According to Peter Scholtes, author of The Leader's Handbook, most managers believe appraisals "serve to clarify an individual's work responsibilities, align the worker with the organization's goals, hold each worker accountable for his or her responsibilities and motivate them to continuously improve."

   Scholtes thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong.  By encouraging what he calls "a superficial, culprit-oriented approach to problem solving," that is, looking for the "Who" instead of the "Why" underlying performance, appraisals actually diminish individual effectiveness and organizational progress.

   Performance appraisals share a number of failings:

   • They focus on the actions of individuals instead of the more relevant relationships and activities within groups.  Faulting a new manager for not properly guiding an employee overlooks the role of the senior management that failed to offer that new manager sufficient coaching instruction and practice.  The manager may not have performed adequately, but if the appraisal ends with an individual indictment, the opportunity for meaningful improvement in the larger system will have been lost.

   • Appraisals substitute subjective judgments for reliable information.  Unless supervisors subscribe to the more rigid definition of feedback outlined below, their appraisal is likely to be more opinion than useful information.  Even when editors point out someone's obvious deficiencies, there is no assurance that the faultfinding will improve performance and understanding.

   • Too often appraisals search for blame and accountability instead of improvement.  It's easy to point a finger and find fault in the past.  It's far more difficult to build competence for the future.

   For Scholtes, the harsh truth is that performance appraisals simply don't work.  "There is no legitimate data to support the effectiveness of performance appraisal ... Underneath it all, performance appraisal is related to a manager's need to maintain control, or at least the illusion of control."

   Still, most people want feedback, especially if it involves instruction, direction or recognition.  But they will accept and respond to that feedback only if it has promise of leading to personal growth and development.  If the feedback is perceived as negative or unfair, it will be rejected.  The lesson is clear: Evaluations are effective only when they lead to learning.

   Here are some guidelines for evaluation:

   Redefine feedback. It is more than casual opinion or quick reaction.  Feedback has four components: Information about progress toward specific goals measured by mutually agreed upon standards.  That's a far more rigid definition that most managers use.

   Clarify goals and standards. Without specific goals and mutually agreed-upon ways to measure them, there can be no valid information about progress toward those goals, so be sure you and the person you're giving feedback to first agree on the objectives and then the methods for measuring progress.

   Make the evaluation voluntary. No one should be forced to be evaluated.  This sounds more radical than it really is; if someone is resistant, the process will be a waste of time anyway.  To be successful, you need to persuade that person that an evaluation-leading-to-learning process has direct benefits.

   Let the person control the process. This is radical, but it works.  The person seeking feedback needs to approve the timing, frequency and methods for the evaluation.  Ceding control will improve the outcome by minimizing top-down judgments and focusing the conversations on the individual's learning needs, not just the manager's opinions.

   Focus on learning. There should be only one purpose to any evaluation –– the individual's growth and development.  Don't call it a "performance review."  That puts the focus on the past, not the future.  I wouldn't even call it an "evaluation;" that sounds too judgmental.  Remind yourself that you are working on two things during an evaluation - someone's learning needs, and your role in helping to meet them - so make it a planning process, not a trial.

   Trailheads:

• The Leader's Handbook by Peter R. Scholtes.  McGraw-Hill, 1998.
• Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.