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Conducting Meaningful Performance Reviews 153

you check constantly to keep track of how you are doing. At the
wheel of your department, you monitor similar indicators with
regard to your employees.

Six Steps for Productive

Performance Reviews

Let’s assume you and the members of your staff are engaged in
ongoing communication. You are now conducting a formal annual
performance review with one of your employees, and you want it
to be productive. You and he had previously agreed on specifi c
goals and expectations that you’re now reviewing.
This section takes you through the appropriate steps.

1. Identify what the employee has done well and what he has done

poorly during the past year by citing specific positive and nega-
tive behaviors.
The key word here is specifi c, because when you establish
the area of discussion, you set the focus. When you concen-

trate on specific actions, both you and your employee will be
discussing the same thing.

For example, if tardiness is identified as a problem, a spe-
cifi c comment might be, “In the past two weeks, you have
arrived at least 40 minutes late on six occasions.” There is no
question about those details. Now consider this opening sen-
tence: “You’ve been coming in late a lot recently.” Defi nitions
are needed here to deduce how late is late, what constitutes a
lot, and when is recently.
When you begin the review, be sure that you and your
employee are looking at the situation in the same way. Don’t use