Many years ago, top executives at Glenroy Inc., a privately held manufacturer of packaging materials outside of Milwaukee, held an off-site at which they reviewed key company policies. A week later, Glenroy held a rally in the company parking lot at which employees built a bonfire and burned its policy manuals. The company's well-established approach to reviews literally went up in smoke. But unlike other policies, which Glenroy refined or reinvented, reviews were never reinstated. They don't understand how we can run the business.
Leaders here provide people with feedback.
The only way for people to get better at what they do is for the people they work for to provide candid, timely performance evaluations. Feedback plays that role. In 1995, William M. Mercer Inc., based in New York City, polled executives about reviews. Part of the problem with reviews is that human nature hasn't changed - few of us enjoy hearing about our shortcomings, and few of our bosses and colleagues look forward to describing them. The tougher it is to measure individual performance, the tougher it is to evaluate it.