Why Boss is Wrong

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March 1, 2011

Why Your Boss Is Wrong About YouBy SAMUEL A. CULBERT

Los Angeles

IN the raging battle over union rights in Wisconsin, those seeking to curtail collective

bargaining for state employees have advanced an argument that seems hard to resist: It

will make it easier to reward those workers who perform the best. What could be fairer

than that?

If only that were true. As anybody who has ever worked in any institution private or

public knows, one of the primary ways employee effectiveness is judged is the

performance review. And nothing could be less fair than that.

In my years studying such reviews, Ive learned that they are subjective evaluations that

measure how comfortable a boss is with an employee, not how much an employee

contributes to overall results. They are an intimidating tool that makes employees too

scared to speak their minds, lest their criticism come back to haunt them in their annualevaluations. They almost guarantee that the owners whether they be taxpayers or

shareholders will get less bang for their buck.

In other words, there may be lots of reasons to restrict collective bargaining by state

workers, but the idea that it will lead to a fairer system of rewarding employees, to the

benefit of taxpayers, should not automatically be counted as one of them. Performance

reviews corrupt the system by getting employees to focus on pleasing the boss, rather

than on achieving desired results. And they make it difficult, if not impossible, for

workers to speak truth to power. Ive examined scores of empirical studies since the early1980s and have not found convincing evidence that performance reviews are fair,

accurate or consistent across managers, or that they improve organizational

effectiveness.

Think about it. Performance reviews are held up as objective assessments by the boss,

with the assumption that the boss has all the answers.

Now, maybe your boss is all-knowing. But Ive never seen one that was. In a self-

interested world, where imperfect people are judging other imperfect people, anybody

reviewing somebody elses performance whether as an actor, a writer, a spouse, a

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friend or a worker is subjective. Its why when employees switch bosses, more often

than not their evaluation changes as well.

Under such a system, in which ones livelihood can be destroyed by a self-serving boss

trying to meet a budget or please the higher-ups, what employee would ever speak his

mind? What employee would ever say that the boss is wrong, and offer an idea on howsomething might get done better?

Only an employee looking for trouble.

Is there a way out? I believe there is, and it works for both government and business. Its

something I call the performance preview. Instead of top-down reviews, both boss and

subordinate are held responsible for setting goals and achieving results. No longer will

only the subordinate be held accountable for the often arbitrary metrics that the boss

creates. Instead, bosses are taught how to truly manage, and learn that its in theirinterest to listen to their subordinates to get the results the taxpayer is counting on.

Instead of the bosses merely handing out As and Cs, they work to make sure everyone

can earn an A. And the word goes out: No more after-the-fact disappointments. Tell me

your problems as they happen; were in it together and its my job to ensure results.

In fact, the police department in Madison, Wis., has used such a program since the late

1980s with considerable effectiveness. It replaced traditional performance evaluations

with a system that emphasized goal-setting and continuous improvement. It encouragedsupervisors to act as coaches and mentors, and officers (who are unionized) to offer

feedback on their superiors.

Employees are in fact eager for such collaboration. In Wisconsin, members of public-

sector unions have been willing to give in on money (contributing more to their health

care and pensions) but unwilling to give up their voice (the right to bargain collectively

on work rules, not just wages). And public employees have a special relationship with the

systems they serve. They are also taxpayers.

Unions in Wisconsin are justified in worrying that limiting collective bargaining would

lead to capricious firing or demotions, whether for age, personality, salary or any other

criterion you can think of. There doesnt have to be anything malicious about it (although

there might be). Its the inevitable result of giving the boss the subjective power to define

and judge anothers performance.

Performance reviews arent the only ways to measure effectiveness, to be sure. Workers

whose output is tangible and measurable how much garbage is picked up, how many

streets are cleared of snow are increasingly evaluated according to numerical goals. Id

argue these measurements are similarly flawed. Workers are almost always better at


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coming up with metrics that lead to systemwide gains than bosses alone are. The key to

systemwide success (as opposed to individual success) is still employees working together

under the leadership of good managers.

Of course, not every worker, public or private, will seize the opportunity to collaborate

with managers and figure out ways to improve overall results. If they dont, there shouldbe ways to get rid of them.

But understand that the performance review makes it nearly impossible to have the kind

of trusting relationships in the workplace that make improvement possible. With

previews, at least, workers have the opportunity to reverse course and say how they can

be their best. Taxpayers cant ask for more than that.

Samuel A. Culbert, a professor in the Anderson School of Management at the University of

California, Los Angeles, is the author of Get Rid of the Performance Review! HowCompanies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing and Focus on What Really Matters.


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