Posted by Terrence Seamon, January 8, 2012

In seeking some synonyms for the words destroy, kill, and annihilate, the one I liked best for this post is obliterate.

Obliterate: to destroy utterly; wipe out; to remove from existence, without leaving a trace.

For a moment, think about that definition in connection with your annual performance reviews. Go ahead: obliterate them. It just feels so good, doesn’t it?

What got me started on this rant? Derek Irvine’s excellent post on Recognize This where he suggests the same thing. But he asks a key question:

~ If you did “do away with” your performance reviews, what would you do instead?

He answers that the key is feedback. I could not agree more! Feedback, as Ken Blanchard is fond of saying, is the breakfast of champions.

Think about that. Think about the worlds’s best athletes, such as Olympians or World Cup soccer teams. These players live and breathe and thrive upon the feedback they get every day from their coaches, their teammates, and from themselves. It’s the key to their superstar status.

And this is the secret that organizations can seize upon in 2012. It can be their epiphany for the new year.

As I have been saying for many years, destroy the out-moded performance appraisal process that has weighed you down. Toss it away before it does any further damage to morale and productivity.

In its place, make a resolution to turn your company culture into a high-performance team that thrives on feedback.