Eliminate Performance Appraisals, Reviews, and the “Coach” Moniker—Focus on the Performance Management Conversations

The irony of formal Performance Appraisals is that they consume significant resources, produce little value, and impede the kind of collaborative working relationship managers and employees need to improve performance. By design, the traditional process tends to place managers and employees in a confrontational setting. In that setting, trust—one of the most significant factors influencing employee engagement and performance—is undermined.

Even when companies try to create more effective performance management roles for managers as coaches, the legacy of the old, judgmental, and confrontational dynamics often pollutes the process. A recent study found that despite significant investments in training managers to coach, less than 1 in 4 respondents said that coaching had significantly affected their job performance; and ten percent said coaching had made them less satisfied with their job. There was, however, a strong correlation between performance improvement, job satisfaction, and a positive employee / manager relationship.

This points to the single most critical element of a coaching or facilitative relationship—trust.

Trust must be built for managers to have influence with their people.

1. The first step is to eliminate performance appraisals and reviews. This type of bold move is needed to send a message to employees that real change is happening within the organization, not just a “re-labeling” of what managers are currently doing.

2. The second step is to fundamentally shift how managers see their role. A disabling factor in coaching programs sited above was that, despite receiving training on coaching, managers did not fundamentally change how they behaved.

A powerful focus of our development programs for managers is that they learn to "help (their) people succeed within the organization.” This is the essence of talent management, succession planning, and building management bench strength. When managers help their people succeed, managers also succeed. They don’t need to be a “coach” to do this, but they do need to be capable of providing real value to their direct reports.