The Talent Management Handbook: Creating a Sustainable Competitive... http://www.books24x7.com/assetviewer.aspx?bookid=40059&chunkid=...

Chapter 5 - Designing a Performance Appraisal for Driving Organization Success

The Talent Management Handbook: Creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage by Selecting,

Developing, and Promoting the Best People, Second Edition

by Lance A. Berger and Dorothy R. Berger

McGraw-Hill © 2011 Citation

Recommend? ( 1 yes)

So Why Does Performance Appraisal Go Wrong?

Complaints about performance appraisals—for instance, bad forms, low-quality data, and inept
discussions—is only a small part of a much larger problem. T he problem is that everyone involved with the
performance management process—executives, assessors, recipients, and human resource management
professionals—don’t understand some of the most fundamental concepts underlying performance
management. Worse, they believe a set of myths that actually prevent their performance management
procedures from operating successfully no matter how well the managers have been trained and the forms
designed. Only when these myths are brought to light and eradicated can performance management systems
deliver what they are capable of and give organizations what they desperately need: valid, workable
information that yields good business decisions.

One of the most basic causes of performance appraisal failure is that so few people understand what a
performance appraisal is. Stated again: A performance appraisal is a formal record of a manager’s opinion of
the quality of an employee’s work. Performance appraisal requires a manager to render his or her opinion
about how well an individual performed. It is not a document that can be empirically tested and proven. It is
not the end product of a negotiation between the manager and the individual. It is a record of the manager’s
judgment about how well a direct report has done his or her job over the past year.

Another myth of performance management is that the objective of the performance appraisal discussion is to
gain the employee’s agreement. It’s not. If the manager has applied tough-minded, demanding standards, it
is unlikely that the individual will agree. T he tougher the manager’s standards, the less likely it is that
agreement will occur. T he objective of the performance appraisal discussion is to get the individual to
understand the rating and not necessarily to gain agreement.

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