Why do people have to wait until there's a performance evaluation to find out how they're doing? Why would any organization torture their own people like that? What's wrong with talking to your people informally and having conversations instead of remaining arm's length from the people who do the work? Oh that's right, the department manager recently went to a leadership course and now he's no longer a manager, he's a "leader." (You are required to make the quotations marks with your fingers when you read that word "leader." Go ahead. Try it.) Their graduation to "pretend-leader" (finger quotes again) is supposed to preclude managers from doing any of that icky, hands-on managerial stuff. They're apparently above that now.
"We're leaders, not managers," the old manager/new leader might say armed with their fresh, new (fingers) "pretend-leadership" attitude.
(Cue the harp music) "We don't have to manage anymore. All we have to do is lead our people and they will magically follow us to where we want them to go. If we lead, people follow. No really. We learned that in the course. We're leaders so people HAVE to follow us. I don't have time to give "my people" feedback. I've got people to lead. Let someone else work on that employee's performance. I'm too busy (fingers) leading."
The truth is too many employees stress over performance evaluations. When people are stressed they are not productive. When they are not productive they get poorer performance evaluations. So why not simply get rid of them - the performance evaluations not the people. Instead, open up your communications and have good two-way conversations on a regular basis. Any manager who doesn't want to do this would FAIL my performance evaluation. I don't care that he/she is a recent pretend-leadership course graduate. Get your head out of your .... er ... uh ... clouds, and get back to managing. Get over yourself. It's real people you're dealing with.
ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Look, the way I see it, if you can talk to your neighbors over the fence, you can talk to your people over the cubicle wall. They'll do better work for you if they don't think that every little screw-up is going to be entered into a file to be unleashed at the next performance review. All people want to know is if they're doing it right, if their work quality is OK and that their efforts are being noticed and appreciated.
Talk to them. If they're not doing a good job, they'll get the idea right away. They'll probably just move on before you have to force them to. Seriously, if you want to accurately assess an individual's performance, then daily communication is a far better way to do it than to spring the annual "surprise" on them. In fact, most managers end up scrambling to put something together for an annual performance review anyway. It's not like they've been keeping notes. So, if you haven't been keeping notes then manage them - don't scare them.
Oh, and for the recent pretend-leadership course graduates, leadership is not something you get in exchange for money. If you're a manager, manage. Now get back to work. Your own annual performance review is coming up too.
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