People hate reviews, but done correctly reviews are a terrific tool to provide individual attention, improve retention and show your love—tention reviews as opposed to tension reviews.
I won’t bother explaining the latter; everybody has suffered through a tension review at least once in their life and probably far more.
The biggest difference between the two is in the level of communication and frequency.
Done correctly tention reviews happen constantly and are called feedback. Think of them as a manager’s response to the “how am I doing” sign implicit on every member of their team.
We all crave feedback, which includes

sincere strokes (given publicly),
constructive …read more

Most managers know that lousy customer service is one of the fastest ways to reduce the bottom line.
But what most managers forget in the daily press of doing way too much with drastically reduced resources is that their employees are also their customers.
As I’ve said in the past, one of the hats every manager wears is employee service manager (ESM) and reviews are a critical part of that.
Done right, reviews are a positive experience for both manager and employee; in some cases even a time to bond.
If the goals in January were done well, which means that they had a …read more

A few of weeks ago I wrote about how kids believe they are entitled to good grades for trying as opposed to achieving.
That post was sparked by Andrew’s comment and he also sent me an article about grade inflation in colleges showing that the trend is progressing unabated.
An article today in the NYTimes describes a new approach to grades,
“In Pelham, the second-grade report card includes 39 separate skill scores — 10 each in math and language arts, 2 each in science and social studies, and a total of 15 in art, music, physical education, technology and “learning behaviors” — engagement, …read more

Last week I promised to provide you with a simple, amazing tool that would help identify goals for each of your people and a whole lot more.
It’s the GSA (Great Skills Assessment) that uses a spreadsheet to monitors both hard and soft skills. If you already do something similar this post may open your eyes to additional uses.
The best reviews help people grow, not by beating them over the head but by laying out an achievable plan for improving areas in which they are weak.
An accurate GSA that’s frequently updated makes it easy to identify what will enhance a person’s …read more

The foremost thought to hold in you mind when creating a positive and powerful review culture is that it’s similar to Chinese cooking—most of the time is spent in preparation, whereas the food cooks quickly.
(Note: terminology can be confusing; ‘goal’ and ‘objective’ are interchangeable as are ‘appraisal’ and ‘review’.)
Here are the underlying steps that you need to learn, practice and absorb into your MAP.
Annual reviews alone don’t work even when that’s all your company requires.
To succeed people need semiformal feedback each quarter along with constant, informal daily input and coaching focused on helping them achieve the goals set forth in …read more

As discussed last week accountability stems from the public nature of an action and one of the best ways to inject strong accountability into your organization is with a positive review function that your people might actually like!
Sound impossible? It’s not and over the next few weeks we’ll discuss how to make it happen.
The first thing that you need to understand is that there are two totally separate parts of the review process.
The visible part, the mechanics, is dictated by your company, but that’s all it is—mechanics; usually a timetable and a set of forms.
The important part is invisible and …read more