-Operative that was one step away from the bankruptcy grave.  They had barely survived a serious embezzlement process that nearly destroyed their existence.  They also had some other management design flaws that needed some immediate repair.  They were a business model destined for failure.  On the second day of my hire, one of their long term employees came into my office and handed me his resignation.  He had been employed by them for nearly 21 years.  He was apologetic and stressed.  I had not had enough time in this organization yet to get my feet wet, but I immediately decided it was time for me to conduct a performance review with him.  I like the way I do performance reviews so much that I decided he was going to get one on my second day at work.  I asked him if he wanted to take a long walk with me.

The Co-Op owned five acres of commercial property.  We spent two hours walking around that property, talking about his job history.  I started the process with three questions.  The first question, "Are you loosing any sleep over this job?"  His answer was, yes.  I also asked him if he was getting sick when he thought about this place of work.  I wanted to know if it made him throw up, regurgitate.  He chuckled and said, "Not that bad."  I then asked him if he and his wife were fighting about issues related to his place of work.  Again his answer was, yes.  I then told him that I did not have a 'hick-of-beans' chance to convince him to stay if his wife is that upset about his place of employment.  He laughed.  We had a long chit chat about this place of business.  He told me some wild stories about the work he did for this company.  I was not his enemy.  I became his ear.  He shared a ton of stuff with me on that day.

I called the board of directors after that walk and shared with them how important it would be that they figure out how to round up some money and treat him and his wife to a weekend away somewhere.  I told the chairman of the board that he and the other board members needed to raise some money, immediately, and take care of proving their thanks to this person for all of the years of service he sacrificed.  I told them that he will not be coming back.  He had another job beginning in two weeks and his wife was extremely happy about the changes they were making.  The board raised the funds by the weekend.  They dished out money from each of their own lives to provide this couple with a special weekend trip to a very nice regional resort.  We fueled their automobile from our fuel tanks and sent them off for a great weekend trip.  We arranged for two nice gifts to be waiting in their motel rooms.  When a couple of the board members began to scoff at my suggestion of gifts for this long term employee, I brought some of what I learned to the table of discussion and described how many of those things will need to be changed...two of which were completely illegal...and would be ceased practice immediately.  My phone calls to each of them was firm and serious.

Performance appraisals are wonderful ways to gather deeper stuff about what is really going on.  Usually the employees do not recognize how much they begin to evaluate how they do their own work.  There are a lot of really good lessons laying inside that process.  Do not miss the chance to learn how your organization is really doing.  Quit trying to share how you judge what you see.  What you see may not actually be as accurate as you might first think.  Many times this is the truth.  The only thing that stinks about the performance appraisal process is that the employees usually know more about what is truly going on than the owner ever discovers.  What a pity.

It is your business model, take the time to turn the review process into something very useful and worthwhile.  I actually like doing them.  They are lesson opportunities for me.  Turn them into a lesson opportunity for yourself.  By the way, I have since bumped into that couple a few times.  It is such a joy to see them.  They are so respectful and we always have some great things to share.  They never fail to thank me for the great trip they took.  What a nice couple.

Until next time...