On performance evaluations and paper shuffling

Ron Baker is the world's leading guru on value pricing, and his amazing books and ideas have formed the foundation for much of my firm's no-hourly-billing business model and our new sister blog, The Client Revolution. But he recently posted an article on his Verasage Institute blog on a topic closer to this blog's workplace focus: performance evaluations. In "Performance Appraisals: Paper Shuffling," Ron criticizes the practice of annual performance evaluations as outdated and overly focused on the negative.

Ron questions the slavish devotion to appraisals: 

Firms have an irrational faith in the effectiveness of performance appraisals. Most firms and employees are dissatisfied with the performance appraisal process, so it remains a curiosity why this methodology continues to exist.

He believes that the goal of firms should be to 

strive to create a meritocratic environment that rewards risk taking and innovation, rather than rigid, stultifying union-type jobs that reward seniority, mediocrity, and complacency.

Getting rid of the annual performance evaluation is a good step in that direction.  

KnowHR's Frank Roche makes a similar argument in "Focusing on the Negative Never Works."

At a time when so much in the workplace is negative, shouldn't we take a more-positive approach?