HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER
Title: Grief Giving
Competencies: performance evaluation, performance management, coaching, giving feedback
Who benefits: all who give or receive performance appraisals/reviews/evaluations
Consultant Usage: background and resource information
What’s it about? It’s December and that can mean only one thing. It is a time for the holidays traditions … like annual performance appraisals/reviews/evaluations (or whatever fancy name your company gives this often demeaning task … not that there is anything wrong with that).
So today’s post is about how to give the gift of a performance review without making an enemy. I begin with my own suggestion. When giving an appraisal to an employee, don’t say “Happy Holidays, here is your performance review, read it, sign it and return it to me by the end of the week.â€
If your tendencies start with the above sentence, you might want to read a new book called How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals: Simple, Effective, Done Right. The author, Dick Grote, has been at this for a long time and has written several other books on similar topics. His writing style is reader friendly and practical. If you are looking for a step-by-step process, this should do.
If you are interested in a systems approach then you might like this brand new book from the well-respected Jossy-Bass Publishing: The Performance Pipeline: Getting the Right Performance At Every Level of Leadership. The book is more likely to appeal to organizational consultants, but it is a book for leaders to consider as they examine their organizational practices. Author Stephen Drotter writes about three critical business needs:
-How to improve business performance by defining the unique purpose of each layer and providing clarity and focus on the results to be achieved
-How to make all leaders successful by having leaders at every layer pass down to the layers below things they need to be successful
-How to help leaders make the transition to a new layer and how to remove performance roadblocks so leaders deliver the results required at their new layer
So much for new books. This next recommendation was last updated in the late 90’s but it is still a gem. I was raised on it and use it frequently in my career (and in my personal life). The book is Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna–How to Figure out Why People Aren’t Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It.Â
The flap says “It gives you a step-by-step process for solving virtually any performance problem you face. Instead of guessing at solutions that won’t work, you can save time, money, and frustration by finding the true cause of the problem and identifying the best and most economical way to solve it. You’ll learn to:
– Identify the true causes of performance problems
– Determine if you can use “fast fixes” (solutions that are quick and easy)
– Identify realistic, economically feasible solutionsâ€
And finally a decade-old book to put performance appraisals/reviews in a different perspective. I have previously reviewed this book and mentioned it in several other post. Why? I believe the authors got it right. The best part of the book is not that they leave you hanging with what is wrong, but they suggest new and positive ways to manage employees. Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead
Ah, Performance Appraisals/Reviews/Evaluations, the gift that keeps on giving.
Catch you later.
Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.
