Robby Slaughter, founder of Slaughter Development, recently addressed a dilemma posed in the B2B Social Media Digest regarding performance reviews. His suggestion: “We don’t need to review, we need to plan and do.”

In June, writer Meryl K. Evans studied the question “How can I make a difference with my performance reviews?” By compiling various recommendations, Evans narrowed down the advice to four steps:

• Get the company on the same page.
• Develop your own review process.
• Check in more often.
• Change the focus of the review.

Though every company utilizes the information differently, Robby Slaughter insists that performance reviews are unwise.  After all, no matter how hard you try, your past work can never be changed.  So why focus on the past when you should be focusing on the future? As an alternative, he suggests the following:

Instead of performance reviews, employees and managers ought to mutually define forward-looking performance objectives that include fixed targets tied to future compensation — and honor them.

This viewpoint should be no surprise to longtime readers of The Methodology Blog. Nearly two years ago, we covered Dr. Samuel Culbert’s attack on performance reviews. You cannot change the past, only the future. Isn’t the best way to increase performance to start by defining what we want?

Transform your organization. To learn more about improving business through productive, efficient systems, contact Slaughter Development today!

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