Saturday, January 24, 2004

I Wasn't That Good, and I'm Not That Bad

I just had my performance review, an annual ritual in any organization large enough to have a Human Resources--formerly known as Personnel--department. The review turned out pretty much as expected [by the way, is “better than expected” a good or bad thing to hear during your review?]. The remarks could have been and probably were copied from last year’s form: you’re doing a good job, people enjoy working with you, we’re going to ask more from you this year, etc.

I have given and gotten many reviews, and my opinion of their worth has waxed and mostly waned over the years, but my opinion is really irrelevant, n’est-ce pas? Performance reviews are a fact of business life; they are necessary to ensure compliance with labor standards and practices, and covering his bottom (line) if an employer gets hauled into court over a wrongful discharge lawsuit. At my first two companies I accepted everything my supervisors said without question. When I began to prepare reviews for others and became cognizant of the limitations of the process, the scales fell from my eyes.

My worst review occurred at a previous job. My company was going through a system conversion, which was the pet project of an executive several levels above me. In addition to working nights and weekends to manage the conversion while performing my regular duties, I made contingency plans to keep the department running in case the transition didn’t come off. This executive viewed my actions as a lack of faith, even betrayal, and it’s a wonder that I wasn’t fired.

Years later, events proved my caution justified, but by then the damage had been done, both to my career and the company. [The individual who championed the project departed within two years, and we were left to pick up the pieces.] The experience taught me not only how evaluations are imperfect but how they could be dead wrong. One of the “best” jobs I ever did was during that troubled period, yet that form in my personnel file came to the opposite conclusion.

Despite all that, I find the process helpful. I accomplish more when I set goals—quantitative ones are better, just as they teach you in Organizational Psychology--and it’s fair to be measured by progress toward these goals. The performance review process is most useful in stable environments when the objective may be, say, to book 20% more orders than the previous year or reduce costs by 10%; they don’t mean much in times of drastic change when companies are merging or new products are being rolled out. (After working some place for a while, I know who I want on my team for the big endeavors, and I’m not going to get that from no stinking piece of paper.)

Today I am much better at distancing myself from both blandishments and brickbats. When John Travolta was lamenting how his star had fallen in the late 1980’s, after it had soared during the seventies in “Welcome Back, Kotter”, “Saturday Night Fever”, and “Grease”, he said “I wasn’t that good, and I’m not that bad”. After his career was resurrected in 1993’s Pulp Fiction, he’s “that good” again, but Mr. Travolta is undoubtedly better equipped to handle his success.

To thine ownself be true, little grasshopper. © 2004 Stephen Yuen

Financial District art: I wonder who orders this stuff and how much it costs.

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