Ah, performance evaluation, or appraisal. The D word, however you qualify that descriptor. What makes it so fraught is that this is the one area where many believe the most power exists: in the form of a manager evaluating or appraising them badly, which can then in turn impact their compensation or total rewards, not to mention their self-esteem and self-worth — since for so many, their job is a critical part of their life and self-concept. Whether the latter should be the case or not is not the purpose of today’s article. Rather, my goal is to demystify the performance evaluation and management process, and attempt to place it in its rightful place within organizational processes and structures, and clarify the roles and goals of each party in the process. Because, as the late Myles Munroe still reminds me in a highly relevant quote, “when purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable.”

Having said that, a manager who does not take time to understand the purpose and clarify all processes involved in performance management and evaluation is quite simply not a good manager. I call it management by magical thinking regarding expectations, as opposed to management by clearly defined and articulated expectations.

What Is Performance Management
In short order, PM is the whole cycle of events involved in defining, measuring, evaluating, and giving feedback on pre-defined criteria, so that improvements can be made through functional goal setting.

The pre-defined criteria is usually based on the defined performance requirements of a job. Anyone who has held a job knows that a job description may not necessarily reflect the day-to-day reality of all that is actually done on the job. This is a fair expectation (but it doesn’t mean that, as an employee, you should not be documenting all of the things you do on the job). It’s for this reason that performance management becomes a shared process between performer and appraiser.

Performance Management as a Shared Process
Parties involved in performance management should have a stake in the setting of effective goals as a process for establishing desired results at the end of a specific time period, after which performance would be evaluated. Setting effective goals that are agreed upon by all parties can serve as a North Star, helping guide and direct behavior, and reducing role conflicts and ambiguity. It’s also the guidance document for the actual performance evaluation.

Performance Evaluation
In PE, an appraiser or manager evaluates a person’s actual performance based upon the predefined performance requirements. I cannot stress this point enough — and as an appraiser, you need to know this as well: PE is on actual performance against predefined, agreed-upon objectives, goals, or requirements — not on presupposed, presumptive, or some other measure brought into the process without a shared agreement.

This is the most important stage, and employees and managers need to bring to it the level of care and procedural and organizational justice required. As a manager, procedural justice means that everyone reporting to you believes that the processes you used in evaluating them are fair, because clear, transparent procedures and processes are applied to everyone.

In performance evaluations, procedural justice takes on two dimensions: systems procedural justice, where the organization ensures that fair practices are applied to all without fear or favor, and rater procedural justice, where the raters themselves are free of subjective and unconscious biases, such as their perceptions about employees’ levels of motivation and organizational citizenship behaviors. Presumptions on the part of managers can obviously affect their evaluation ratings of different employees, which is why one cannot stress enough the importance of having clearly pre-defined criteria that employees can self-evaluate against before managers do.

Cultural Differences in Perception of Motivation at Work
This goes without saying. Employees born and raised in a collectivist culture may have a hard time evaluating accomplishments on an individual level, which in turn may impact their manager’s perception of their work ethic. Managers’ perceptions have the ability to affect employees’ appraisals. I remember someone once asking me to coach a person, and I asked how I could coach a person on behavior that I had not observed and that they could not clearly articulate the impact of on the individual’s work performance.

“Organizations (managers) get the performance their employees observe are rewarded, and not necessarily the performance they say they want on paper.”

Performance Feedback
This is arguably the most stress-prone aspect of the process, both for the giver and the receiver. But as with all things stressful, there are ways to manage it that do not make it even more stressful. And I cannot stress these points enough — just knowing this can help with many a crucial or hard conversation.

1. Refer to specific performance statements and specific behaviors related to the performance.
2. Focus on changeable behaviors as opposed to personality-based behaviors. Remember that people will be more defensive about their character than about their work.
3. Begin sessions with positivity. There is almost always at least something genuinely positive about the work that can be emphasized.
4. Feedback should allow for exploration of performance improvement opportunities that can aid learning and growth on the job.

Remember, a key function of the performance appraisal process is to develop you as an employee. It should emphasize any relevant growth needs that will allow you to take on more independence and leadership opportunities (not necessarily roles). And the evaluation’s integrity is predicated on mutual trust. A supervisor who does not have your best interest at heart would be hard-pressed to conduct a good performance evaluation.

The Appraisal System
A good appraisal system, from a systems procedural justice perspective, should be valid, reliable, flexible and equitable. In addition, it must be responsive, allowing for shared input from both appraiser and appraisee at various stages in the appraisal process.

Your Role as an Appraisee
As an employee, your responsibility is an active one. Your future growth and development should not be a one-sided affair (that of your manager alone). Part of the shared process may mean not being subject to paternalistic evaluations, but rather expressing your own preferences and goals and documenting them as appropriate along the way, and finding ways to accomplish those goals within any performance cycle.

Caveat: you may do everything well and still get appraised poorly. You can take what you now know from this article and ask better questions in your next interview cycle. Interviews are bidirectional, and process-based questions can set you apart from the rest. Work is too valuable not to get it right.