Deep-Sixing the Traditional Performance Review 

While being ahead of the curve can be a lonely place   (so many are content to tolerate the status quo, even when it’s clearly stale)   I’m used to it!   My thinking, my perspective and my proprietary programs can be disruptive, challenging prevailing assumptions and up-ending convention. But happily, with time, some early adopters — those rare evolved leaders who understand that success involves both innovation and a resistance to conformity —catch on and help normalize the new. This is an exact sweet spot for dtkResources, as it’s here where we can create change and generate impact.

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Take, for example, the ritual of annual performance reviews which are universally loathed (by the rater and the recipient!) and often feared. The current wisdom finally understands the negative impact and collateral damage this  process can cause. And so, there’s (again – finally!), a movement afoot started by a growing number of Fortune 500’s to ditch the process, especially the part that has to do with numerical rankings.  In contrast, affection is growing for the more qualitative aspects of the formal review but as long as the review remains ‘formal’ and annual (or even semi-annual),  its impact and value will always be limited.

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Over two years ago,  when I first unveiled my answer to this huge problem with my proprietary “Dynamic Intel,”  firms were still invested in the formal, quantitative review process.  360s were also on the scene but were most often deployed on a one-off basis and in response to a particular disconnect or dysfunction. It’s hard to uproot the status quo and at the time, Dynamic Intel was in that lonely place.

Now, with mounting evidence that these reviews can do more harm than good, the smarter and wiser powers-that-be are questioning it all.

What you’ll read below is an introduction to Dynamic Intel, with some context and then it’s benefits.  For the record,  I’m culling the information below from a document I wrote and published back in 2013 that spoke—well before anyone else forced the national media to pay attention —  to the better but still  insufficient 360 review.  Any additions — not originally published by me are called out in blue — for ultimate transparency.

Whereas a traditional 360 may be the right instrument for some firms, the typical 360  — with an inherent inert quality — won’t best serve the needs of forward facing,  energetic, entrepreneurial and growing firms that define the dtkNiche.  Dynamic Intel —on the other hand — is an active, continuing and interactive conversation which allows for smaller, frequent and meaningful course corrections.  This process, which reveals glitches and hiccups while they are still glitches and hiccups, improves performance and enhances engagement in real time.

To further illustrate this, a traditional performance review has a number of fatal flaws:

• it’s backward facing
• it’s a snapshot of a moment in time
• getting at the truth relies on anonymity which is difficult to protect, especially is in  small firms of fewer then 100 employees
• often anonymity can backfire, as some interpret it as granting license to attack or demean without consequence
• it is a segregating experience that creates rather than closes distance, and
• when it’s over, it’s over, sometimes leaving collateral damage in its wake.

Last month, the Harvard Business Review detailed why many companies are no longer rating their employees and are now using more holistic methods to manage performance.  Their “bold assertion?”  That there is no single best practice.  No “one size fits all” option. 

I couldn’t agree more. But for far too many years, despite the enormous shifts in the business landscape, the changes in the complexion of America’s workforce, and the global transitions impacting the corporate world, the traditional review process has gone largely unchallenged. 

What professional firms need is not a static snapshot or backward facing critique that depreciates as soon as we drive it off the lot. Instead, we need a process with all forward momentum that will yield an inspiring framework for growth.
Introducing…

Dynamic Intel

…a proprietary process customized for dtkResources clients that leaves the creaky 360 in the dust. Instead of limited results frozen in time, Dynamic Intel represents a paradigm shift,  creating an organic, adaptive, ongoing process that can easily flex to the specific needs of the firm, your people and the marketplace.

Further, engaging in Dynamic Intel does not just yield data points and action items but will simultaneously prompt:

• collaboration
• conversation
• creativity
• innovation
• critical thinking
• spirit of entrepreneurship
• solution-focus
• individual investment and engagement, top to bottom
• inclusiveness and respect

Engaging in  Dynamic Intel while navigating through the discovery process, will both normalize it as well as naturally and organically embed it in the firm’s culture. This will pave the way for:

• continued open discussion and debate,
• creative and innovative solutions,
• cross collaboration and
• mutual respect

In the end, Dynamic Intel is not merely an  alternative to the standard annual review process (with our without a 360): it proposes a new way of thinking about and addressing effective, meaningful and real professional development.

Real work. Real results. Real time.