Can the Employee Performance Preview Replace the Employee Performance Review?

Dr. Samuel Culbert, consultant, author and professor of management at UCLA (Reference: Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2008, The Journal Report, Human Resources Section, “Get Rid of the Performance Review” by Samuel A. Culbert) laid out 7 key areas where Performance Reviews do nothing to heighten performance, and in fact, create significant inefficiencies within a company, causing a negative impact on the Company’s bottom-line and poor employee morale. Dr. Culbert’s solution to the “one-side-accountable, boss administered / subordinate-received performance reviews is simple: “…two-sided, reciprocally accountable, performance previews.”  Let’s portion this down into parts:

1. Two-Sided:  Open communicating between the boss and his or her team members on a daily foundation.
2. Reciprocally Accountable:  The boss is accountable to the subordinate as much as the subordinate is accountable to the boss in meeting pre-scribed expectations and goals. 
3. Performance Preview:  A meeting of the minds between boss and subordinate where they together layout a joint business plan for the month, quarter and year with periodic scheduled “check-ups” along the way not so much to gauge progress as much as discuss difficulties, as well as, successes in meeting the plan’s goals.  This will result in modifying the plan along the way as circumstance dictates.  Everyone under the Boss clearly understands the Company’s goals, the team’s goals and how each team member will contribute to it.

Dr Culbert’s opinion behind the Performance Preview makes a lot of sense. Here’s how it does:

1. Boss’s role is to “…guide, coach, tutor, provide oversight and generally do whatever is required to assist a subordinate to perform successfully.”  I like this system because it is the boss’s job to ensure subordinate success, which contributes significantly to the company’s Business Plan goals. 
2. Eradicates self-serving boss behavior and 360 Degree finger pointing, hold-a-grudge fellow employee tactics.
3. It is a Pro-Active Process, not reactive.  The subordinate is treated as a partner in the business who can contribute greatly to company success. The focus is on the future, not on past actions. It is forward moving.
4. Replace the one-size fits all Evaluation Check-off List with custom-constructed Inquiries tailored for each employee the boss oversees.  Once the boss has exhausted all his questions about how a subordinate thinks he or she can better and best perform work, the boss should ask the subordinate what else the boss needs to know.  The boss needs to know how the employee will achieve performance goals, and what help the employee requires from the boss.  An individual and team business plan is built so all team members know their roles, the boss’s expectations and company performance goals.  The Business Plan becomes a pro-active tool for the Boss to manage and assist his or her team.

Dr. Culbert argues when the Performance Review is taken away and replaced by the Performance Pre-View, “…people will find more direct ways of accomplishing tasks.  Accountability comes from team work; what the boss-subordinate team accomplish together.”  While job advance comes from the individual worker, an environment characterized by  “…a trusting relationship where they subordinates can ask for feedback and help when they see the need and feel sufficiently valued to take it.” 

As a Small Business Consultant, Business Owner and Entrepreneur with over 20 years experience working with different corporate cultures, I completely agree with Dr. Culbert’s Performance Preview strategy as it contributes to the company’s Strategic Plan and bottom-line profits, while the Performance Review framework detracts from company goal achievement and inhibits profitability.  In the end, shouldn’t Performance Systems be about a Company’s Profitability and individual’s growth?  Of course it should be.  Bravo Dr. Culbert.   Performance Pre-Views should replace Performance Reviews in a Company’s Compensation Structure to achieve better subordinate-manager relationships and common-goal-teamwork toward achieving a Company’s Strategic Goals.

About The Article Writer

Frank Goley is a business consultant, business turnaround consultant, business plan expert, small business consultant, business coach, business plan consultant, marketing consultant, business planner and online marketing seo consultant for ABC Business Consulting. He has been helping companies to succeed for many years. Frank wrote his first business plan over twenty years ago. He is an expert in developing business plans, marketing plans, funding plans, strategic plans, turnaround plans, web marketing strategies, and project specific business plans. Frank is the author of a business plan book, The Comprehensive Business Plan Workbook – A Step by Step Guide to Effective Business Planning, and he has over 50 published articles and e-books on business success strategies. He also writes the Business Success Strategies Blog.