How Twitter will kill annual performance reviews

My daughters go to elementary school in Newton, Massachusetts. The principal — who is, sad to say, retiring this year — is a brilliant, caring, dynamic educator named Christine Moynihan. One of our favorite things about her — and there are many — is that from time to time, she makes schoolwide announcements over the loudspeakers in which she awards chidren “Wows.”

What is a "Wow"?

A “Wow” is a short description (maybe three or four sentences) of something a pupil did to earn the Wow (yes, it's self-referential; get over it). Examples include working extra hard on a particular project, helping a classmate during a difficult situation, or showing unusual courtesy or friendliness or determination. Dr. Moynihan says the Wow winner’s name and describes what he or she did to earn the Wow. That's it. It’s short, it’s public, it’s concrete, it’s earned — and it makes the kids feel great.

Compare this to the workplace. In the workplace, we don't have Wows. We have annual performance reviews.

I hate annual performance reviews. As an employer, I hate writing them. They take a lot of work, and they often feel artificial. As an employee (back in the day), I used to hate getting them. They never seemed like they appreciated the employee that I was, and instead focused on fitting me into little boxes. And as an employment lawyer (defending employers), I hate reading them. Too often, I read the annual performance evaluations of employees who were fired for poor performance, only to find no written record of the employee’s suckiness. And you can imagine how that looks to a judge or hearing officer — an unbroken string of “Satisfactory” marks. Swell.

Why do performance reviews bite? For a number of reasons: They’re hard to write. We want to be fair and accurate, but we don’t want to sound like a machine. And for some reason, criticisms seem worse in writing than when spoken, mainly because the written word has no facial expressions or nonverbal cues to soften the blows. Plus we know that written criticisms can fester and grow inside a personnel file, and we know that employees generally have a right to read their personnel files. So we tend to pull our punches, and leave out details of poor performance — details we may regret not having in some future litigation defense.

All in all, I think many managers miss the point of performance reviews. If the goal is to get the employee to continue to perform well or to start to perform better, then why are waiting a year to do that? Why are we using a hyperformalized, bureaucratic form to convey these feelings? And if the point of the review is to correct behavior, doesn't this seem like a funny way to do it?

We need a better way.

I propose that we replace formal annual performance evaluations with a workplace equivalent of the Wow.

Enter Twitter.

One of the great beauties of Twitter — and I believe one of the reasons it has been so transformatively successful — is its 140-character limitation on messages ("tweets"). In fact, I don’t see it as a limitation (in a negative sense) at all. In many ways, knowing that you have only 140 characters to get your meaning across is very liberating. It forces you to eliminate everything unnecessary. It forces you to choose your words very carefully. It forces you to edit. It may take a little more time to write something that short than it would take to write something a little longer, but that’s OK.

So tweets are limited in length, just like the three- or four-sentence Wows at my daughters’ school, only shorter. Come to think of it, this isn’t really a novel idea. It was in fact the central premise of Ken Blanchard’s 1981 classic management guide, The One Minute Manager.

Tweets are also public. Like the Wows being broadcast over the school PA system, a Twitter message is broadcast over the internet to anyone who happens to be following you, plus anyone who happens to be searching for something you’ve written about. Once you’ve pressed the “update” button, your tweet is out there for the world to see.

And finally, it’s unique and free form. There are no boxes or multiple-choice answers or “satisfactory/unsatisfactory/NA” responses to contend with. It’s difficult to cut and paste from previous forms. The writer actually has to put thought into the tweet.

So I propose replacing the annual performance review with a twitterable evaluation — a “twevaluation,” since the Twitterverse loves neologisms. Some guidelines:

• First and foremost, if you haven't already, sign up on Twitter.
• Identify the employee and give the Wow. If the employee’s already on Twitter, use their Twitter name with the @ symbol.
• Use the hashtag #twevaluation at the end of the tweet. That makes it easier for people to find them. Don’t know what a hashtag is? Look here.
• Keep it to 140 characters, including the name and the hashtag. But remember, Twitter isn't text messaging. Most Twitterers use actual English words, not SMS abbreviations like "c u l8er." Very simple space savers (like "&") are OK.
• Don’t use a twevaluation to say something bad about an employee. Trust me as someone who defends companies in employee lawsuits: you don’t gain anything by publicly dissing an employee. Save it for a direct message. Better yet (much better yet), be a person and do it in person.
• And remember: follow your company’s Twitter policy. Don’t have one? Here’s our Twitterable (exactly 140 characters long) policy.
• I'll start. Follow me at @jayshep and read my #twevaluations as they come in. Or search Twitter for #twevaluations.
• Then contribute your own. You don't have to give every employee one. Start with a couple, and add them when your employees earn them. It's not about keeping score; it's about recognizing good performance and encouraging more of it.

Comments

[Frank Roche]

Jay, I want to comment more when I have time, but a quick word to say, "Simply brilliant."

[Skip Weisman]

As someone who works with organizations to create a Championship Culture, this is an outstanding idea and will go a long way to helping create a Champion mindset throughout an organization!

[Jason Seiden]

And good riddance to the review...

[Christopher Mirabile]

Is twitter the new workplace haiku? Agree the idea is brilliant in its simplicity, and probably has many unintended positive side effects, like making managers look more hip, getting company cultures to embrace openness and new technologies, making managing more human and frequent and informal. But are there unintended side effects that are less positive? Favoritism? Employee sensitivity? Tweet-mongering? Really don't know. Would make for an interesting discussion or experiment. My hunch going into it would be that benefits outweigh any possible drawbacks....

[Derek Irvine, Globoforce]

Here here! For me, the greatest problem of the annual performance review is that many use it as an excuse to only give feedback and recognition once a year. That's no use to anyone. If I'm doing a good job on something, tell me now so I can repeat those behaviors. If I'm doing poorly, tell me now so I can correct those behaviors while I still know what you're talking about!

We believe strategic employee recognition is one of the most powerful (and positive) means of performance management and, indeed, appraisal. When deployed correctly (peer-to-peer as well as manager-to-subordinate), recognition becomes a positive and ongoing form of 360 degree performance assessments in which anyone in the organization can comment on the contributions and effectiveness of their teammates. These “recognition assessments” and kudos can then be used during the annual performance review (if still used) as an additional data point on the strengths (John has been recognized repeatedly for innovation) and even weaknesses (but John has been recognized only once for teamwork) as potential areas of improvement.

More on the topic available here:
http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2008/12/performance-reviews-whats-value.html

[Pat]

Having been in HR, I understand the limitations of a yearly performance review system. I've recommended to one company that we eliminate the system entirely. Instead replace it with monthly 1:1s where the manager and employee can evaluate the past performance and plan the next month.

I like the 'wow' factor, whether you use Twitter or some other venue to express and celebrate employee's contributions.

This is a great posting. Thanks
Pat

[Darice Rene]

I most definitely think you're onto something here. Performance reviews are a neccessary evil based on antiquated ideas. Bring on the #twevaluations!!!

[Chris]

Many employees already resent performance reviews. They make the recipients feel like schoolchildren. At least some of those employees are going to perceive twittered Wow’s as a downgrade to kindergarten.

[Thomas L. Bowden, Sr.]

At my firm, we have "Woo Hoos!"

[chrispinus Sifuna]

"We want to be fair and accurate, but we don’t want to sound like a machines. And for some reason, criticisms seem worse in writing than when spoken." Very informative