Do Performance Appraisals Really Measure Your Performance?

 In an article and podcast in the WSJ,  Samuel Culbert answers this question with the an emphatic no.

Although an army of HR consultants, HR professionals, and change management gurus would have us believe that managers should devote more time and energy to performance reviews, Samuel Culbert author of Beyond Bullsh*t, dismisses performance reviews as no more than "disorienting corporate theatre."  Inevitably they are political and subjective.

According to Culbert, this is because the boss and subordinate approach these appraisals from starkly different positions.  While the subordinate wants to secure the highest possible raise, the boss wants to talk about how the subordinate's  performance can be improved and where it is lacking.  What is worse, in Culbert's view, is that appraisals inject an unhealthy dose of bullsh*t in daily working relationships and often result in permanent schisms in the boss/employee relationship.

Culbert's alternative and innovative proposal is the de-linking of pay and performance reviews.  It is based on the desire for a workplace based on straight-talk and trusting relationships (for a full picture of what such a work culture would like you will need to read the book).  Straight-talk requires a paradigm shift in performance-based compensation.  It requires recognition of the fact that pay is a marketplace-dependent variable, and performance is connected to boss/subordinate chemistry and the ability to actualize predetermined company goals.