The Evil of Performance Reviews

This is the second part of a series of articles looking at how America's Corporate Culture is destroying the soul of America's people. This is not to insinuate there is a conspiracy. It just means that the people responsible for the current and unhealthy trends of corporate life either are oblivious to the harm they do or worse, honestly believe they are doing the right thing.

In the last part, I said that Stephen R. Covey had brought Mormon spirituality into the corporate environment. I also said that I needed to read the books before actually making that criticism, but there is one aspect of modern corporate culture that is very Mormon in essence whether it was influenced by Mormon spirituality or not and I refer to the performance review. One Sunday many years ago, I attended a Sunday school class where one of the Stake counselors had an opportunity to speak. He quoted from the Book of Mormon about how god gave you weaknesses and as soon as you overcame one weakness God gave you another in your effort to achieve eternal progression.

The corporate performance review is very much a reflection of this, whether or not corporate executives have read the Book of Ether. Even the best Employee must have the section on his review filled out that says "areas that need improvement." It may be felt by the executives that it keeps employees humble, but despite all the buzz about doors being opened for concerns and complaints have you ever noticed that all criticism in a corporation flows downward? Almost never are employees privately and honestly asked to review the performance of the management. Every once in a while the managers may schedule a session for the employees to air their complaints, but this is more tossing the bone in order to keep them happy.

Performance reviews are a good thing right, as they let employees know there weaknesses, aren't they? Well, my problem is not so much with the existence of performance reviews as it is to how they are used and the insane insistence that managers need to find something to complain about even when it comes to their best employees.