You Never Stop Learning

Step 5
of
Managing Performance

Evaluate Performance

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
John Wooden

As you read the steps in this process, I know you recognize that it’s not a rigid, lockstep progression – you’ve always got to deal with the unexpected with your team members – they have personal and professional emergencies that must be handled – those may through you off your stride!

But what everyone is looking at is whether you are fair, unbiased, willing to balance personal and business demands. It all comes down to your process and recognition that you practice in a consistent, but fair manner.

It not’s about treating everyone the same – we’re none of us exactly the same anyway are we? It’s about being fair…and why you did such a thorough job of setting expectations – those give you the basis for making decisions and judgments about each team member as an individual.

Evaluation – once a year? Oh no. You’re making evals all year long and they may or may not come down to a performance appraisal, they may be quarterly or monthly summaries you provide; they may be on-the-fly evals, but they’re all based on those fair judgments you’ve be making as you observe preface, right?

Think about these recommendations:

Performance should be evaluated against the established expectations.

Guidelines for fairly evaluating include:

• Provide honest, objective evaluation of team member performance as measured against expectations.
• Substantiate evaluation with specific examples of behaviors and results - positive and negative.
• Separate the delivery of praise and criticism, supporting each with descriptive statements, not impressions or hearsay.
• Include no surprise information. Positive or negative news should be discussed with the team member prior to putting it in an evaluative format.
  
  Now take a look at your own practices based on the statements below – determine whether you’re
  

Satisfied with your own performance or
Not Satisfied with the effort you’re making here

Also decide the Importance of each practice to your success and to your team members’ success.

• I compare individual results against mutually agreed-upon established expectations.
• I do not compare one individual against another - I hold each accountable to his / her own established expectations.
• I do not allow one overwhelming event - positive or negative -- to influence my evaluation.
• I spring no surprises during an evaluation. The good or bad news has previously been discussed with the employee.
• I cite specific examples and observations in my evaluations.
• I am honest in my evaluations.
• I comment on the positives as well as the negatives.
• I do not allow my own moods, stylistic differences and personal feelings to impact my ability to evaluate fairly
  
  

In your own survey above, items checked as Not Satisfied in this step could lead to many problems organizationally: without the foundation of setting expectations, observation of the work and the behavior, providing timely feedback and effectively coaching people, the evaluation step is generally ineffective.

Most studies conducted on people who have quit their jobs reveal a fairly common thread. People generally do not leave their jobs because of pay; they leave their jobs because of how they are treated and whether they feel valued. They leave their boss!

Think about the environment created within your organization by the existing performance management practices. Are people treated well and do they feel valued? Is your process fair and consistent for all?

If I asked your team members, would THEY say you were fair and consistent? That’s the ultimate test.

Remember, this process doesn’t mean treating everyone the SAME, but having a simple set of behaiors that allow you to provide the guidance and support for each team member according to the expectations you two have negotiated.

That fairness also allows you to deal with totally unexpected emergencies that occur for everyone – you avoid the charges of favoritism and people know they can depend on you to balance the business demands with the personal demands each of us must face.