The Three Failures of Performance Appraisal

There’s something about performance appraisal that isn’t quite right. Even those teams & organisations that feel they do it well enough sense it may not be good enough…

We know there is both merit & value in setting, gauging and talking about performance.

We want to recognise and support performance – it’s a very good thing to do for humans and organisations.

We each want to grow and develop – if we can do that congruously with the organisations purpose and objectives then so much the better.

We want, need and deserve recognition for what we contribute and the efforts we make.

Yet beyond “doing it well” we struggle to put our finger on what it is that isn’t right… So what is wrong?

The Three Failures

I want to suggest that three interconnected failures are at the root of much of the dissatisfaction. These are:

1. A focus on outputs not…