Get Rid of the Performance Review!

The performance review. It is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. We all hate it. And yet nobody does anything about it.

Until now...

Straight-talking Sam Culbert, management guru and UCLA professor, minces no words as he puts managers on notice that -- with the performance review as their weapon of choice -- they have built a corporate culture based on intimidation and fear. Teaming up with Wall Street Journal Senior Editor Lawrence Rout, he shows us why performance reviews are bogus and how they undermine both creativity and productivity. And he puts a good deal of the blame squarely on human resources professionals, who perpetuate the very practice that they should be trying to eliminate.

But Culbert does more than merely tear down. He also offers a substitute -- the performance preview -- that will actually accomplish the tasks that performance reviews were supposed to, but never will: holding people accountable for their actions and their results, and giving managers and their employees the kind of feedback they need for improving their skills and to give the company more of what it needs.

With passion, humor, and a rare insight into what motivates all of us to do our best, Culbert offers all of us a chance to be better managers, better employees and, indeed, better people. Culbert has long said his goal is to make the world of work fit for human consumption. "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" shows us how to do just that.

With clear, straightforward (and sometimes profane) language, Culbert (Beyond Bullsh*t) outlines his strategy for creating a "dynamic setting where employees joyfully live up to their potential." Culbert attacks the review process as "self-serving, biased opinion cloaked in a numerical package of claimed objectivity and stated as essential to organizational results." After examining the archaic system with humor and precision, Culbert outlines the shift in mindset that he feels will be necessary to create a more productive working climate. He illustrates his ideas with narratives from his own experience, first-hand tales of woe from stakeholders in the review process, and useful analogies. In addition to advocating for the end of the performance review currently in use, Culbert assails the idea of pay for performance, using humor and insight to outline win-win strategies for managers, decision makers, and even rank and file employees.