The Truth About Managing People, Third Edition

Truth 51. Annual Reviews: The Best Surprise Is No Surprise!

A number of years ago, Holiday Inn built an advertising campaign around the slogan, “The best surprise is NO surprise!” That slogan would also make good advice today to managers when it comes to giving annual performance reviews.

Few managers enjoy giving performance reviews. Why? There seems to be at least three reasons.

First, managers are often uncomfortable discussing performance weaknesses directly with employees. Given that almost every employee could stand to improve in some areas, managers fear a confrontation when presenting negative feedback. This apparently even applies when people give negative feedback to a computer! Bill Gates reported that Microsoft conducted a project ...