Have you heard the story about a consultant who was hired by the Navy to develop a new performance review form?

After meeting one-on-one with multiple naval officers to better understand the project, the consultant had one important statement for the admiral who had engaged him. “You don’t need a new form. You need a new process.” The admiral responded that he hired the consultant to develop a new form!

Many organizations, like the Navy in this story, are committed to a traditional performance review process. To be fair, this approach can provide effective performance feedback when upper management commitment is strong, and managers are well-trained in how to conduct these reviews. However, like the Navy, these organizations observe the process is not working well and hire a consultant. These organizations think that the problem lies within the form. However, it is obvious that the real conflict does not lie within the form, but the whole process.

Meanwhile, many other organizations have concluded that the annual or semi-annual review is largely a waste of time for their cultures. Managers in these organizations hate traditional reviews because they tend to create conflict. Employees hate them because the feedback isn’t timely – it might occur months after the actual performance took place. Research has proven that timely feedback is best.

Attempting to train supervisors and managers on how to give more positive feedback has mixed results. They typically end up using the feedback sandwich technique. The feedback sandwich wraps two positives around a negative. See the example below.

  • You met our $10,000 monthly goal last month, well done. However, you had seven emergency call-backs. You need to improve the quality of your service in order to cut down on those. But I’m glad to see you’re achieving our volume targets.

This widely used technique also has its share of critics. We think the feedback sandwich is better than giving no feedback or only negative feedback. But there are better ways.

Well, let’s think about sports for a second. After each game, coaches review key statistics with the players. The quarterback reviews metrics like how many passes he attempted and completed. Defensive players review how many tackles they made and how many plays they found themselves out of position, etc. The coaches even grade the players on their performance based solely on those metrics.

Much like the data a coach gives their player after a game, organizations should be able to give similar data to their employees on their annual performance review. Today, even small organizations have access to performance data much more quickly than they ever have before. Some systems can provide real-time reporting on critical performance metrics. Smart companies are harnessing that data into meaningful feedback that’s easy for the employee to understand and is perceived to be fair and neutral. These systems in a way work the same way as dashboards and report cards which are more motivating than annual reviews or feedback sandwiches.

Contact the Davidson Group to create a feedback process that improves communication and performance.